Willy Pete goes to Lebanon part II:

Here's a little update on the Lebanese/Israel war:

Back in July I spent pretty much the whole month writing about this war and I commented on the IDF's use of Willy Pete, cluster bombs, and some sort of other weapon that turns people's skin into paper. Naturally, Israel deied it used any of these WMDs.

I haven't figured out which WMD the one that turns skin into paper was, but Israel has finally admited that it used White Phosphorous. The BBC reports that "Cabinet minister Jacob Edery confirmed the bombs were dropped 'against military targets in open ground. . . The Israeli army made use of phosphorus shells during the war against Hezbollah in attacks against military targets in open ground." Yeah, right. (The use of Willy Pete on civilians is a violation of the Geneva Conventions, by the way.)

According to Haaretz (via Newsvine.com, an Israeli battalion commander has condemned the carpet bombing of Souther Lebanon in the waning hours before the UN cease-fire took hold.

"'In Lebanon, we covered entire villages with cluster bombs, what we did there was crazy and monstrous,' testifies a commander in the Israel Defense Forces'MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System) unit. Quoting his battalion commander, he said the IDF fired some 1,800 cluster rockets on Lebanon during the war and they contained over 1.2 million cluster bombs. The IDF also used cluster shells fired by 155 mm artillery cannons, so the number of cluster bombs fired on Lebanon is even higher. At the same time, soldiers in the artillery corps testified that the IDF used phosphorous shells, which many experts say is prohibited by international law. According to the claims, the overwhelming majority of the weapons mentioned were fired during the last ten days of the war."

The UN reports that there are perhaps a million cluster bomblets littering S. Lebanon that are killing about 1 person a day sionce the war ended.