Sunday, December 04, 2005

Napalm and us



This is a picture after a napalm attack. Napalm is the combination of jet fuel and polystyrene to produce a material that is highly inflammable and sticks to people's bodies when it burns. It is, in my opinion, right up there with white phosphorus as a chemical weapon.

The United States is the ONLY country that has not signed the United Nations ban on napalm.

You would have thought that we would have learned from Vietnam. The above picture was very instrumental in turning the American people against this awful War, which we lost.

It is the height of irony that we are currently trying Saddam Hussein on the grounds that he used chemical weapons against his own people when in Fallujah we used both White Phosphorus and Napalm.

Our experience of History is that the worm always turns. I don't think we have ever fully paid for Vietnam and now we have this albatross of Iraq about our neck.
Ah! well-a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung."

5 comments:

not in use said...

There is no wonder that picture won Nick Ut the Pulitzer prize .. I get such a fury in the belly every time I see it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4517597.stm

Redjalapeno said...

Don't get furious when I see that pick, I cringe, feel sick, feel sad, hate the human race for a little bit.
A couple of days from now I'll get pissed. I hate seeing that goddamned picture.

Dr. C said...

I, of course, share your sentiments completely. The problem is, what do we do about it? Marching on Washington doesn't seem to have an effect any more. We can't even boot Cheney and Rumsfeld out of our County. We could run away, but I'm too old.

Redjalapeno said...

Marching on Washington made me feel good, but appeared to have a minimal effect on a larger scale. I don't discount it though, and I would do it again tomorrow.

I'm doing the only thing I think I can do Doc: becoming an educator.
If I can reach enough young people, and it spreads from there, that's the best I can do.

not in use said...

Did you see my 'Banksy' version of that napalm picture?

I'll put it up on my blog later .. I think it really sums the current situation up so very perfectly.