America’s “Shake and Bake” in Iraq

The U.S. claimed in the run up to Iraq war that the main reason for the invasion is protecting America and the world against the imminent threat of the Weapons of Mass Destruction owned by the former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, if they U.S. is that aware of the grieve danger of those weapons, why is it using them in Iraq then?

Saddam’s alleged WMD were never found, but the very same murderous weapons have been used by the occupation forces that came to protect the Iraqi nation.

It’s been revealed last week, on this website as well as on other reputable news agencies that the U.S. occupying Army used white phosphorus against in the Iraqi city of Fallujah during its large scale offensive in 2004.

Also the U.S. Department of Defence admitted using incendiary white-phosphorus munitions in a 2004 offensive on Fallujah.

Army Lt. Col. Barry Venable, a Pentagon spokesman, denied the reports claiming that the U.S. military had not used the highly flammable weapons against civilians.

But Bryan Whitman, another Pentagon spokesman said that "it's part of our conventional-weapons inventory and we use it like we use any other conventional weapon".

According to Reuters, white phosphorus is defined as "a colorless or yellowish translucent wax-like substance that smells a bit like garlic [and which] ignites easily in air at temperatures of about 86 degrees F. Its fire can be difficult to extinguish."

“Let me give it to you straight: This was the stuff that the Allies dropped on Dresden, Hamburg and Tokyo during World War II, intending to kill civilians. And it worked – hundreds of thousands innocent civilians died in hellacious firestorms created by bombings that have permanently besmirched the otherwise noble Allied efforts during that war. In fact, when white phosphorus comes in contact with human flesh, it is virtually impossible to extinguish until the flesh is consumed in unimaginable agony to the victim…” Ellen Ranter says in an editorial published on WordNetDaily.

The 1983 Convention on the Prohibition of Use of Certain Conventional Weapons bans using White Phosphorus "against military targets within concentrations of civilians." The only time that white phosphorus is permitted is when "military targets within concentrations of civilians are clearly separated from civilians and 'all feasible precautions' are taken to avoid civilian casualties."

Although the United States is a signatory to the 1983 Convention, it has not ratified Protocol III which involves restrictions against these kind of incendiary weapons.

Asked whether the U.S. military used the weapons in a manner consistent with the conventional weapons convention, Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, said that "White phosphorous weapons should not be used just like any other conventional weapon".

The Iraqi city of Fallujah was inhabited by about approximately 350,000 people before the U.S. invading troops set foot in the country- After the occupation, and November offensive last year, the population had decreased to some 200,000.

The technique involved was nicknamed "Shake and Bake," with explosive rounds containing white phosphorus being fired at what the U.S. claimed at that time are rebels positions, Ellen Ranter says in her article, adding that “it’s important to note that in Fallujah those positions are actually houses and mosques, both containing large numbers of innocent civilians.

Once the smoke and fire generated by the white phosphorus forced out the inhabitants, high explosive artillery rounds were fired into the position, killing anyone who happened to be nearby. That is, anyone whose flesh wasn't already on fire from the white phosphorus. In that case, dying instantly from an artillery round would be something like a mercy killing”.

The Fallujah massacre resembles the atrocities committed by the Nazis against the occupied people of Europe, stated the World Socialist Web Site. The Administration’s plot was killing as many people as possible and destroying the city to intimidate the rest of the Iraqi nation into accepting the reduction of Iraq to a client-state of U.S. imperialism.

And indeed, the U.S. media has played a brutal criminal role in serving this agenda. Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and New York Times all called for and endorsed the assault on Fallujah, according to WSW.

The mayhem taking place in Iraq needs more than immediate political action, it embodies the incompatibility between the interests of the vast mass of the world’s population and imperialism, in which some of the world superpowers dominate the globe’s economic and political life.

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