Saturday, June 18, 2005

i love the smell of outrage in the morning

Did everyone else know that we have been using napalm in Iraq? During 2003's Operation Iraqi Freedom? And that we lied to the British about it? Am I the only one who didn't know?

When the British asked--it's important they know these things, because as well as being our partners in this ill-conceived war, they are signatories to the 1980 UN Convention on 'Weapons Which May Be Deemed To Be Excessively Injurious Or To Have Indiscriminate Effects', which rules out the use of napalm--they were told no, no napalm. Slippery. Because MK-77 isn't the napalm of Vietnam and Korea: gasoline, benzene and polystyrene. No. It's kerosene-based jet fuel and polystyrene. It acts exactly like classic napalm--in fact, it's harder to put out, once ignited. It sticks and burns.

MK-77 is currently the only incendiary in the U.S. arsenal. For some reason, I didn't realize that "firebomb" translates to "napalm." Maybe I thought we were using nice clean firebombs that aren't full of gel that sticks to structures--and people. I will spare you the photo of Kim Phuc running naked and burning from her village in Vietnam. I know you've seen it.

This sickens me so much I can barely write about it. The lies are fucking piling up around us. The government lied to us about why we were going to war. They lied to the British about how. Blair and his people, even after finding out they had been lied to, continued to cover for us.

Lying to start a war is an impeachable offense. If you are even half as ashamed of our behavior in Iraq as I am, consider bringing it to your representative.