I came across a story from the Inter Press Service via Matthew Good, concerning the use of poisonous gases and other reckless alleged abuses in the US assault on Fallujah.
”Poisonous gases have been used in Fallujah,” 35-year-old trader from Fallujah Abu Hammad told IPS. ”They used everything -- tanks, artillery, infantry, poison gas. Fallujah has been bombed to the ground.”Hammad is from the Julan district of Fallujah where some of the heaviest fighting occurred. Other residents of that area report the use of illegal weapons.
”They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud,” Abu Sabah, another Fallujah refugee from the Julan area told IPS. ”Then small pieces fall from the air with long tails of smoke behind them.”
He said pieces of these bombs exploded into large fires that burnt the skin even when water was thrown on the burns. Phosphorous weapons as well as napalm are known to cause such effects. ”People suffered so much from these,” he said.
If it is indeed the case that weapons similar to phosphorus or napalm are being used in Fallujah, then something should be said about it through the media or through protest. The use of weapons such as these was a contentious issue during and after the Vietnam War, and in my opinion should be considered a war crime. Regardless of the fact that there are reports of these weapons being used on civilians, such chemicals should be banned for any use on human targets on the basis that they cause unnecessary suffering for those they are used on.
What is troubling to me is the lack of mainstream media coverage of such events described in this article. Presuming these reports are right, the citizens of the United States should be aware what is being done in their name and how they are fighting this war. We should have pictures and videos of actual war on the news on our television screens. It may be gruesome and disturbing, but to fully come to a conclusion either way on what is going on in Iraq, people need to know what is actually going on instead of simply listening to Wolf Blitzer give a recap like it's a post-sports game analysis.
Some might say to me that war is hell and by showing these sorts of things and reporting on them the media would be playing politics through attempting to provoke an emotional response. To this I say yes, war is hell, however, there are degrees of hell in war. At some point we must draw the line and say that we have crossed from the typical hell of war to unacceptable hell. I believe that the line has been crossed in this case, but if people do not hear about it they cannot even make such a judgment call.