Posse Incitatus

Is it news or propaganda?

Via the less hated Instapundit, the Posse finds this take-down of the LA Times' faux outrage over pro-American propaganda by Vodkapundit quite interesting, especially in light of this Associated Press commentary that masquerades as "news."

Is it news, or defeatist propaganda?  We fisk, you decide.

Bush Attempts Hard Sell on Iraq Progress

By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer Wed Nov 30, 1:57 PM ET

The title alone seems pretty slanted, but these can be deceptive.  Headlines are often made by copy editors, without any input from the feature's author.  So let us suspend judgement on that score.

WASHINGTON - President Bush's depiction of Iraqi security forces as "helping to turn the tide" is difficult to square with persistent setbacks in handing control of the country back to its own people

Wow.  Using this logic, any military struggle that experiences setbacks, particularly "persistent" ones, must ultimately doomed.

Thus, the Britsh won the American Revolutionary War, the South won the Civil War and the Germans won both World Wars.

Or at least they would have had the leaders back then used this standard.

His suggestion that Americans are solidly behind the mission also understates opposition at home, and his hard sell on the rising quality of Iraqi forces overlooks complexities on the ground.

Indeed, this is partially correct: the adminstration has not called out the defeatists (like this author) stridently enough.  But it has made a good start.

Bush on Wednesday declared the Iraqi army and police forces are "increasingly taking the lead in the fight against the terrorists," even as recruits patrol Iraq's most violent cities barely three months after learning how to use weapons and police forces struggle to get officers to come to work.[Emphasis added]

How many months should they get?  Four?  Seven?  Twenty-four?

The author cites the three-month figure as if it is abnormally short, but in fact it is a pretty long time, training-wise.

For example, US troops experience ten weeks of basic training followed by their technical school.  It is altogether likely that an infantryman might find himself deployed "barely three months" after his initial qualification - that is "when he learns to use weapons." 

To be sure, this is mitigated by the presence of more experienced troops within the unit, but in Iraqi Army, the learning curve is pretty steep and many of these men have already had military experience.

The intent of course is to present the Iraqi Army as a bunch of untrained sheep herded into the slaughter.

The president, in a major speech on Iraq war aims and in an accompanying strategy paper, acknowledged all has not gone as planned, speaking several times of a need for "adjustments" along the way.

And this is a revelation...why?  Has any war ever gone as planned?  What kind of standard is this idiot using?

Still, the White House paper cited a number of positive statistics on the recovery of the Iraq economy, asserting "our restore, reform, build strategy is achieving results."

The International Monetary Fund, in its latest World Economic Outlook, in September, issued a more sobering view.

Wait, what are these "positive statistics?"  Why are they not enumerated?  Why are they swept aside without even being listed?  Could it be that they might undercut the author's objective of reinforcing the notion that the US is already beaten in Iraq?

"The new government faces daunting medium-term challenges, including advancing the reconstruction of the country's infrastructure, reducing macroeconomic instability and developing the institutions that can support a market-based economy," the survey stated.

The IMF staff cited a "volatile security situation" as one of the biggest challenges and said only "slow progress" had been made in restoring Iraq oil production to prewar levels.

Since when is Iraq's oil production the sole indicator of success?  Are not schools and hospitals also important?  Strangely, these and the vastly improved sanitation are left out. 

Bush, making his remarks at the U.S. Naval Academy, spoke as if the debate about Iraq were limited to Washington and only politicians were questioning the mission.

"When you're risking your life to accomplish a mission, the last thing you want to hear is that mission being questioned in our nation's capital," he told cadets. "I want you to know that, while there may be a lot of heated rhetoric in Washington, D.C., one thing is not in dispute: The American people stand behind you."

Bush's public standing and support for the war have declined. In an AP-Ipsos poll taken in November, 62 percent said they disapproved of his Iraq policy,and his overall job approval rating dropped to 37 percent, the lowest level of his presidency.

What is interesting is that the poll numbers have shifted considerably since the Bush administration began its counterattack, indicating that the heart of defeatism really is in Washington.

Furthermore, the author once again ignores key information.  As Best of the Web pointed out only days ago, America as a whole is far more optimistic about Iraq than the media or Washington elites.

The latest polling also indicates that defeatism isn't going over well, which perhaps explains the desperate tone of this article.

At this point, the author's spleen begins to wane because it harder to stretch the truth without resorting to blatant lies.

The president spoke of "an increased focus on leadership training" to build a core of midlevel and higher ranking officers needed to guide and lead an Iraqi force that can operate on its own.

It takes years to develop a strong officer core, and the process has been a particular struggle in Iraq. The deficiency was highlighted recently when Iraqis put out a call for more former officers from Saddam Hussein's army to rejoin the armed forces. Bush did caution it would take "time and patience" to train enough Iraqi forces to carry the fight.

Ah, the pain that grudging admission must have caused.

"As the Iraqi forces grow in number, they're helping to keep a better hold on the cities taken from the enemy," he said.

Indeed, large Shiite cities in the south now are largely controlled by Iraqi forces. But throughout central and northern Iraq, cities that are either Sunni Arab or ethnically or religiously mixed have proved more difficult to stabilize.

Perhaps because they are the final strongholds of the enemy?

In Samarra, only 100 of the 700 police on the city payroll are showing up for work most days, even as U.S. soldiers prepare this week to turn over control of the inner city to Iraqi forces. The Americans tried twice before to do that in the city of 200,000 but failed when insurgents moved against police.

So to refute the president's nation-wide assertions, this man offers one example - and ignores the fact that no police station has been overrun by terrorists in Iraq since November 10, 2004.

As he did before the invasion, Bush tied Iraq to terrorism, to make the case that a stable Iraq would make for a safer America.

He declared, "The terrorists have made it clear that Iraq is the central front in their war against humanity. And so we must recognize Iraq as the central front in the war on terror."

Iraq was not, however, the terrorists' chosen battlefield until Saddam was defeated and extremists poured across unsecured borders.

No, it was not their battlefield, but it was their haven.  Abu Abbas and Abu Nidal were both granted shelter by Saddam Hussein's odious regime.

And since the battle has been joined, it must be won.

This article is in fact pure propaganda, designed to convince the reader that George W. Bush is politically spent and the US military doomed to defeat.

Iraqi Army forces are portrayed as untrained (only three months!), easily swept aside (why they lost Samarra twice!), and lacking in key infrastructure (Saddam pumped oil a lot faster!).

The question Calvin Woodward needs to ask himself is this: 

If al Qaeda wanted to use this article as propaganda, what parts would it have to change?

The twisted humor of Ted Rall

Ted Rall's latest scrawlings have excited quite the blogburst.  LT Smash, Michelle Malkin - basically anyone who isn't a raving military-hating lunatic is pretty upset by his portrayal of US soldiers as sadistic killers.

The Posse confess ourselves to be mildly amused.  The notion that Iraq war veterans barge into homes, torture their dates, indimidate their prospective in-laws and then murder those they break up with (using air strikes, no less!) is beyond parody.

Actually, that's not true.  It is a parody - of the anti-war left.

This is the sort of humor one would expect South Park to produce to illustrate the hate and venom of the left - not something the left should produce on its own.

Rall has made it abundantly clear that he hates the military - though he will no doubt claim that the war is making these people crazy and that he has nothing but sympathy for them.  But that merely makes him gutless.  It's like the Vietnam canard that all our soldiers were war criminals but it wasn't their fault, it was Nixon's, or LBJ's or something like that.

All of this is a side issue, though.  The real issue is that this comic strip isn't even close to funny.

It's poorly drawn and utterly humorless.  Does Rall himself laugh at this as he draws it?  Does anyone? 

Sure, some folks may laugh, but it will be a snort of derision, not admiring amusement.

Dilbert makes people really laugh.  They laugh so much they paste the strips on their cube walls, email them around and share the mirth.

Reading a Dilbert compilation can induce severe stomach pain from laughter.

Ted Rall can't possibly compare to that kind of humor.

So what we have is a strip that isn't funny, doesn't produce anything new and actively offends most people who read it.

It's pathetic and degrading - to Rall, more than anyone else.

This is a cry for attention, the equivalent of a child wetting itself to get noticed.  Rall is like the kid who eats worms on the playground - yes, everyone thinks he's disgusting, but for a moment he's the center of attention, and that's all that matters.

Truly pathetic.

Pacifists make great hostages

That has to be the lesson from this news story about four unidentified Westerners seized in Iraq.

Christian Peacemaker Teams seem to be a typical extreme pacifist, anti-Western outfit.  They are consistent to a fault, asking that no violence be used to rescue their captured members.

They are also obsessed with defending Iraq's detainees - a singularly strange fear, given that most people dying in Iraq are being blown up by terrorists, sadistic prison guards.

Pacifism and moral persuasion are all well and good, provided the enemy has a conscience to be appealed to.  The Posse has always favored negotiation over force, but we recognized that there are situations where force is the only workable alternative.

CPT has gone to considerable efforts to ensure that the terrorists know they are effectively on their side.  Their payback for this is abduction and possible torture and execution - perhaps on video tape.

The Posse believes that this may be an attempt to regain some attention and momentum after the public relations nightmare al Qaeda kicked off by bombing that Jordanian wedding reception.

CPT pricks the conscience of the west - here are true pacifists, working in-country for non-violence.  This hearkens back to the familiar chicken-hawk smear, since it will be pointed out that they are even more courageous than soldiers, for they have no weapons.

The ease of their abduction is an indictment on the inability of the Coaliton or the Iraqi government to provide security.

As Christians, they make excellent victims - why they're Crusader spies!  They even admit being infidels!

Finally, they have a much better likelihood of whining and begging for their lives on tape - always a key consideration where Islamofascist snuff films on considered.  Nothing goes over better when sawing off a head than to have the victim begging for dialogue and pleading for mercy and understanding.

The last thing these killers want is a repeat of Fabrizio Quattrocchi's defiant last words:  "Now I'm going to show you how an Italian dies!"

The Posse does not question the courage or conviction of the CPT members, we merely believe they are utterly naive and hopelessly misguided.

Alas, four of their members may pay the ultimate price for the folly that animates this organization.

Defeatists and fascist apologetics

The Indepundit notes another defeatist rally using dead American soldiers as props for their cause.

This is hardly noteworthy any more, but LT Smash goes the extra mile by taking quotes from one of the protest's leaders.  The equivocation is so stunning in their moral blindness that the remarks almost speak for themselves:

I challenge anyone to prove that the people of Iraq are better off today than they were 18 months ago. Back then more Iraqi people were gainfully employed, and had electricity and clean water. Unless they'd ticked off Saddam or his progeny, most Iraqi's [sic] could walk outside their homes without fear of being kidnapped or shot. Their museums still held exquisite artifacts from the beginning of civilization. Their children were going to school and Iraqi women enjoyed one of the most liberated societies in the Arab world.[Emphasis added by the Posse]

We note that she neglects to mention that merely being a Shi'ite Arab or Kurd counted as "ticking off Saddam and his progeny."   So 80 percent of the nation qualified to be kidnapped or shot.

Clearly, the woman is ignorant.

But what makes this even more remarkable is how easily it applies to almost any other oppressed people.

Let us take the sentence we bolded and use it in other contexts, say that of apartheid South Africa:

Back then more black South African people were gainfully employed, and had electricity and clean water. Unless they'd ticked off the ruling whites, most black South Africans could walk outside their homes without fear of being kidnapped or shot.

Or perhaps Stalin's Soviet Empire:

Back then more Russian people were gainfully employed, and had electricity and clean water. Unless they'd ticked off Stalin or his agents, most Russians could walk outside their homes without fear of being kidnapped or shot.

The obvious example is Nazi Germany:

Back then more German people were gainfully employed, and had electricity and clean water. Unless they'd ticked off the Nazis, most Germans could walk outside their homes without fear of being kidnapped or shot.

The list goes on and on.

The fact is that all dictatorships have a favored group to serve as a power base.  In North Korea it is the army.  In Iran it is the mullahs and their militia.  In Cuba and China, it is the Communist Party apparatachiks.

What this dimbulb is suggesting is that so long as things appear peaceful on the outside, the suffering of millions - even the majority of the country - is never cause to intervene. 

Nothing could more clearly indicate the moral bankruptcy of the anti-war left than this line of reasoning.

Of course, her statement is false on its face.  Pre-war Iraq was a crumbling mess.  Many areas lacked reliable power, drinking water or any other necessity.

Saddam didn't do this because of the sanctions, he did it out of the blackness of his wicked heart. 

There are two things we have learned since Iraq was liberated.  The first has been hyped to death, but still gets an incredible amount of ink:  That Iraq's WMD programs were not as advanced as we feared.

But the second should be even more important to those who claim moral authority in matters of war and peace.  That lesson is this:  The humanitarian situation was far worse than anyone even imagined.

We now know that Oil for Food was a joke, that sanctions were easily circumvented by Saddam and his cronies and that nothing in the UN programme prevented the importantion of adequate food, medicine and civil equipment to maintain Iraq's people.

The only reason babies died of malnutrition, that Iraqis were forced to drink fetid water and that the power failed outside of Baghdad on a regular basis was Saddam's unquenchable and immoral greed.

Like the Ukrainian famine, this was a manufactured humanitarian crisis.  Saddam could have been awash in food and medicine; his nation could have had mountains of aid piled on every pier, wharf and railhead and still Iraqis would have starved.

The anti-war movement has no moral authority.  It is soulless and ethically bankrupt.  It has sacrificed the universal value of human life for political gain (for surely, an American soldier's life is worth no more than an Iraqi baby's?).  So much for egalitarianism.

A movie worth watching

Via Instapundit, we learn that Bruce Willis is working on a film about the war in Iraq.

Unlike the prevailing media mood, this one will be pro-victory (we prefer that to the term "pro-war"; the Posse isn't for war, we are for VICTORY).

Already the blogosphere is buzzing with excitement.  Films that don't demonize American soldiers are becoming pretty rare; perhaps a byproduct of Hollywood's increasing insularity from military life.

The Posse would certainly pony up a few bucks to see this on the big screen.

Our patron blog-saint Roger L. Simon predicts this will make lots of money and we concur.  If it is even passing good, it should do yeoman work at the box office.

The Posse has often remarked at the bizarre distortion of our military that inhabits so much of the anti-war left - a term largely synonymous with the mainstream media.

The only war heroes they care for are fake ones or one that repudiate their heroism.

What a refreshing change it would be to celebrate these brave men and women in film, as was done a half-century ago.

What we're thankful for

This year the Posse is profoundly grateful for the three Fs:  Family, Faith and Freedom.

It has been a tough year for us.  Unlike other bloggers, we haven't brought much of our personal information out, largely because our goal has been to make this a site people read because they like what we write rather than who we are (or, in the cases of so many anti-war "veterans," claim to be).

We have seen a wonderous new addition to our family, the Wiggle Princess.  Since July, she has been chugging formula like a champ and now bears a strong resemblance to the Michelin man.

She has a marvelously mind temper and for that we are very thankful.

Our other princesses (Pocahontas and Darth Vader) are likewise thriving.  Sithkitten had a dangerous infection (which again, we kept quiet about), but pulled through.

This year we've seen our faith tested as never before, but it is now stronger than ever.  The Posse made the decision to return to the faith of our fathers and rejoing the Holy Catholic Church.  We must admit that the hysterics over the selection of His Holiness Benedict XVI helped confirm our view that this was the right decision.

Finally, we are profoundly grateful for the freedom we have to raise our family in peace and to worship as we choose.

Planning, setbacks and pursuing perfection in war

The war in Iraq is moving back to the front burner, and amidst the usual leftist lies and distortions, one signal element remains clear:  the American people no longer are conditioned to accept adversity in wartime.

The expectation has been built that wars can be run on perfect timetables and that any setbacks are the result of imcompetence and defective planning.

The high priest of this viewpoint is Andrew Sullivan.  Sullivan regularly castigates the administration for a litany of "errors" that no one else predicted or pointed out, allowing him to paint his position as only slightly less disingenuous than the bona-fide anti-military defeatists over at Daily Kos and MoveOn.org.

Though our readership is less than a tenth of his, the Posse will offer this lesson in the hope that thinking people will disseminate it and come to understand that war isn't an idle pursuit or a sporting event, but an all-consuming effort, fraught with chance and peril and that one does not win it so much as survive it.

One of Sullivan's most jaded and pathetic canards is that there was "no planning."

This is manifestly untrue.  The liberation of Iraq was one of the best-planned military operations in history, setting records for the pace of the advance and the speed of its success.

The problem is that  one can only plan ahead so far.  At a certain point, the enemy will intervene.  He will do things to harm your plans.  He will attempt to disrupt your operations.  In short, he will fight back.

This is where people like Sullivan have it dead wrong.  Not all enemy tactics are forseeable and in attempting to counter all possibilities, one usually ends up countering none of them.

Let us examine the "travesty" of the armored Humvees.

Normally only a few of these were armored.  There are good reasons for this: armor slows them down, makes them less stable and significantly degrades their useful life.  Oh, and it's expensive.

The terrorists noted that our tanks and APCs were hard to kill, but the Humvees weren't, so they went after the soft targets.

We then up-armored the Humvees in an amazingly short amount of time, but the fact that we actually had to adjust to enemy tactics was held to be a debacle of the highest order.

Similarly, the decision of the terrorists to abandon open battles and resort to bomb attacks was not widely forseen and event if it had been, there was nothing that could have been done to stop it from happening.

Sullivan's repeated insistance that keeping Saddam's traitorous and undisciplined army intact would have helped out is pure garbage - as anyone who knows anything about it can point out.

What we could do was rebuild it, as rapidly as possible, training them to the best standard possible.

We can give them equipment and training, but they will still make mistakes, as will our forces.

That is the next point: there will be mistakes.  The greatest generals and fighting forces in history have made often huge blunders.  Mistakes are part of war.  There are two ways one can deal with them:

1. Learn from them and move on, or
2. Recriminate, attempt to find scapegoats and pin the blame on them.

The second option is what our so-called "patriotic dissenters" do best.  They are creating a "zero defect" mentality that rewards inaction more than action.  That is the logical result of their actions.

Better to sit in camp than risk battle because bad things can happen when battle is joined.

The problem of course is that inaction carries its own considerable risks.  The enemy is not idle.  While we indulge in witch hunts and finger pointing, he is preparing his next move.

Perhaps nothing we have written on this site is more important than this lesson: The enemy wants us to lose and is doing everything he can to achieve our defeat.

He will change tactics, spread lies, violate the rules of war and do anything else he can think of to ensure his victory.

The proper response to this is to grit one's teeth and renew our own determination - not wail that our leaders are lying idiots and that all will soon be lost.

We should draw strength from our own determination, confidence from our successes and move forward with renewed vigor.

The parallels of World War II are often overstated, but one cannot but marvel at how bad things got before they got better.

Indeed, even when the Allies turned the corner, there were plenty of bloody setbacks:  Anzio, Monte Cassino, the Ardennes, the V-weapon menace, kamikaze attacks and so forth.

World War II was not unique.  If the measure of a people is best taken in adversity, ours is a pathetic and spoiled generation.  It has no Antietam, no Valley Forge, no Bataan to put the fire of revenge in its belly and the steel of resolve in its spine.

There has been no "miracle of the Marne" to rally our nation, only a succession of overblown and often false meda exposes determined - above all else - to undermine our will to fight.

Whether discussing white phosphorus or Abu Ghraib, the emphasis is always on our troops, our planning, our mistakes.

The enemy is almost reduced to an illusion, a faceless ghost-like substance that watches and revels in our self-abuse and abasement.

Any tactics he uses, we must have given him. Any weapons he possesses, we must have issued to him.  He has no independent thought, no independent action, he merely sits passively by, like an actor sipping water on the set, waiting for the lights to turn on him and the cameras to roll.

When he isn't in the media spotlight, he does nothing; when we are distracted, he also is distracted.

This is the dangerous and deadly illusion that people like Sullivan nurse.  While he wrings his hands about fake menstrual blood, our enemy is chopping off heads and hands.  While he wonders if Congress is being properly gentle and polite to defeatists, they are planting bombs. 

Can soldiers be defeatists?

Of course they can.  History abounds with examples of individually courageous men who, faced with the responsibility for the lives of others, choose defeat rather than prolonging what they consider a hopeless fight.

Into this groups we may include Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat we confess we'd never even heard of.  Apparently he's some sort of hawk, yet his current stance - which aligns him squarely with the terrorists - is more than a year old.

The Posse wishes it to be made clear that we do not consider Murtha a traitor per se, but his actions are harmful to the cause.

We are sure that many on the left will point out that as a wounded veteran, Murtha is beyond reproach - somthing Murtha himself does.

But past service - while something to be honored and respected - does not excuse current behavior.  Benedict Arnold was one of the most capable and courageous American commanders during the Revolutionary War - until he turned traitor.

Similarly, Henri Philippe Petain was a respected soldier of proven ability, arguably the savior of France in the Great War.  He was a hero to the West, until he betrayed his nation.

These examples may strike some as overdramatic.  Perhaps a better example is that of George Brinton McClellan, a skilled adminstrator, talented organizer and personally courageous soldier, but a man whose nerve suddenly left him whenever battle was joined.

McClellan was not incompetent in the classical sense; his fault was his overcaution coupled with the crippling belief that the enemy was always stronger and faster.  It is perhaps an irony that the bloodiest day of the Civil War took place on the watch of a man so averse to bloodshed.  Then again, while Antietam was bloody, it was not tactically decisive.

McClellan later was nominated to run against Abraham Lincoln, whom he savaged at every opportunity.  In his zeal to win, he was willing to accept support from a party that then, as now, flirted with treason and embraced defeatism: the Democrats.

Thus the tragedy is that once again a man of proven worth has fallen prey to anxiety and fear - so much so that he cannot realize that he is only making matters worse.

UPDATE:  Well, it seems Rep. Murtha may have more in common with Petain after all.  Gateway Pundit reveals he's been singing the defeatist song for some time.

Pre-war intelligence was accurate enough

There is much pointless and needless discussion at present about intelligence failures prior to the liberation of Iraq in 2003.

The Posse, like all right-minded, patriotic Americans, rejoices to see the Bush administration finally hitting back and hitting back hard on the most pernicious and destructive Big Lie of the new century: that the pre-war intelligence was "cooked" or otherwise doctored by the administration.

This debate is ultimately pointless, and not because the world has moved on and it is too late to claim a do-over - as many Democratic politicians seem to want.

No, it is a pointless question because it has already been answered.

There is not now, nor has there ever been, any doubt that Saddam Hussein's Iraq retained substantial chemical and biological weapons programs.  This should be beyond debate, even among the howling moonbats now controlling the Democratic National Committee.

Nor can any credulous person question that Saddam Hussein possessed the military/industrial infrastructure to produce advanced chemical weapons whenever he desired to do so.  Inspectors could have certified Iraq to be 100 percent disarmed, but this would only have been true at that exact moment in time.  Within a few days, production would be back up and running and Iraq's deadly arsenals would once more be churning out deadly poisons.

This signal fact is why many who supported war didn't give a fig what U.N. inspectors found.  Were  angels from heaven to come down to certify that every drop of VX was gone, we knew full well that this situation would last only until Saddam wished it to change.

That is why the whole question of pre-war intelligence is a pointless exercise in sophistry.

We know that Saddam also was under negotiation to obtain long-range missiles from North Korea and that he actually possessed missiles with ranges beyond the permitted limit.

The Posse offers the following simple scenario:  Imagine the West gives Hans Blix more time.  Come the fall of 2003, the inspections have still found nothing.  Indeed, perhaps in a moment of rare strategic skill, Saddam decided to hand over token materials and "come clean."

Several month later, Saddam purchases missiles or the appropriate technology from North Korea and launches a intermediate range ballistic missile over Syria and deep into the Mediterranean.

The range of the shot indicates it can reach any capital in central Europe.

What would our options be then?

Would Saddam still be in Madeline Albright's box?  Would sanctions have any supporters?  Which European state would be the first to ask for VX warheads to hit is populated areas in retaliation for thwarting the will of Iraq's strong man?

This was the danger that we saw and the danger that we now know was all too real.  It didn't matter of Saddam had 100,000 tons of VX or none, the point was he had the means and motive to create more, at a time of his choosing.

Many in the West have forgotten this.  They are capable only when danger stares them in the face.  They expect to be saved in between when the hammer falls and the bullet leaves the chamber.

The Posse knows better - the time to act is when the thug's gun is still in its holster, not when it is pointed at you and his finger is on the trigger.

White phosphorus and other smoke screens

One of the more amusing characteristics of the anti-war left is its utter ignorance of military matters.  It seems beyond their understanding that weapons are designed to kill and that being hit by them is supposed to be unpleasant (if not fatal) for the enemy.

Yet there is an increasing network of leftist think tanks that claim to examine war and strategy, often throwing around lots of jargon and occasionally staffed by former military members.  One would think these would-be generals would know their stuff.  They do not.

Via the less Hated Instapundit, the Posse finds a series of posts on the attack du jour: white phosphorus.

This one on the Daily Ablution offers a good overview of some of the ignorance now being brought to bear for this latest alleged atrocity commited by Coalition forces.

It links to this article by the Original Moonbat, that, despite all the hyperbole, undercuts itself with this paragraph:

White phosphorus is not listed in the schedules of the Chemical Weapons Convention. It can be legally used as a flare to illuminate the battlefield, or to produce smoke to hide troop movements from the enemy. Like other unlisted substances, it may be deployed for "Military purposes... not dependent on the use of the toxic properties of chemicals as a method of warfare".

That's it, nothing to see here.  It isn't a chemical weapon, isn't restricted and so there is no story.

The article goes on to note that other nasty weapons designed for urban fighting are being employed and this apparently implies that the Coalition is now morally identical to Saddam Hussein.

Let's review the left's arithmetic, shall we?

Using napalm and smoke shells to clear terrorist positions = firing nerve gas into villages filled with women and children.

The hilarity continues, though.

Here is a post from the Daily Kos that cries out for a fisking.  The article quoted below is held as incontrivertible proof that the US is commiting war crimes.  The emphasis was added by the Kossack:

Joking and rousting each other like boys just seconds before, the men were instantly all business. With fellow Marines between them and their targets, a lot was at stake.

Bogert received coordinates of the target, plotted them on a map and called out the settings for the gun they call "Sarah Lee."

Millikin, 21, from Reno, Nev., and Alexander, 23, from Wetumpka, Ala., quickly made the adjustments. They are good at what they do.

"Gun up!" Millikin yelled when they finished a few seconds later, grabbing a white phosphorus round from a nearby ammo can and holding it over the tube.

"Fire!" Bogert yelled, as Millikin dropped it.

The boom kicked dust around the pit as they ran through the drill again and again, sending a mixture of burning white phosphorus and high explosives they call "shake 'n' bake" into a cluster of buildings where insurgents have been spotted all week.

They say they have never seen what they've hit, nor did they talk about it as they dusted off their breakfast and continued their hilarious routine of personal insults and name-calling.

How horrible!  Troops firing without even seeing the targets!

Why we should start the war crimes trials right now!

Except for the fact that modern artillery rarely, if ever, has line of sight on what it is shelling.  It has been this way only for the past one hundred years.

The system is called "indirect fire" and it is the norm for military fire support.  The procedure is fairly simple:  A combat unit actively engaged in fighting sights and enemy strong point.  It radios back to its artillery, which can be several miles distant.  It calls in the coordinates, requests a certain type of shell, and then waits for it to hit before resuming the advance.

Thanks to modern communications, this procedures is almost flawless.  It is possible for multiple artillery batteries to so synchronize their firing times that shells from dozens of cannon can land within seconds of one another.  Everything is taken into account: flight time, wind direction, even the rotation of the earth while the projectile is in the air.

The artillerists cited by Kos' hysterical and ignorant posters are rightly proud of their achievement.  Never before in warfare has artillery fire been so rapid, flexible or accurate.

The chief beneficiaries are civilians, because the older system would have required far more ordnance delivered less accurately meaning more aggregate destruction.

White phospherous comes into play because it has several uses.  It can obscure a target, helping friendly forces get closer, it can start small fires and its smoke is also unpleasant to be caught in.

Remember, the object is to kill the enemy.  It would be preferable if they came out of their fighting positions and got shot the easy way, but because they have decided to hunker down, the Coalition must find a way to get at them without losing all of their own soldiers.

What this episode demonstrates is that even ostensible "experts" are utterly clueless about military operations.

They want to pin the "war criminals" label on US soldiers at all costs.  The real question is whether the "mainstream" of the Democratic party will pile on.