h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was surprised to learn that Napalm was still being used by the USA in civilian zones etc, albeit under a new name and slight modification to its formulation. This material sticks to the skin and burns down to the bone. Should it be banned?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_77_bomb

I'd like to see it banned. Trouble is, my great uncle Arthur would roll over in his grave if it was. Uncle Arthur claimed to have been on the team that invented napalm. He was making this claim in the early 1970s, and I'm glad no one outside the family heard him. He was in his eighties by then, and not all that lucid. I hope he was wrong about inventing napalm, but I don't want to investigate to find out for sure .

And the evidence that civilians have been injured in any way is ...?

So the Yanks are using napalm?

Except that they're not using napalm. They're using incendiary bombs (which we're also quite keen on. Just ask Jerry from Dresden) and only against military targets, in cases when using a high explosive would lead to higher civilian casualties.

Yeah, I'd stop them using it. Let them drop cluster bombs instead.

I think they should administer a Stern Warning instead, with a Finger Wagging used in extremis against Very Naughty Enemy Soldiers.

http://www.justsickshit.com/wp-content/gallery/napalm-victims-in-war/napalm_victim.jpg

I wonder how many civilians ended up looking like this.

There's no evidence to say any Pedro. Is there?

Was Uncle Arthur a Harvard Man?

I found out about the continued use of napalm (with a little name change & reformulation) from the following (or at least a review of it):
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674073012

Uncle Arthur attended Worcester Polytech, which is in Worcester, Massachusetts. He almost got me and my brother killed when he took us to see the campus. His driving was so clueless that he stopped in the middle of an intersection to point out something. A driver coming at us from a side street had to slam on his brakes in order to avoid an accident.

I would be happy if he *didn't* invent napalm. It would be kind of sad, though, to think that as he looked back on his life, that was what he considered his towering achievement. I guess chemical engineering isn't a sexy occupation.

I think napalm had a series of inventions but the team of Louis Fieser at Harvard University is said to be first to develop a synthetic napalm usable by the military in 1942. There would have been a series of "improvements" in terms of its killing ability (ability to stick to skin etc), storage stability etc. Also collaborators from different institutions would likely have been involved. I'm sure your uncle could have played a role in its development somewhere along the line. His driving sounds like that of a typical scatty academic type ... although chemical engineers generally pride themselves on being extremely practical, hands on type of people.

His bad driving probably had something to do with hardening of the arteries in his head. He was at least 80 at the time. My mother intervened with the Registry of Motor Vehicles to get him off the road. My brother and I didn't know how bad his driving was, or we would not have accompanied him.

"I think they should administer a Stern Warning instead, with a Finger Wagging used in extremis against Very Naughty Enemy Soldiers."

Hear, hear. We did that in Norn Irn and got Nobel Peace Prizes for it.

Not that I'm a cynic.

The Mark 77. I remember it well from EOD school. After all the drab green bombs, the aluminum Mark 77 was sort of a bright spot. Plus, EOD techs are pyros anyway. As I recall, it had twin fuzes with white phosphorus to set off the napalm. Having white phosphorus and napalm (even if that wasn't what it was officially called) in one device seemed pretty cool.

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=hr92t1IDDJg&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dhr92t1IDDJg

In a world where resources are scarce, war is inevitable.

In a world where war happens, civilian casualties are inevitable.

The only question worth asking of a weapon is: does it *work*? As in - does it operate in such a way as to reduce the number of casualties on our side and make the war stop sooner? Any weapon that satisfies those two requisites will get used, and will continue to get used.

You can wring your hands in concern all you like, but unless you actually come up with a *better* way of winning wars, or preferably something that makes the war unnecessary, just bleating about how nasty the weapons are is pointless. Rifles are nasty. Grendades are nasty. Soldiers are humans too.

Napalm works, it seems. If it didn't, it wouldn't get used.

It was a simple question ... Should it be banned?

Is asking a question "bleating on about it"?

Well - yes.

Rather the point was that "should it be banned?" is a stupid question. It works, therefore it will continue to be used, banned or not but it any case it's useful to the larger powers, so no ban will occur. Banning it is pointless, campaigning to ban it is pointless. If you want people to not use napalm, you have to remove the reason for them wanting to, because if it's the best option in the circumstances, it definitely will be used, regardless of what bleeding hearts might think of it, because the alternative is to place your own troops as increased risk, which is unacceptable.

Consider for a moment what a ban might involve. It might involve anyone who uses such a weapon being brought before the international criminal court. But that presupposes that the user resides in a country which is prepared to have its citizens stand trial for such things. Can you name one? (Note: lots of countries have signed up to the ICC. The USA has not - which makes it look a bit pointless, don't you think?)

If there's no realistic way to prosecute the use of a banned weapon, any ban is meaningless, if you could even get one enacted. So even asking whether there should be a ban betrays a lack of clear thought on the matter.

There's a standard in customary international law, which is enforceable in international ad hoc tribunals and American military and domestic law, called Jus in Bello. The four principles of Jus in Bello govern the legality of tactics used in armed conflict.

The first principle is military necessity. All attacks must justify in that they degrade the enemy's ability or will to fight.

The second is the principle of distinction, which governs who may be targeted. Generally, it's limited to military forces, their equipment, civilians who are directly participating in hostilities (such as terrorists and CIA officers), and industrial equipment that is aiding the war effort.

The third is proportionality. The attack must not harm civilians to the point that it's disproportionate eto the legitimate target of the attack. For instance, a military recruiter is a legitimate target of war, but you can't nuke St. Paul, Minnesota to kill him. On the other hand, you could bomb Fort Stewart, Georgia even though you may well harm civilians in nearby Hinesville.

Finally, there is the notion of causing unnecessary suffering. It's legal to kill and maim people for the war effort, but the means of causing injury may not be designed to make treatment afterwards unnecessarily difficult. So you can't use bullets that are identical to normal bullets in all respects other than being invisible to X-rays so that they're more difficult to locate.

Can the use of napalm be unlawful? Obviously. If you were to target troops in the open in a place where conventional explosives would adequately disable them, then the use of napalm would probably be unlawful. You can kill or maim the enemy, but once they're unable to fight they will be subject to continued burning. Burns are particularly difficult and painful to treat. It would be difficult to argue that the use of napalm against troops in the open wouldn't violate the prohibition against causing unnecessary suffering.

Can napalm be a lawful weapon? Absolutely. In Desert Storm, the Iraqis filled trenches with oil to act as a barrier to invading American forces. The marines used napalm (or its functional equivalent) to burn off the oil. Depending on the circumstances, it might be useful for destroying equipment in the field, clearing vegetation, or destroying ammunition or fuel storage facilities that aren't adequately protected.

Since the weapon has lawful uses, and there are legal standards to evaluate its use, I don't see a need for banning napalm outright.

So the legality is in the application, assuming the necessity of war in the first place. I can see the reasonableness of the application of napalm (or equivalent) to the deactivation of equipment & the burning off of hazards. It is just so difficult to know that those procedures are being followed i.e. appropriate versus inappropriate use ... under the uncertainties of the war situation.

> I guess chemical engineering isn't a sexy occupation. <

Don't tell Hoo or Alfster