Tuesday, 19 April 2011


Human rights organizations are charging that NATO has been using white phosphorus, a napalm-like chemical to combat the rebels of Afghanistan. While I would like to hear about use of white phosphorous from the Pentagon or some official NATO source, or at least have empirical evidence independently confirmed before stating as fact that this monstrous and illegal activity is indeed taking place, we have at least one issue that should concern the US if the allegations are correct. 

In the June 1984 issue of the State Department Bulletin, the US raised the issue of chemical weapons use in Afghanistan during the Russian invasion. The US argued that chemical weapons use constituted a "violation of the Geneva Protocol of 1925, related rules of customary international law, and the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention." Moreover, the US took its case before the UN General Assembly at a time that president Reagan's defense secretary was talking about 'limited nuclear war' as 'acceptable' as long as it does not take place in the US.

That was then when the Soviets had troops in Afghanistan. In the 1980s, the CIA encouraged Afghan war lords to have peasant grow heroin along with hashish that was sold to Soviet troops. During the last ten years, war lords have used the exact same strategy on NATO troops they used on Soviets. This is one problem facing NATO troops that know better than anyone the war in Afghanistan is a lost cause. 

From 2003 until 2009, the media reported that Afghan rebels were allegedly using white phosphorus. But who exactly produces white phosphorus? We know that Israel has used it against Palestinians. The chemical decomposes the human flesh like a strong acid poured. If Afghan rebels acquired white phosphorus, who provided it for them?

China and Russia may be candidates, but not the only ones, if they have any role at all. Another possibility is that the Soviets left behind white phosphorus in the 1980s. But how much of this stuff was left behind and who exactly took inventory of it? How did it fall into rebel hands after more than two decades? The logistics of how white phosphorus could be in rebel hands now leaves more unanswered questions and it appears as a pretext to deflect attention from possible NATO use. The US government and western media have accused the rebels of using the chemical, and in every instance admitted that NATO uses it but for uses other than warfare, although related to war. This is as close to an admission of use as we will ever get from the US and NATO.

NATO and US have a history of denying atrocities and war crimes that contracted mercenaries and US-paid warlords carry out against civilians. Theft, rape and murder, desecration of mosques and mutilation of corpses are some of the atrocities that US-paid warlords have carried out. The US has backed ethnic Tajik elements against ethnic Pashtun civilians. Although the UN confirmed allegations of war atrocities and US/NATO use of disparate ethnic tribes against one another, NATO denies any wrongdoing.
If there is hard evidence to prove US/NATO use of chemical weapons, if the UN or other entity does eventually provide such evidence, should some neutral country - let us say Brazil - take the issue before the UN General Assembly, should human rights groups bring symbolic law suits against US and NATION leadership for violating the Geneva Protocol of 1925 and the 1972 Biological and Toxin weapons Convention, for death squads by mercenary soldiers and for committing crimes against humanity? How much difference does the banned use of chemical warfare make amid mass catastrophe in Afghanistan? And all toward what possible benefit to any one except a few corporations making money from war and destruction?

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