Last Straw

Mike Whit­ney, writ­ing for Inform­a­tion Clear­ing House, reports on the cur­rent U.S. media cover up over the use of fire­bombs (a.k.a. nap­alm) in Iraq:

Two weeks ago the UK Inde­pend­ent ran an art­icle which con­firmed that the US had “lied to Bri­tain over the use of nap­alm in Iraq.” (06 – 17-05) Since then, not one Amer­ican news­pa­per or TV sta­tion has picked up the story even though the Pentagon has veri­fied the claims.

A fire­bomb, accord­ing to the Fed­er­a­tion of Amer­ican Sci­ent­ists, is a thin skinned con­tainer of fuel gel designed for use against dug-in troops, sup­ply install­a­tions, wooden struc­tures, and land con­voys. The MK 77 500-pound fire bomb is the only fire bomb now in ser­vice. Fire bombs rup­ture on impact and spread burn­ing fuel gel on sur­round­ing objects.

It just so hap­pens that those “objects” are often people. Those sorry weasels in the Pentagon tried to brush aside reports in 2003 that it was using fire­bombs in Iraq, by deny­ing the use of “nap­alm.” When is nap­alm not nap­alm? Appar­ently when you switch gas­ol­ine for jet fuel and use some other name like Mark 77 firebomb.

As usual U.S. mil­it­ary per­sonel are a little more forth­com­ing than their civil­ian spin mas­ters: “We nap­almed both those [bridge] approaches,” said Col­onel James Alles, com­mander of Mar­ine Air Group 11. “Unfor­tu­nately there were people there — you could see them in the [cock­pit] video. They were Iraqi sol­diers. It’s no great way to die. The gen­er­als love nap­alm. It has a big psy­cho­lo­gical effect.”

Use of such bombs against civil­ians was banned in the 1980 United Nations Con­ven­tion on Inhu­mane Weapons. Not sur­pris­ingly the U.S. refused to sign this agreement.

In case you missed it:

• “Dead bod­ies are every­where” (22 March 2003)
• Nap­alm by another name (22 March 2003)
• Offi­cials con­firm drop­ping fire­bombs on Iraqi troops (5 August, 2003)
• US rejects Ger­man nap­alm bomb­ing report (8 August, 2003)
• US admits it used nap­alm bombs in Iraq (10 August, 2003)
• US Troops Reportedly Gass­ing Fal­lu­jah (10 Novem­ber 2004)
• Exchange With the BBC’s Dir­ector of News (on the BBC’s fail­ure to report effect­ively on alleged U.S. atro­cit­ies) (30 March, 2005)
• US lied to Bri­tain over use of nap­alm in Iraq war (17 June, 2005)

Mean­while, Gary Younge, writ­ing for The Guard­ian, argues that the Amer­ican pub­lic may have reached the tip­ping point with regard to the occu­pa­tion of Iraq.

At just around the time when Hush Pup­pies were believed to have been releg­ated to the foot­wear of choice for old geez­ers and age­ing hip­pies, they sud­denly enjoyed a comeback. Hip people star­ted scout­ing around in unfash­ion­able shops to buy them and then hip stores in Green­wich Vil­lage star­ted to sell them. A Hush Puppy exec­ut­ive, Geof­frey Lewis, was taken com­pletely by sur­prise. “We were told that Isaac Mizrahi was wear­ing the shoes him­self,” he said. “I think it’s fair to say that at the time we had no idea who Isaac Mizrahi was.”

In Mal­colm Gladwell’s book, The Tip­ping Point, he describes the con­di­tions that are neces­sary to trans­form Hush Pup­pies from the old school to new cool. “The world of the tip­ping point is a place where the unex­pec­ted becomes expec­ted, where rad­ical change is more than a pos­sib­il­ity,” he argues. “It is — con­trary to all our expect­a­tions — a certainty.”

Amer­ican pub­lic opin­ion appears to be approach­ing just such a point in rela­tion to the war in Iraq.

And this week’s Harper’s Weekly includes:

It was revealed that North Korea had approached the United States in 2002, offer­ing to “resolve the nuc­lear issue” if North Korea’s sov­er­eignty was acknow­ledged; the Bush Admin­is­tra­tion rejec­ted the offer.

“The real­ity,” said Sen­ator Chuck Hagel (R., Neb­raska), “is that we are los­ing in Iraq.” “Insur­gen­cies,” said Sec­ret­ary of Defense Don­ald Rums­feld, “tend to go on five, six, eight, ten, twelve years.” “I think about Iraq,” said Pres­id­ent George W. Bush.

In Spartan­burg, South Car­o­lina, a man was caught molest­ing a dog. “He had his pants down,” said the owner of the dog, “and he was doing sexual activ­ity with the dog like a man would do to a woman.” The dog, Prin­cess, later died of related injuries.