Wily Pete

It has recently come to light that the US military has been using white phosphorous (known as Wily Pete to militia) in the Iraq war. While white phosphorous has been used for illumination and smoke-screen purposes in war for quite some time, it has been put to a new use in the Iraq war: melting people.

Yes, I'm serious. As noted by wikipedia, White phosphorous autoignites at about 30 degrees celsius -- in lower temperatures, it merely smoulders. When it comes in contact with skin, it smoulders the skin and tissue away, all the way to the bone.

According to Wikipedia, "Use of white phosphorus is not specifically banned by any treaty, however the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons (Protocol III) prohibits the use of incendiary weapons against civilian populations or by air attack against military forces that are located within concentrations of civilians. [2] The United States is among the nations that are parties to the convention but have not signed protocol III."

Recently, the Italian state-run Broadcaster RAI has been showing footage of the US troops releasing White phosophorous on insurgent and civilians when we stormed Fallujah, Iraq. Furthermore, the US military has admitted to using white phosphorous against the Iraqis (see citation in wikipedia article).

Did you catch that part about using white phosphorous on civilians? That means innocent people, including children. Our military is literally melting the skin off of children in order to capture insurgent-held areas.

This is what the Iraqi war has come to.

Hunter, on DailyKos, writes a brilliant essay/satire on the absurdity of it. Warning: it includes a graphic picture of a melted child. I have seen other pictures from the Iraqi war of people melted to the bone from exposure to white phosphorous. It is nasty, nasty stuff.

Raw Story has a new article here