according to the Geneva-conventions?
I’m talking about using it against military personal like in Falluja and Lebanon
and is it labeled as a Chemical weapon?
. Wikipedia. First hit under “white phosphorus” on Google.
yes I know but the article is unclear
Maybe I’m missing something, but
seems like it answers your question.
the problem is that some claime it is and other that it ain’t
Gosh, I hope not, or I will have to take the protections offered to me under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, Senator.
In any case, if you read deep enough into these sort of arguments eventually fall into ‘it is illegal to use against civilians’ Well, ‘Duh!’ it is illegal to use any weapon against civilians.
The Soviets (IIRC) used to call WP a chemical weapon, apparently to indicate that they could use nerve gas with the same aplomb we use WP. For us Americans, it is a pretty standard thing. A battery will usually hit a target with three rounds of High Explosive and three of WP. It works pretty well.
WP kills by burning, not by poisoning. In my mind that makes it an explosive, not a chemical weapon. Too many people are using this sudden discovery of WP as a stick to advance their pre-concived political notions.
It is a good and fair question, but it seems hard to find reasonable discussion of it on the net.
Does that help?
That, in a nutshell, is the position of the US Govenment. The lethal effect of WP is not due to it’s poisonous or toxic properties, but rather to it’s other effects.
It may be a fine line to distinguish, but we are talking about treaties and they are all about fine lines and shades of definitions. Personally, I agree that the US position is consistent with the Chemical Weapons Convention.