'Dead bodies are everywhere' ... Saddam's first martyrs lost

smh.com ^ | March 22 2003 | Lindsay Murdoch

[Clive]

Not a massacre when the inferior force opens the ball.

"Call it evolution in action"

[TheAngryClam]

It's the British way of doing things. All the UK papers do it too, and they refer to Tony Blair as "Mr. Blair" a lot too.

It's meant as a sign of respect (as opposed to the crass, "Bush," often used by U.S. papers), rather than disrespect.

V

[Mrs. P]

They are probably guys just dragged in off the streets and/or with little training. Probably very young, too?

[SuziQ]

"I pity anybody who's in there," a marine sergeant said. "We told them to surrender."

Just shows the difference between the US Military and any other. Do any other armies give their enemies the chance to surrender?

[blam]

"Besides, we have counter battery radar which detects rounds in the air and precisly calculates the coordinates of the guns that fired it. We have the ability to have rounds fired on the enemy gun before his first adjusting round hits the ground."

Yup. They shoot once then die. Awesome.

[Natural Law]

This was pioneered during the Cold War to offset the Warsau Pact's overwhelming numerical superiority in artillery. The US artillery has evolved into the heavy weapons equivalent of a sniper. Uh-Rah

[eyespysomething]

And then do they pity them?

[Cultural Jihad]

They still call him "Mr. Bush".

This Australian newspaper also says "Mr. Blair" and "Mr. Chirac." What you (and I) are griping about are the American newspapers which say "Mr. Bush" and "President Hussein."

[Cultural Jihad]

Woah!

[Captainpaintball]

Do you like how the reporter made the time to contact lawyers to give the impression that what we are doing may be "unfair" at best, and "illegal" at worst?

I don't know what is worse, this or Campbell Brown's horrified, incredulous, "Is the President watching this?" comment regarding the "shock and awe video" press conference.

[SuziQ]

And then do they pity them?

Definitely NOT! They consider us weak for this trait; I believe it makes us stronger than any other people.

[Timesink]

The Sydney Morning Herald has been caught lying so many times - including the intentional alteration of wire service articles to change their meaning - that it should NEVER be trusted on anything.

The following was subsquented tacked onto the end of this story:

The Pentagon subsequently issued a statement to the Herald:

Your story ('Dead bodies everywhere', by Lindsay Murdoch, March 22, 2003) claiming US forces are using napalm in Iraq, is patently false. The US took napalm out of service in the early 1970s. We completed destruction of our last batch of napalm on April 4, 2001, and no longer maintain any stocks of napalm. - Jeff A. Davis, Lieutenant Commander, US Navy, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense.

The SMH lies. ALWAYS.

Also:

Pentagon denies report on napalm

March 24 2003

The Pentagon has a denied a report in The Age on Saturday that napalm was used in an attack by US Navy planes on an Iraqi position at Safwan Hill in southern Iraq.

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.

[Natural Law]

I've had my bacon saved by napalm in close air support from F4's. I have no problem with it's use and don't consider it any different from any other lethal ordinance.

[atomic conspiracy]

I wrote to John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org and asked him about this. I received the following response:

Our information is that napalm was withdrawn from US inventory two years ago http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/mk77.htm @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ John Pike www.globalsecurity.org

Pike is the former spokesman on defense and military issues for the Federation of American Scientists. He is a recognized authority on weapons of mass destruction and weapons proliferation, as well as a top proponent of logic, critical thinking, and rational skepticism. If napalm had been re-introduced, he would know.