[yummyfajitas]

The exact type of weapon used is not relevant. (Except for things like white phosphorus, obviously.)

It isn't obvious to me why incendiaries (such as phosphorus or molotov cocktails) fall into some special class of "bad" weapons. Could you explain?

[anigbrowl]

For one thing, the use among civilian populations of white phosphorus as a weapon (rather than as part of a smoke screen) is of dubious legality; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_phosphorus

[yummyfajitas]

I think the legality is pretty clear. Protocol III of the Concentional Weapons Convention bans incendiaries under many circumstances, but the US has not adopted it.

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

http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/NORM/C1C4BFCF736BF820C1256402003...

Some activists also wish to call it a chemical weapon, but by that logic lead bullets are also a chemical weapon (since lead is toxic).

[anigbrowl]

Britain has. Using or taking part in an action which uses American WP munitions could (theoretically) be a court-martial offence.

[biohacker42]

Bombs don't do a good job of discriminating between soldiers and civilians, so that's bad.

Bombs which don't so much explode as burn you alive are even worse.