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azurnoir

(45,850 posts)
Mon Apr 29, 2013, 02:29 PM Apr 2013

Israel gives up white phosphorus, because 'it doesn't photograph well'

So the IDF is looking for a replacement for the white phosphorus bombs. A senior officer in the ground forces explained: “As we learned during Cast Lead, it [white phosphorus] doesn’t photograph well, so we are reducing the supply and we will not purchase beyond what we already have.”

This item caught me by surprise. The IDF is giving up white phosphorus? Wait a minute; the IDF never used white phosphorus during Cast Lead. So how exactly do you give up something you we never had? Chemical weapons are something the Syrians use, no?

Okay, after a while the army did remember that it had been confused, and it did use white phosphorus, but only in open territories and not against people.

Okay, then the IDF remembered that it got it wrong again and that it did use white phosphorus in urban areas. Two hundred bombs, actually. But this was only in order to create a “smoke screen,” and there is nothing wrong with that. And if there was something wrong, it’s insignificant and unintentional, and it would be thoroughly investigated, so that no stone is left unturned.

That’s all nice and well, except that at least 12 Gazans met their horrific death this way, burned to death by white phosphorus. Among them were three women, six children and a 15-month-old baby girl. Dozens more suffered burns from the material which continues to burn through flesh and tissue until it reaches the bone. Doctors in Gaza were helpless in treating the unfamiliar burns. Israel didn’t give them time to prepare themselves; white phosphorus shells hit Al-Quds Hospital and completely burned the top two floors.

http://972mag.com/israel-gives-up-white-phosphorus-because-it-doesnt-photograph-well/70063/

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ProgressiveProfessor

(22,144 posts)
1. WP is allowed to be used as an obscurant, but not against personnel. Key is intent.
Mon Apr 29, 2013, 02:54 PM
Apr 2013

Key is intent. Inadvertent injury is not considered a war crime.

US and other nations probably still have it in their stockpiles, but like the IDF, probably will never use it again.

I saw it used in Nam, nasty stuff

ProgressiveProfessor

(22,144 posts)
3. I am stating was is the equivalent of the letter of the law
Mon Apr 29, 2013, 07:30 PM
Apr 2013

Unless you can prove intent, there is no war crime.

It is different for poison gas. If you attack an enemy weapons depot and there is an unintended release, the attacking country bears some culpability if they had knew or should have known it was there.

delrem

(9,688 posts)
4. Unless you can prove intent, there's no proof of a war crime?
Mon Apr 29, 2013, 08:36 PM
Apr 2013

Hmm, it's hard to imagine that those burned bodies were accidental. Impossible to prove that any particular burned body was specifically purposeful. So, what to say? "What the hell, it's impossible to prove intent if we don't write it down, so lets rain it down on the fuckers!"

Right now the US, Britain, France, Israel, are looking at "evidence" that a minute amount of sarin was used in a one-off (as opposed to, say, a grenade) in Syria, and if the "evidence" is found then a "red-line" is crossed, after which all bets are off and the US goes in with the whole kit and kaboodle to bomb the living shit out of the country. As "friends of Syria", mind you. As any country supporting the jihadist "rebels", like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, must be.

How we look at things, esp. in war, depends on whose ox is being gored. If those spectacular photos of white phosphorous over Gaza were over Tel Aviv, if the children of Lebanon still tripping unspent cluster bomblets were Israeli children, many would have a different perspective and perhaps even a reversed moral outlook. I'm speaking every side here. Likewise with pogroms. If those being cleansed from an area are Arab, cleansed to make room for e.g. Americans seeking Aliyah, there's one moral perspective on the pogrom, whereas if those being cleansed are Jewish there's often an exact opposite perspective. The same pretexts, excuses, etc., looked at from one side might *by the same person* have totally opposite credibility if seen by the other.

There's no way to right all the wrongs of the past. Peace requires that each side of itself contains a willingness to live in peace and economic (at least) partnership with the other -- and that neither side point at the other's past intransigence as excuse for itself being intransigent. There has to be a mutual recognition that neither side can exterminate the other.

ProgressiveProfessor

(22,144 posts)
5. Your beef is with the current codified international law, such that it is.
Mon Apr 29, 2013, 08:52 PM
Apr 2013

Last edited Tue Apr 30, 2013, 12:22 AM - Edit history (1)

As my examples showed, intent is not always required. For example, any use of Sarin is a prima facie war crime, no matter how small the size.


ProgressiveProfessor

(22,144 posts)
7. Assuming that it was actually targeted and its neutral status has not been compromised.
Tue Apr 30, 2013, 12:21 AM
Apr 2013

Some of the secondary explosions during OCL showed that neutral status was not well honored by Hamas

ProgressiveProfessor

(22,144 posts)
9. Unless compromised which can make it a target
Tue Apr 30, 2013, 12:35 AM
Apr 2013

You cannot put a hospital designation on a munitions depot and expect it to be honored.

Was it covered in the Goldstone report and what was the IDF response?

azurnoir

(45,850 posts)
10. It was a hospital
Tue Apr 30, 2013, 01:29 AM
Apr 2013

now you can attempt to call it what ever you wish for your own purposes, however it was a hospital prior to OCL as it was founded in the 1920's

azurnoir

(45,850 posts)
11. well the burden of such proof is hard to establish at least for one side
Tue Apr 30, 2013, 03:05 PM
Apr 2013

it seems all the other has to do is say so, like justifying bombing a hospital say or a mosque during prayers

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