Was Napalm absolutely necessary for use in Vietnam? I don’t think so. I think it was just an act of inhumane cruelness on behalf of the United States towards Vietnam.
Before I read the Burning Illusions article, I just assumed napalm was fire that was shot at the enemy; I did not know the true use and power of this chemical. It turns out that napalm is a chemical composition of gasoline, benzene and a chemical that is very sticky called polystyrene. The whole idea of napalm is to harm and destroy and kill people and cities. Well in my opinion there are better less painful ways to do this if you absolutely feel you need to take peoples lives in a war. I think the use of napalm in Vietnam or during any war is a war crime. It is unnecessary.
The way napalm sticks to people’s clothes, skin and burns to the bone and basically burns them alive is reason enough to not use it ever. I can understand maybe using it to burn down a city, but it is inevitable that within that city, like in Vietnam, there will be civilians who cannot get out of the way in time. A civilian may be able to avoid bombs dropping on their city, but when napalm falls from the sky like rain, I believe it will be much harder to avoid injury or death. And we can see in Vietnam how many innocent people this napalm torched.
The use of napalm during World War II was said to have been for “strategic bombing”, to take out large cities and their population. I think the use of napalm back then was wrong because innocent people were getting burned alive, its not as if they got hit with a stray bullet and could tend to the wound. They were on fire or suffered serious 3rd degree burns. The suffered shear pain I cannot imagine.
I think the use of napalm in Vietnam just demonstrates even more how the United States was running out of ideas about how to win Vietnam. I think it was an amateur low move on Americas part, and was not necessary. Even if the napalm was to be used for “strategic bombing” in Vietnam that was already a mistake because the bombers would fly so high up and often miss their intended targets on the ground, often killing hundreds of civilians. The napalm would make this much worse.