Fallujah, Fallujah. I want to address this. As you may have heard, as this is news which is a few days old, it seems that a chemical which burns skin to the bone, white phosphorous, may have been used by the US military in it's assault on Fallujah a year ago. Here is a lovely description of the process:
White phosphorus is fat-soluble and burns spontaneously on contact with the air. According to globalsecurity.org: "The burns usually are multiple, deep, and variable in size. The solid in the eye produces severe injury. The particles continue to burn unless deprived of atmospheric oxygen... If service members are hit by pieces of white phosphorus, it could burn right down to the bone." As it oxidises, it produces smoke composed of phosphorus pentoxide. According to the standard US industrial safety sheet, the smoke "releases heat on contact with moisture and will burn mucous surfaces... Contact... can cause severe eye burns and permanent damage."
As the debate around Fallujahs raged, a report in which soldiers bragged about using the brutal unearthly lethal chemical as a weapon was unearthed.
Atrocities had already been revealed though without much attention, prior to the revelations about the white phosphorous. These pictures, which I found through Iraq Dsipatches, I must warn, are very graphic and very disturbing.
The atrocities commited in Fallujah by the US military, if nothing else, must serve to mobilize the anti-war movement. Now, efforts to bring the US military and government officials responsible for war crimes in Fallujah should only intensify.
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