The U.S. military uses the munition for smoke screens and to light up battlefields. Rights advocates object to its use near civilians because the chemical burns human skin.
  • @[email protected]English
    22•2 months ago

    I get wanting to arm the Ukrainians to defend themselves, but I agree that we probably shouldn’t enable them to commit war crimes.

    • @NOT_RICKEnglish
      23•2 months ago

      It’s not a war crime to use phosphorus away from civilians

      • TheTechnician27English
        25•2 months ago

        You’re going to be downvoted by people who have no idea what a war crime is or isn’t, but you’re unequivocally correct here.

        You won’t catch people hand-wringing about the use of anti-personnel mines which is unequivocally a war crime (however, one that’s necessary for Ukraine’s survival against a genocidal, imperialist invasion also making heavy use of AP mines). However, when indenciaries come up, people somehow have this association that they’re blanket war crimes when that’s not even close to true. The International Red Cross’ summary of Protocol III on incendiaries is as follows:

        Incendiary weapons are those that are primarily designed to set fire to objects or to burn persons through the action of flame or heat, such as napalm and flame throwers (Art. 1).

        It is prohibited in all circumstances to use them against civilians. It is also prohibited to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by air-delivered incendiary weapons.

        Finally, it is prohibited to make forests or other kinds of plant cover the object of attack by incendiary weapons unless they are being used to conceal combatants or other military objectives, or are themselves military objectives (Art. 2).

        • @[email protected]English
          -8•2 months ago

          The question is not whether their use is automatically a war crime, but whether the UAF would potentially use them as a war crime. Would you give them their nukes back?

          • TheTechnician27English
            17•2 months ago

            What even is this asinine response?

            • No, they would not likely use them to perpetrate war crimes. Ukraine is using incendiaries for treelines in the middle of nowhere where Russians are hiding – not even close to civilians. You have zero evidence to support the idea that they would and are just JAQing off over nonsensical “what-ifs” as a way to move the goalposts from the indisputable fact that WP isn’t unto itself a war crime.
            • Literally any weapon can be used to commit a war crime.
            • If you want war crimes to stop, then you want Russia out of Ukraine as soon as possible due to their extreme usage of anti-personnel mines and the fact that Ukraine then needs to use them in return.
            • What is this unhinged comparison to nuclear weapons?

            Redditor-types accepting they’re indisputably wrong about something instead of doubling down challenge: impossible.

    • @[email protected]English
      -7•2 months ago

      Agreed. Ukraine’s thermite-launcher drones are terrifying enough. I’m not sure they have the restraint to avoid going too far with something like WP. Give them more F-16s instead.

  • @[email protected]English
    -4•2 months ago

    “Sorry Ukraine, your war crimes pass is expired, we’ll be shipping these to Israel too”