Talk:White phosphorus munition/Archives/2005/December

POV-section

The Use in Iraq section has lots of allegations ... but little to no rebuttals (some of which I personally heard on Democracy Now). Seems that there is a lot of finger pointing ... but little acknowledgement of the views of the military. Sincerely, JDR

Perhaps you are right, JDR, but the usual practice is to add the opposing views yourself, and then to add the NPOV tag if someone reverts your contributions. I guess tagging is better than nothing, but could you at least provide a link or the name/date/station of the show you saw? Dsol 11:18, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

These articles may help restore some balance and give a NPOV ...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051116/pl_nm/iraq_usa_phosphorus_dc (eg., The United States is a party to the overall accord, but has not ratified the incendiary-weapons protocol or another involving blinding laser weapons.)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051115/pl_afp/usiraqbritainitaly_051115220512 (eg., White phosphorus is a conventional munition. It is not a chemical weapon.)

There are probably other better sites .... mabey I'll try to put something in ... the situation is still formenting ... so mabey I'll wait a bit to more info come up ...

... and as I said ... I heard it on "Democracy Now" (which can be as accusatory ... the show being mostly "anti-war and left-wing"). Goto thier archives at thier site ... it was end of last month (November 2005). Sincerely, JDR

Agree. I think the disputed tag at this stage was unnecessary. --BruceR 17:07, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I think Reddi has a point. There are problems with the Italian film in particular. For example, I read one report of a pathologist who viewed the Italian film saying that the pictures of corpses showed normal decomposition, not white phosphorous burns. --Lee Hunter 02:36, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

It seems like the Use in Iraq section is less about the actual use of White Phosphorus and more about attempting to prove that its use was in violation of the Third Geneva Protocol. --BohicaTwentyTwo 16:17, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

This is no longer the case: the section now is only about the documented use of WP in Iraq, without any attempt at judgement of this use. I see no reason anymore to have the POV warning here and have therefore removed it. The use of WP in Iraq is after all no longer disputed. --Martin Wisse 10:25, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I removed the line quoting Arab media sources as alleging the US was using White Phosphorus in Fallujah. The claim made in the article named Resistance Says US Using Napalm, Gas in Fallujah makes no mention of White Phosphorus. Instead a doctor from Fallugah states, "The US troops have sprayed chemical and nerve gases on resistance fighters, turning them hysteric in a heartbreaking scene." http://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/Week-of-Mon-20041108/008841.html

--BohicaTwentyTwo 21:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Sources

In an edit summary, someone wrote "as of recently, blogs are valid sources." Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Personal websites as primary sources suggests otherwise. Is there other guidance that I'm overlooking? Tom Harrison ^(talk) 22:44, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Military Regulations

I changed around the Military Regulations section. First, I added FM 27-10 Rule of Land Warfare, which is the definitive US military regulation on the legality of weapons used in combat. Second, I left the CGSC Battle Book quote in, but I noted that it was from a student textbook and not an official Field Manual. Third, I removed the FM 3-06.11 quote about needing Division Level authorization. That was not current doctrine, but an example of Rules of Engagement from Operation Just Cause(Panama). In its place, I directed the FM3-06.11 link to go to Appendix F, which states, "Artillery-delivered white phosphorus can also be effective on enemy forces by causing casualties and fires." Finally, I noted that the source of the USMC doctrine change came from a blog. --BohicaTwentyTwo 18:27, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

This article needs NPOV work

I have been finding quotations in the article added by the anonymous editors that were outright modified to push a POV that white phosphorus is not a chemical weapon. This included the use of square bracket editorializing. I urge all of the other editors of this article to please look very carefully at the statements that appear not to be NPOV because we have some unscrupulous people modifying this article to serve their own personal agendas. Also, the citation numbers in the article and in the Notes section at the bottom no longer match up. Somebody was adding references improperly. --Cyde Weys _talk^contribs 20:10, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Another thing: I am seeing repeated citations from various people in the U.S. Army saying they were firing white phosphorus artillery rounds at "insurgent targets" in the city of Fallujah. I think it's important to note that there are still thousands of civilians living in Fallujah. It's quite possible, especially given the nature of white phosphorus and artillery, that the U.S. Forces saying they were hitting "insurgent targets" were also in reality hitting civilian targets. What's the NPOV way to add this to the article? --Cyde Weys _talk^contribs 20:13, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

• It may be best to simply state that they were firing into the city; it's not necessary to mention here exactly who the targets were. After all, we obviously can't say the targets were civilian, and for the reasons above we can't say that they were purely insurgent. To try and be specific would be awkward in the extreme. I think that it would be best to leave this particular hair unsplit. – ClockworkSoul 16:52, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Yes it is absolutely necessary to mention the fact that there were many thousand people inside that city, and maybe we should also add that the WP was fired into big areas, not well aimed at individual targets. Whole city quarters were attacked with ... uhm, I guess you people would call it 'screening smoke' fired from helicopters, exploding in the air and raining down on the still populated areas. I guess the attackers didn't really want to see all that horror through their gunsights, that's why they fired with battlefield obscurant rounds. Makes sense. Generation Nintendo goes to war and doesn't like to see all the death and destruction they cause up close. Too much realism?
    • One of the sections that I removed was because it was pushing a POV insisting the United States Department of Defense admitted this was a Chemical Weapon. When in fact that is far from the truth. The line "WARNING: (U) THIS IS AN INFORMATION REPORT, NOT FINALLY EVALUATED INTELLIGENCE. REPORT CLASSIFIED" completely gives it away. There is no admission from the United States Government in this report whatsoever. It is simply based off the telephone call between two brothers' opinions in northern Iraq. HUMINT reports are unreliable until furthur evaluated by the United States DoD. There is a reason for this because you have to evaluate whether the intelligence is correct or not because you could be acting on faulty or implanted information by the enemy.

Chemical burns

The "chemical burns" quote has been add and deleted on and on. I just add it again, because GlobalSecurity.org (quoted by The Guardian as a major source) says so. Clockwork Source has deleted it, opposing me [1]. However, this source seems less reliable than GlobalSecurity (i have two reasons for arguing this: as already said, GlobalSecurity.org is a major source of mainstream newspaper; second: see Clockwork Source's source disclaimer. Instead of deleting this reference to an obvious "chemical burn", find a quote from the DoD stating that WP is not a chemical weapon (since they have admitted, as November 10, 2005 of various uses of WP, they are now trying to justify themselves saying it is not a chemical weapon. This is fair game. However, Peter Kaiser, another reliable source, is not of the same thinking). --- Don't bother, i found that quote on [2]. I will therefore make the edit change, the justification here is more than enough.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.66.94.85 (talk • contribs) 16:34, 14 December 2005 (UTC)