Couple of Things About Chemical Weapons

US pilot in Vietnam, quoted by Noam Chomsky:

'We sure are pleased with those backroom boys at Dow [Chemical]. The original [Napalm] product wasn't so hot—if the gooks were quick they could scrape it off. So the boys started adding polystyrene—now it sticks like shit to a blanket. But then if the gooks jumped under water it stopped burning, so they started adding Willie Peter [white phosphorus] so's to make it burn better. It'll burn under water now. And just one drop is enough; it'll keep on burning right down to the bone so they die anyway from phosphorus poisoning.' (Quoted, Noam Chomsky, For Reasons of State, The New Press, 2003, pp. 3-4)

Pilger’s first-hand experience:

'At least three million people died during the Vietnam War, the great majority of them civilians. My own introduction to this war against civilians was at the hospital at Can Tho in the Mekong Delta in 1967. … "I guess he's around ten years old," said the young American doctor, a volunteer. Before us was a child whose nose and chin had merged, whose eyes apparently could not close and whose skin, once brown, was now red and black and papery, like frayed cloth. "Beats me how these kids live through all that shit out there," said the doctor. "This one's been burned with Napalm B. That's the stuff made from benzene, polystyrene and gasoline. It sticks to the body and is impossible to get off, and either burns the victim to death or suffocates him by using up all the oxygen."' (John Pilger, Hidden Agendas, Vintage, 1998, pp. 555-6)

‘It sticks to the body and is impossible to get off’—‘like shit to a blanket.’