[Marxism] White Phosphorus mystery

[sobuadhaigh@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

Night after night I have watched the Israeli Army 
use massive amounts of white phosphorus in their 
invasion of Gaza. You have all seen those explosions 
in the air with cascading streams of fire shooting 
to the ground producing thick white smoke. It is a 
particularly nasty chemical weapon in that it burns 
on contact with the air so hot that nothing can 
extinguish it. Particles on skin can burn all the 
way to the bone so that any living creature that is 
exposed to it can be reduced to ash and bone.

The mystery is that"Willy Pete", as it is commonly 
known, is normally used as a marking device to 
direct high explosive rounds. That thick cloud 
of white smoke is easily spotted for miles. Now
there is so much smoke produced by these large 
quantities that targets on the ground would 
actually be obscured. For example, an artillery 
observer would have difficulty directing the 
subsequent rounds. No, the Israeli Defense Forces 
are using white phosophorus as a weapon itself to 
try and kill as many people as possible within a 
given area saturated in the attack.

Watching the Al Jazeera reporter this afternoon 
pressing an Israeli spokesman to confirm they 
were using this stuff and the reason came to me.   
Usually the weapon used to saturate an area would 
be a cluster munition.  A cluster bomb throws out 
thousands of bomblets that explode on contact so 
that all the people on a football field, say, 
would be killed and not jut those on one end of 
the field or the other. The problem with cluster 
munitions is that they don't all explode and so 
become potential land mines. This was a serious 
problem in the Gulf War for American troops 
entering areas that had been bombed earlier. 

How, then, to kill people throughout a given area
without the danger of cluster bomb that would 
slow down infantry moving in later? Some quick 
research turned up this video showing the exact 
same use of white phosphorus in Fallujah.

<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1124770688802666702>

The Israeli army is planning to send large 
numbers of troops across the exact same areas 
they are using white phosphorus on now. We are 
on the verge of "phase 3" of this war and Israeli 
soldiers may be stepping over the fried remains of 
men, women, children, and animals but they won't 
be stepping on their own cluster bombs. The 
people of Gaza have no place to run to, and 
very soon they will have no place to hide. 

--
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