No, this isn't about WMD. I think the president is telling the truth about them, and if you're interested in my reasoning, go here. This is about the Iraq war, though, and a lie the administration has apparently decided it needs to tell.
Yesterday the German press ran this story on napalm which I have here in an English translation:
The Marines said that in March, U.S. warplanes dropped dozens of incendiary bombs near bridges over the Saddam Canal and the Tigris River in central Iraq to clear the way for troops headed to Baghdad.Emphasis added. Now... you've got a thing that is "remarkably similar" to napalm, but slightly different in composition--it uses kerosene instead of gasoline to burn people alive. It is so very similar, in fact, that the Marines just carry on calling it napalm, because to them it's the same stuff. These are the same people who call the M4 Carbine a "lightweight, gas operated, air cooled, magazine fed, selective rate, shoulder fired weapon with a collapsible stock." If the Marines see no reason to distinguish between the MK-77 and napalm, there is no reason to distinguish between them.
"We napalmed both those [bridge] approaches," said Col. James Alles, commander of Marine Air Group 11, told the San Diego Union-Tribune. "Unfortunately, there were people there because you could see them in the [cockpit] video.
"They were Iraqi soldiers there. It's no great way to die," Alles added.
He could not provide estimates of Iraqi casualties.
"The generals love napalm," said Alles. "It has a big psychological effect."
The firebombs were used again in April against Iraqis near a key Tigris River bridge, north of Numaniyah, the Marines said. There were reports of another attack on the first day of the war.
During the war, Pentagon spokesmen denied that napalm was being used, saying the Pentagon's stockpile had been destroyed two years ago. Napalm, a thick, burning combination of olystyrene, gasoline and benzene, was used against people and villages in Vietnam. Its use drew widespread criticism.
The newspaper said the spokesmen were apparently drawing a distinction between the terms firebomb and napalm.
The Marines dropped "Mark 77 firebombs," which use kerosene-based jet fuel and a smaller concentration of benzene. Marine spokesman Col. Michael Daily acknowledged the incendiary devices were "remarkably similar" to napalm weapons, but said they had less of an impact on the environment.
Mind you, even this "lie" is technically the truth, since there is apparently some difference between the two chemical compounds. Still, is the Pentagon thinking it's going to get credit from the enviornmentalist lobby? Nice thought, but the people who are going to be mad about napalm aren't going to care what you're burning--except the people underneath it. If you're going to defend the MK-77, you've got to make the case that burning those people is the right thing to do: either for reasons of force-protection, or because victory requires it. Trying to weasel out of that difficult but necessary argument is dishonest.
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