White Phosphorus

[matcom]

let me tell you all something about this BRUTAL 'weapon'.

yeah, we 'trained' for it in the Army.

folks. White Phosphorus takes OXYGEN to burn.

stop.drop.roll.?

no fucking way. it burns.

smother it?

good fucking luck. it reignites.

barbaric. no argument. fucking barbaric.

[cssmall]

1. And, what praytell are you referencing here?

[EuroObserver]

14. I don't know, but see this source here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5315872

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. But hey..... we "won" because of it. We won ourselves so much

gd hatred that it will be decades smoldering and flaring up here and there... but don't worry, gw knows exactly wtf he is doing.

[Caution]

3. Just watched the Italian documentary

Holy fuck. This is quite simply the single most disturbing thing I have EVER seen. Anyone who thinks this stuff is OK to use under any circumstances is out of their fucking mind.

[lovelaureng]

4. Sounds like some nasty stuff.

[sniffa]

5. fuck

i thought it was sLang for cocaine.

it burns.

[darkmaestro019]

6. CHEMICAL WEAPONS. Say it with me, kids.

"White phosphorous" sounds like a nifty thing you might find in a sword-and-sorcery video game. It's a CHEMICAL WEAPON. We can't quite get away with calling it a weapon of mass destruction, but I was under the impression that the real world, wherever it has wandered off to, tended to frown upon CHEMICAL WEAPONS as inhumane barbaric CHEATING. You know. Like torture.

[mzmolly]

7. Some of this "weaponry" is against the Geneva Convention agreement as well

correct?

My gawd, this is a fine example of winning hearts and minds!

[DBoon]

8. It's also really really toxic

apart from burning your flesh:

Systemic toxicity has been described extensively in the animal model. Pathologic changes have been documented in the liver and kidney. These changes result in the development of progressive anuria, decreased creatinine clearance, and increased blood phosphorus levels. Depression of serum calcium with an elevation in the serum phosphorus level (reversed calcium-phosphorus ratio) with electrocardiographic changes including prolongation of the QT segment, ST segment depression, T wave changes, and bradycardia also have been observed. Oral ingestion of white phosphorus in humans has been demonstrated to result in pathologic changes to the liver and kidneys. The accepted lethal dose is 1 mg/kg, although the ingestion of as little as 15 mg has resulted in death. Individuals with a history of oral ingestion have been noted to pass phosphorus-laden stool ("smoking stool syndrome").

http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic918.htm

[leftchick]

9. there are a lot of folks here saying it is NOT A BANNED WEAPON!

so the US is okay to use it! :puke:

[matcom]

11. our Chem officer in Basic put it THIS way

if you get hit with a WP round, PRAY someone else finishes you off quickly

[alcibiades_mystery]

10. Willy Peter

Make you a bu-leiver...

[TomInTib]

12. It needs so little oxygen to burn that it will burn under water

uses available O2 in water.
It will burn as long as there is any WP left.

Unfortunately, I have seen this happen up close.
Thankfully, that was a long time ago.

[matcom]

13. very correct

under water, under dirt, under just about anything

[stillcool]

15. Thank You...

i recall vividly reading posts around the time of Fallujah about chemical weapons...and wasn't the reporter from Italy doing a story about it? To come here today, and see all these posts saying that white phosphorus only illuminates ... sounded incredibly illogical in light of pictures and news stories ..albeit from foreign sources.

[OneBlueSky]

16. I can vouch for that . . . during my one year in ROTC . . .

(don't ask), I saw a demonstration of a phosphorous flare that was immersed in a creek and just kept on burning . . . hotly . . . I can't imaging what this stuff would do to human flesh . . . and the sheer agony it would cause the unfortunate person whose flesh it was dissolving . . .

[donheld]

17. Thanks for posting Matcom

I asked about this in a previous thread. Sounds like completely dreadful stuff.

[entanglement]

18. thanks for the info n/t