A bit of help about napalm

[lazarus]

In all the stories I'm reading about our napalm use in Iraq, it is stated that napalm was banned by the UN in 1980.

Thing is, I can't find this ban anywhere.

Anybody have any better idea? Especially, the actual UN resolution?

[kainah]

1. The San Diego Union Tribune article on it

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20030805-9999_1n5bomb.html

What the Marines dropped, the spokesmen said yesterday, were "Mark 77 firebombs." They acknowledged those are incendiary devices with a function "remarkably similar" to napalm weapons.

Rather than using gasoline and benzene as the fuel, the firebombs use kerosene-based jet fuel, which has a smaller concentration of benzene.

snip....

Although many human rights groups consider incendiary bombs to be inhumane, international law does not prohibit their use against military forces. The United States has not agreed to a ban against possible civilian targets.

snip...

I assume this "international law" reference is to the ban in 1980 that you mention.

[Maddy McCall]

2. 1973 resolution...condemns napalm.

http://www.uua.org/actions/peace/73incendiary.html


I couldn't find the resolution banning napalm in 1980.

[diamond14]

3. (link) to UN 1980 resolution RE-AFFIRMING previous bans on

chemical and biological weapons...a list of resolutions passed is at the top of Section B...more about it in section C....Chemical weapons most certainly include Napalm....

http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/35/a35r144e.pdf

note: seems to take an international lawyer to interpret this....I am just a chemist, but I can tell you a lot about Napalm...the solvent could be any type (jet fuel, kerosine, gasoline which always contains lots of benzene even out of the pump)...but the real horror of napalm is the ignition of plastics...then the burning plastics rain down from the sky to ignite everything, and are virtually impossible to remove off a human being's skin (aren't those military KILLERs just full of horrors)...so you die from horrible burns that cannot be healed...the only reason the running naked vietnamese girl survived the napalm attack was that for some reason, her clothes protected her, and were burned off with most of the plastics perhaps because she was running, leaving a reasonable amount of skin intact (although I have read that she was horribly disfigured from plastic burns all over a great portion of her body)...most of the time, the burning plastics leave you looking like a burnt mass of sticky stuff, the burning that cannot be stopped until you mercifully die....

[dfong63]

4. can you imagine the outrage

... if the iraqi armed forces had used napalm against the "coalition"???

[diamond14]

6. the USA has used a lot of chemical weapons against civilian

populations....napalm and agent orange (a defoliating herbicide, where NOTHING ever grows again after use, it just removes everything and keeps on poisoning forever, including poisoning human beings near the area sprayed, and through soils movements for years, and in drinking waters and bathing waters that flow through the contaminated areas, and wells downstream from contaminated areas....nasty stuff...even our soldiers got serious contaminated, causing a plethora of serious lifelong medical problems, one of which is diabetes, other hormonal disfunctions, and genetic defects...the weapons that just keep on giving, both here and in other unfortunate countries)

it is shameful, and it should be stopped....and there are many more chemical weapons that aren't talked about publically because they are too shameful for civilized society like ours...no one will discuss these other chemicals, until years later when OUR soldiers remain deformed, disfigured, and degraded, and we wonder what did that, then, maybe they'll mention it...

we need a President who is willing to stop wars and work for peace...who will seek to eliminate nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons...who will stop the hemorraging of our money (and our childrens futures) into massive and unneccessary making and using more vicious weapons...

we need a President who will be PROUD to work for PEACE at every level of government and shift American talent and efforts into WORLD PEACE....force all those Pentagon KILLERs to find new careers...

we need a leader to step us and WORK for PEACE, all the time....

BOOT bush* in 2004
http://www.democrats.org

[diamond14]

5. this is it (link) Article III bans incendiary chemical weapons...

except under special military circumstances, but at all time prohibits the use of incendiary chemical weapons against civilians...

Napalm is an incendiary chemical weapon...it is the chemical burning of plastics that fling flaming plastics everywhere, igniting everything...including human beings...


Article III
Opened for signature at New York: 10 April 1981
Entered into force: 2 December 1983

http://www.mineaction.org/advocacy_conventions/_ccw_amendedprotocolii.cfm#p3

General Information
http://disarmament.un.org/ccw/index.html

(this really makes you realize why bush* wants to eliminate the UN, afterall, bush* violates UN rules and regs so often...it would be easier for bush* to just eliminate the UN and avoid prosecution by for war crimes...)...

here's a link to the USA acceptance of UN rules and regs
(as noted, it takes an international attorney to figure out whether the US actually MUST obey these, even if they disagree...who knows, but here's an interesting link...don't expect colin to sign any UN agreements...bush* has told the UN that they are worthless, but I disagree with bush* as to whom is useless)...

http://disarmament.un.org/TreatyStatus.nsf/View%20by%20country%20and%20treaty?OpenView&Start=171&Count=30&Expand=186#186

[lazarus]

7. Thanks

Looks like that's it.

[diamond14]

8. Your welcome, lazarus...and thanks for your DU monitoring work

I cannot interpret the legal stuff on my UN posts, since I am NOT a lawyer...you'd need to have a lawyer look at it, because it looked like the USA did not approve, but somehow was forced into it by the majority ??? maybe??? the newspaper article also said that....

as a chemist, I can say that 'dropping whirling burning plastic pieces from the air' is a horrific action to take.... America should hang it's head in shame....

I hate it when our military just takes everything good about science and turns it into the most diabolical and inhumane KILLING...many of these military KILLERS should be locked up somewhere to save the world from psychopaths using chemicals to destroy the world...

here's the quote from the San Diego paper, posted above...

"Although many human rights groups consider incendiary bombs to be inhumane, international law does not prohibit their use against military forces. The United States has not agreed to a ban against possible civilian targets."

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20030805-9999_1n5bomb.html