{"id":1415,"date":"2003-03-28T13:44:00","date_gmt":"2003-03-28T17:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles-wp\/?p=1415"},"modified":"2003-03-28T13:44:00","modified_gmt":"2003-03-28T17:44:00","slug":"napalm-scorching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/2003\/03\/28\/13\/44\/napalm-scorching\/","title":{"rendered":"Napalm Scorching?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pentagon used napalm to “sterilize” a hilltop in Iraq<\/a> that was tenaciously defended.<\/p>\n

Marine Cobra helicopter gunships firing Hellfire missiles swept in low from the south. Then the marine howitzers, with a range of 30 kilometres, opened a sustained barrage over the next eight hours. They were supported by US Navy aircraft which dropped 40,000 pounds of explosives and napalm, a US officer told the Herald. But a navy spokesman in Washington, Lieutenant Commander Danny Hernandez, denied that napalm – which was banned by a United Nations convention in 1980 – was used. “We don’t even have that in our arsenal,” he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/a>Or did they<\/a>?<\/p>\n

A navy official in Washington, Lieutenant-Commander Danny Hernandez, said: “We don’t even have that in our arsenal.” The US military says it last used napalm in 1993 and destroyed its last batch of the weapon in 2001. The report was filed by Age correspondent Lindsay Murdoch, who is attached to units of the First US Marine Division. Murdoch’s report was based on information from two marine officers, who said napalm was used in the air strike on the hill. One of the officers repeated that napalm was used when Murdoch was asked by The Age foreign editor to confirm the story on Friday.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/a> Under the 1980 UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, napalm and other “area incendiary weapons” are banned. However, notably, the US refused to accede to this protocol. Nevertheless, the Pentagon claims it destroyed the last of its napalm stocks some years ago.<\/p>\n

In 1996, the UN Commission on Human Rights Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities produced a resolution (96\/16) urging states to \u00ef\u00bf\u00bdcurb the production and the spread of weapons of mass destruction or with indiscriminate effect, in particular nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, fuel-air bombs, napalm, cluster bombs, biological weaponry and weaponry containing depleted uranium\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/a>Well, the Pentagon is already using almost all of these frowned-upon weapons technologies so I honestly can’t see why they’d be so queasy about getting back to quagmire-scorching basics with a little napalm.
\nOpinion is divided<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Pentagon used napalm to “sterilize” a hilltop in Iraq that was tenaciously defended. Marine Cobra helicopter gunships firing Hellfire missiles swept in low from the south. Then the marine howitzers, with a range...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t