sandra canada
Laa ilaha illa Allah
ISRAEL and the chemical war against Gaza
Chemical war chemical war, nations to destroy
Chemical war chemical war, future nightmare toy
Chemical war chemical war, and if you should survive
Chemical war chemical war, more dead than alive
They say "we don't use it" but we know they lie
We say they abuse it before they run and hide
Chemical war chemical war, take your little pill
Chemical war chemical war, go and make your will
Chemical war chemical war, here comes the cyanide
Chemical war chemical war, just not on your side
They say "we don't use it" but we know they lie
They try to abuse it then they run and hide
HIGHLIGHTS: White phosphorus is a waxy solid which burns easily and is used
in chemical manufacturing and smoke munitions. Exposure to white phosphorus
may cause burns and irritation, liver, kidney, heart, lung, or bone damage, and
death. White phosphorus has been found in at least 77 of the 1,416 National
Priorities List sites identified by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
White phosphorus (weapon)
White phosphorus (WP) is a flare- and smoke-producing incendiary weapon,[1] or smoke-screening agent, made from a common allotrope of the chemical element phosphorus. White phosphorus bombs and shells are incendiary devices, but can also be used as an offensive anti-personnel flame compound capable of causing serious burns or death.[2] The agent is used in bombs, artillery shells, and mortar shells, short range missiles which burst into burning flakes of phosphorus upon impact. White phosphorus is commonly referred to in military jargon as "WP". The slang term "Willy(ie) Pete" or "Willy(ie) Peter", dating from the First World War and common at least through the Vietnam era, is still occasionally heard.
White phosphorus weapons are controversial today because of their potential use against civilians. While the Chemical Weapons Convention does not designate WP as a chemical weapon, various unofficial groups consider it to be one. In recent years, the United States, Israel and Russia have used white phosphorus in combat.
Its use by the US has resulted in considerable controversy (see white phosphorus use in Iraq).
Initial field reports from Iraq referred to white phosphorus use against insurgents,[3] but its use was officially denied until November, 2005,[4] when the Pentagon admitted[5] to the use of white phosphorus while stating that its use for producing obscuring smoke is legal and does not violate the Chemical Weapons Convention.[6] A Pentagon spokesman has also admitted that WP "was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants", though not against civilians.[7]
Smoke-screening properties
USS Alabama hit by a white phosphorus bomb in bombing tests by General Billy Mitchell, September 1921.Weight-for-weight, phosphorus is the most effective smoke-screening agent known, for two reasons: first, it absorbs most of the screening mass from the surrounding atmosphere and secondly, the smoke particles are an aerosol, a mist of liquid droplets which are close to the ideal range of sizes for Mie scattering of visible light. This effect has been likened to three dimensional textured privacy glass—the smoke cloud does not simply obstruct an image, but thoroughly scrambles both visual and infrared radiation.
When phosphorus burns in air, it first forms phosphorus pentoxide (which exists as tetraphosphorus decoxide except at very high temperatures):
P4 + 5 O2 → P4O10
However phosphorus pentoxide is extremely hygroscopic and quickly absorbs even minute traces of moisture to form liquid droplets of phosphoric acid:
P4O10 + 6 H2O → 4 H3PO4 (also forms polyphosphoric acids such as pyrophosphoric acid, H4P2O7)
Since an atom of phosphorus has an atomic mass of 31 but a molecule of phosphoric acid has a molecular mass of 98, the cloud is already 68% by mass derived from the atmosphere (i.e. 3.2 kilograms of smoke for every kilogram of WP you started with); however, it may absorb more because phosphoric acid and its variants are hygroscopic. Given time, the droplets will continue to absorb more water, growing larger and more dilute until they reach equilibrium with the local water vapour pressure. In practice, the droplets quickly reach a range of sizes suitable for scattering visible light and then start to dissipate from wind or convection.
Because of the great weight efficiency of WP smoke, it is particularly suited for applications where weight is highly restricted, such as hand grenades and mortar bombs. An additional advantage for hand smoke grenades—which are more likely to be used in an emergency—is that the WP smoke clouds form in a fraction of a second. Because WP is also pyrophoric, most munitions of this type have a simple burster charge to split open the casing and spray fragments of WP through the air, where they ignite spontaneously and leave a trail of rapidly thickening smoke behind each particle. The appearance of this cloud forming is easily recognised; one sees a shower of burning particles spraying outward, followed closely by distinctive streamers of white smoke, which rapidly coalesce into a fluffy, very pure white cloud (unless illuminated by a coloured light source).
Various disadvantages of WP are discussed below, but one which is particular to smoke-screening is "pillaring". Because the WP smoke is formed from fairly hot combustion, the gasses in the cloud are hot, and tend to rise. Consequently the smoke screen tends to rise off the ground relatively quickly and form aerial "pillars" of smoke which are of little use for screening. Tactically this may be counteracted by using WP to get a screen quickly, but then following up with emission type screening agents for a more persistent screen. Some countries have begun using red phosphorus instead. Red phosphorus ("RP") burns cooler than WP and eliminates a few other disadvantages as well, but offers exactly the same weight efficiency. Other approaches include WP soaked felt pads (which also burn more slowly, and pose a reduced risk of incendiarism) and PWP, or plasticised white phosphorus.
Effects on humans
White phosphorus can cause injuries and death in three ways: by burning deep into tissue, by being inhaled as a smoke, and by being ingested. Extensive exposure in any way is fatal.
Effects of exposure to WP weapons
Incandescent particles of WP cast off by a WP weapon's initial explosion can produce extensive, deep (second and third degree), burns. Phosphorus burns carry a greater risk of mortality than other forms of burns due to the absorption of phosphorus into the body through the burned area, resulting in liver, heart and kidney damage, and in some cases multi-organ failure.[22] These weapons are particularly dangerous to exposed people because white phosphorus continues to burn unless deprived of oxygen or until it is completely consumed. In some cases, burns are limited to areas of exposed skin because the smaller WP particles do not burn completely through personal clothing before being consumed. According to GlobalSecurity.org, quoted by The Guardian, "White phosphorus results in painful chemical burn injuries"[23] .
Exposure and inhalation of smokeBurning WP produces a hot, dense white smoke. Most forms of smoke are not hazardous in the kinds of concentrations produced by a battlefield smoke shell. Exposure to heavy smoke concentrations of any kind for an extended period (particularly if near the source of emission) does have the potential to cause illness or even death.
WP smoke irritates the eyes and nose in moderate concentrations. With intense exposures, a very explosive cough may occur. However, no recorded casualties from the effects of WP smoke alone have occurred in combat operations and to date there are no confirmed deaths resulting from exposure to phosphorus smoke.
The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry has set an acute inhalation Minimum Risk Level (MRL) for white phosphorus smoke of 0.02 mg/m³, the same as fuel oil fumes. By contrast, the chemical weapon mustard gas is 30 times more potent: 0.0007 mg/m³ [24].
Oral ingestion
The accepted lethal dose when white phosphorus is ingested orally is 1 mg per kg of body weight, although the ingestion of as little as 15 mg has resulted in death.[25] It may also cause liver, heart or kidney damage.[22] There are reports of individuals with a history of oral ingestion who have passed phosphorus-laden stool ("smoking stool syndrome")[25]
Under the Geneva Conventions, which are the statutory implementation of the customary laws of war, it is forbidden to deliberately attack civilians or bona-fide civilian structures, dwellings, and places used for civilian purposes, such as hospitals, religious structures, and schools. It therefore follows that the use of any form of weapon to deliberately attack civilians or deliberately attack unquestionably civilian targets unoccupied by military forces is a war crime, and in violation of the laws of war.
Unfortunately, military forces often enter civilian areas, or military activities take place in civilian areas, and therefore combat between military forces often takes place in civilian areas. When this occurs, all military forces who obey the law of war must and will take care to avoid unnecessary destruction of the area; however, civilians may be unintentionally harmed or killed in the midst of combat, including by all weapons employed by both sides. The law of war recognizes this, and only regards as criminal those deaths or injuries to civilians in a war zone that are caused by deliberate (i.e. not accidental) attacks on civilians by military forces, or by grossly disproportionate use of force, in excess of what military necessity provides for, against a military objective in close proximity to civilians or civilian buildings.
Article 1 of Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons defines an incendiary weapon as 'any weapon or munition which is primarily designed to set fire to objects or to cause burn injury to persons through the action of flame, heat, or combination thereof, produced by a chemical reaction of a substance delivered on the target'. The same protocol also prohibits the use of incendiary weapons against civilians (already forbidden by the Geneva Conventions) or in civilian areas. This protocol is only binding upon those who have signed it; the United States, along with the other major military powers, has not signed or agreed to Protocol III and is not bound by it.
However, the use against military targets outside civilian areas is not explicitly banned by any treaty. There is a debate on whether white phosphorus should be considered a chemical weapon and thus be outlawed by the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) which went into effect in April 1997. The convention is meant to prohibit weapons that are "dependent on the use of the toxic properties of chemicals as a method of warfare" (Article II, Definitions, 9, "Purposes not Prohibited" c.).
The convention defines a "toxic chemical" as a chemical "which through its chemical action on life processes can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm to humans or animals" (CWC, II). An annex lists chemicals that fall under this definition and WP is not listed in the Schedules of chemical weapons or precursors.[26]
In an 2005 interview with RAI, Peter Kaiser, spokesman for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (an organization overseeing the CWC and reporting directly to the UN General Assembly), questioned whether the weapon should fall under the convention's provisions:
No it's not forbidden by the CWC if it is used within the context of a military application which does not require or does not intend to use the toxic properties of white phosphorus. White phosphorus is normally used to produce smoke, to camouflage movement.
If that is the purpose for which the white phosphorus is used, then that is considered under the convention legitimate use.
If on the other hand the toxic properties of white phosphorus are specifically intended to be used as a weapon, that of course is prohibited, because the way the convention is structured or the way it is in fact applied, any chemicals used against humans or animals that cause harm or death through the toxic properties of the chemical are considered chemical weapons".[4]
Kaiser was a staff spokesman for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.[27] The OPCW, using member votes, creates Schedules of chemical weapons or dual-use chemicals of concern and white phosphorus is not in any of these schedules.
The Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, not the Chemical Weapons Convention, goes on, in its Protocol III, to prohibit the use of all air-delivered incendiary weapons against civilian populations, or for indiscriminate incendiary attacks against military forces co-located with civilians.[28] However, that protocol also specifically excludes weapons whose incendiary effects are secondary, such as smoke grenades. This has often been read as excluding white phosphorus munitions from this protocol, as well. Several countries, including the United States and Israel, are not signatories to Protocol III.[29]
The legal position however, is not the only consideration in any war.[clarification needed] For instance, concerning the U.S. use of WP in Iraq, the British Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Sir Menzies Campbell, said
"The use of this weapon may technically have been legal, but its effects are such that it will hand a propaganda victory to the insurgency. The denial of use followed by the admission will simply convince the doubters that there was something to hideWikipedia