Officials confirm dropping firebombs on Iraqi troops - Results 'remarkably similar' to using napalm

San Diego Union-Tribune ^ | August 5, 2003 | James W. Crawley

[Gracey]

We threw down thousands of flyers, telling the Iraqis to surrender or die, well, those that didn't surrender, died.

Please continue to remind us... lest some of the media forget :-) That includes John Pike.

[MightyMouseToSaveThe Day]

yeah? and i'm supposed to feel...what? ashamed? ha! I'd rather see our military use whatever weapons are effective than to risk unnecessary deaths on our side. I don't think the terrorists had too much compunction about using civilian airplanes to kill thousands of people. Poo poo, more liberal chest-beating on how bad the US is and how ethical every other country is. baaah

[Cuttnhorse]

Or, white phosporous...now there was a scary mortar round.

[CholeraJoe]

In numerous after action reports from Vietnam, incendiary rounds, especially white phosphorous, were much more effective in reducing enemy activity than high explosive. American tankers in Normandy used WP very effectively against German soldiers.

[MightyMouseToSaveThe Day]

now you've got ME rolling! hahahah...i love the witty FReepers here.

[Fee]

Yeah, and the Islamist hijack three plane load of US civilians, slit the throats of the stewardess, crash it into two office buildings creating a napalm like firestorm. The people in the upper floors were cooked to death. Walking on the floors was like walking on a barbacue grill. Shoes and nylon stocking melted onto peoples feet and they still had hours to go before they would die. They were in such agony that many choose to leap to their deaths than endure the heat. Where are the Human Rights bastards then??? As far as I am concern, cluster bomb em and napalm them!!! The only regret is they still die too fast.

[1Old Pro]

"Incendiaries create burns that are difficult to treat,"

That's good because we want to kill the enemy in war.

[Jimmy Valentine's brother]

Napalm which is anti personnel oriented has sticky stuff so it is a lot nastier than an incendary which is used to ignite things like buildings and burn through engine blocks. Used to be that incendaries were magnesium and aluminum based.

[Uncle Miltie]

Glad to hear it. I was wondering by what miracle of military force we captured so many bridges intact. Napalm killed the defenders, leaving the bridges unharmed.

This undoubtedly shortened the length of the conflict, and probably reduced overall casualties as the rivers did not stand as natural barriers to advance.

Dead is dead, whether by bullet, frag, or napalm. Our side executed a brilliant, fast, highly accurate, minimal casualty operation. It is likely that fewer people died in the conflict than Saddam would have murdered by now.

In addition, I would like to add the obligatory:

"I love the smell of napalm in the morning!"

[50sDad]

Allow me to express my regrets...that we were not allowed to use tacnukes instead. I saw Saddam's daughters on TV, and even though "Daddy" had killed their husbands painfully they were whining about how evil it was that Daddy was betrayed. Any culture that has this veiw of "honor" trumping the lives of one's spouse...well, the gloves are off. Bomb the warriors back to the stone age. If the civilians continue fighting, salt the fields.

[AngryJawa]

"Daisy Cutters work pretty well too."

Now, now...thermobaric devices are frowned upon as well. We wouldn't want all that nasty overpressure squashing all of those innocent-till-proven-guilty Al Quaeda types into cave salsa would we?

[steplock]

Yeah? So what?!

[ImpotentRage]

My sentiments EXACTLY!!!

[marron]

Scene from my favorite movie:

The deputies come out of hiding to view the body of Bad Bob, the gunslinger, who has a .50 caliber hole through the back.

"But he never had a chance..." say the deputies...

"No", says Judge Roy Bean, "he never did."

Musil described the Pentagon's distinction between napalm and Mark 77 firebombs as "pretty outrageous."
"That's clearly Orwellian," he added.

No, its not Orwellian. Eskimos have dozens of words to describe snow, because that is the coin of their realm. Soldiers acknowledge subtle distinctions in weaponry because this their specialty, and for those who do, rather than simply watch, the distinctions matter.

A true artist knows the difference between fuschia and purple. You don't use fuschia when you meant to use purple, and you don't use purple when only fuschia will do. It may seem like a subtlety without importance to the masses but that is why they get to show their work at the mall on the weekends and we have to pay $75 to take it home....

Or something like that.

[T. Buzzard Trueblood]

I hope the dems seize on this issue. I would love to see Howard Dean taking Bush to task for this in the debates...

[spunkets]

"Physicians for Social Responsibility"

I suppose we should have given 'em all a half mil and held a barbeque for 'em. Just so all those murderous bastards know we're a friendly sort.

[HIDEK6]

OK, listen close. Here's the drill.

Invade their countries.

Done.

Kill their leaders

Doing it.

Convert them to Christianity

That's next.

If napalm can help, I'm all for it.

[cibco]

""This additive has significantly less of an impact on the environment," wrote Marine spokesman Col. Michael Daily..."

For some reason, this statement brought a chuckle on...

[alnick]

"You can call it something other than napalm, but it's napalm," said John Pike, defense analyst with GlobalSecurity.com, a nonpartisan research group in Alexandria, Va.

Non-partisan my eye! The very first paragraph on their web site reads:

"We at GlobalSecurity.com support democracy, the United Nations, governments that respect the human rights of all people, and the rule of international law. We oppose monarchies, dictatorships, governments who ignore UN resolutions, and governments who invade sovereign countries in the absence of UN sanction."

The title of an article on the site is: "Our critics claim that we're 'left,' but we know we're right."

There's a graphic on the site with a picture of GWB and the words, "Visit America, home of the climate killers."

[G L Tirebiter]

I did like the part about the new formula's environmental friendliness - do I see a Sierra Club award in the DoD's future?