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johnm214


Registered: 05/31/07
Posts: 17,582
Loc: Americas
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Chemical Weapons and the Laws of War/ Fairness- Why Such an Issue?
#14885519 - 08/07/11 01:13 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Chemical weapons have been banned by treaty since at least prior to WWI. Since then they have been included in still more treaties limiting weapons. Prior to the "grand coalition's" 2003 invasion of Iraq, their chemical weapons facilities were frequently mentioned by Bush as an example of Saddam's treachery/dangerousness.
Why are chemical weapons regarded as unfair and particularly unreasonable offensive tools in war? They are often grouped together with biological weapons, but the distinction seems great, as biological agents are in practice very difficult to restrict to a particular target and spread on their own- chemical weapons don't.
Hearing about the use of chlorine and other agents in WWI, I've always wondered if their power wasn't more the fear that those ignorant of chemistry might have had. You can see a gun and plainly see the damage it causes, but this is not true with various chemical agents.
What do you think? Why are chemical weapons regarded as particularly disgusting? Were they really all that useful in the wars in which they were used or was it mostly hype and fear born from the unknown?
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DieCommie

Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 29,258
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Re: Chemical Weapons and the Laws of War/ Fairness- Why Such an Issue? [Re: johnm214]
#14885616 - 08/07/11 01:31 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Thats a good question, I dont have any answer. I've always thought that 'rules of war' seemed kind of silly.
If you are following rules in your conflict, then then its not much of a war.
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HagbardCeline
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Re: Chemical Weapons and the Laws of War/ Fairness- Why Such an Issue? [Re: johnm214]
#14885786 - 08/07/11 02:26 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Agreed. I think when you look at the most of the history of warfare (at least since gunpowder and probably before), every effective new form of weaponry or tactic was decried as barbaric and unjust.
Damn traditionalist opinion. The British bemoaned the Americans for for their uncivilized tactics of guerilla warfare. The Americans couldn't believe Indians would steal horses and attack at night.
I think you can have two types of conflicts (admittedly this may be short sighted). One in which neither side is significantly at risk for annihilation, and one where they are.
If you are fighting over typical matters like trade routes and territorial disputes, I can see the justification for barring hyper-lethal methods. But when your very existence is at threat, I believe nothing should be off the table.
-------------------- I keep it real because I think it is important that a highly esteemed individual such as myself keep it real lest they experience the dreaded spontaneous non-existance of no longer keeping it real. - Hagbard Celine
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HagbardCeline
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Re: Chemical Weapons and the Laws of War/ Fairness- Why Such an Issue? [Re: johnm214]
#14886229 - 08/07/11 03:56 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Also, though I know you may not see all of the chemical agents, in many cases the damage they caused was very apparent. To a lot of people, I think those images were a major motivator in the banning of the chemicals weapons. The burns and other disfiguring effects of chemical weapons may be viewed as "unnatural" and somehow worse than traditional injury from weaponry. I for one share the opinion that a death from from a bullet or conventional explosive would be preferable to one by some nerve agent or other substance inducing an unimaginably painful and horrifying death. Though my fear may be irrational and cultured from the various media I've consumed.
From that line of thinking, as leader of an armed force, I would have to consider the threat of the use of chemical weaponry and how that would affect my army's motivation. A person's willingness to go into battle facing that type of death is certainly in question. In that sense, its got more in common with the M.A.D. doctrine. Any of the significant world powers could deploy chemical weapons to devastating effect, which could in turn elicit a like response. Unless those powers are controlled by fanatics of some sort and unless your existence was threatened or it was a last ditch effort, then just like nukes, the threat of a like retaliation is too great a risk.
In light of the success of the M.A.D. doctrine, it occurs to me that perhaps we've gone about things the wrong way. Instead of treaties and bans on the use of those weapons, they should be not only allowed but required. Any conflict should follow a tiered response timeline. The longer the conflict goes on, the more savage techniques are authorized at regular intervals.
I have to think peoples acceptance of warfare would be mostly extinguished if they knew at the 6 month mark, came the chemicals, at 12 months, biologicals, and at 24 months, nuclear. Imagining a world under that system could see a race for peerless deadly agents, but I'd like to think attitudes towards cooperation and compromise enjoyed a more rapid development.
-------------------- I keep it real because I think it is important that a highly esteemed individual such as myself keep it real lest they experience the dreaded spontaneous non-existance of no longer keeping it real. - Hagbard Celine
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ChuangTzu
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Re: Chemical Weapons and the Laws of War/ Fairness- Why Such an Issue? [Re: johnm214]
#14888479 - 08/08/11 01:45 AM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Why is it considered inhumane to hunt with full metal jacket bullets, but considered inhumane to conduct war with anything but full metal jacket bullets?
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Visionary Tools



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Re: Chemical Weapons and the Laws of War/ Fairness- Why Such an Issue? [Re: johnm214]
#14888899 - 08/08/11 06:27 AM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Ask to get shot in the leg, then huff some mustard gas.
Get back to us on which one hurt more.
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johnm214


Registered: 05/31/07
Posts: 17,582
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Re: Chemical Weapons and the Laws of War/ Fairness- Why Such an Issue? [Re: DieCommie]
#14889008 - 08/08/11 07:15 AM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
HagbardCeline said: I for one share the opinion that a death from from a bullet or conventional explosive would be preferable to one by some nerve agent or other substance inducing an unimaginably painful and horrifying death. Though my fear may be irrational and cultured from the various media I've consumed.
This is a false choice, though. The choice is not between death at one or the other, its between using one agent or the other (or perhaps fleeing from the battlefield when either is introduced). The gasses in WWI were not very lethal compared to conventional weapons after the defenders acquired rudimentary knowledge of how to deal with them (avoid low lieing areas were heavy gasses accumulate, don't breath them in, attempt to filter the gasses with any reactive substance, et cet).
Machine gun bullets, artilery, all can maim and result in incredible and prolonged suffering while infection kills you slowly. I don't see a big difference between chemical agents and mechanical ones in that sense.
Quote:
In light of the success of the M.A.D. doctrine, it occurs to me that perhaps we've gone about things the wrong way. Instead of treaties and bans on the use of those weapons, they should be not only allowed but required. Any conflict should follow a tiered response timeline. The longer the conflict goes on, the more savage techniques are authorized at regular intervals.
Well, obviously this can only be controlled with regards to ones own forces, but this is exactly the way strategists have thought out various military issues: tiered responses, reprisals, nuclear brinksmanship, et cet.
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Visionary Tools said: Ask to get shot in the leg, then huff some mustard gas.
Get back to us on which one hurt more.
Why? 
Quote:
DieCommie said:
If you are following rules in your conflict, then then its not much of a war.
I don't really agree, obviously one can disregard formal or informal agreements at any time, but it may be advantagous to enact them and to observe them even from a military perspective. For example, treating POW's well and protecting them from psychological and physical stress, injury, et cet: this encourages surrender of enemy forces without having to engage in costly attacks to root out enemy that is refusing to surrender yet in an impossible situation.
Think about the germans around and in Berlin towards the close of the war in europe in WWII. Many fleed to surrender to the powers in the west, especially the americans, having a well-justified fear of the Russians and the treatment they'd recieve if they weren't summarily shot (something like one in twenty would surrvive long enough to see Germany again after being captured in many instances such as the surrenders at Stalingrad). The Russians likely made things worse for their own troops by creating that unwillingness to surrender on the eastern front in the Axis powers. Many of the troops knew their position was hopeless, as well as the commanders: they could no longer fear the wrath of the doomed German state, but they would continue to fight for their own lives and the lives of their men and would not surrender to be killed off or starved to death.
A similar example is the Americans and other allied forces in the Pacific who knew what treatment they'd recieve if they surrendered after hearing about what happened to the troops in the Phillipenes who surrendered and were slaughtered in the "Death Marches" only to starve to death in the camps. The japanese likely would have had an easier time in their fights had surrender not been an option for those facing the japanese.
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Visionary Tools



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Re: Chemical Weapons and the Laws of War/ Fairness- Why Such an Issue? [Re: johnm214]
#14889399 - 08/08/11 09:25 AM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
johnm214 said:
Quote:
Visionary Tools said: Ask to get shot in the leg, then huff some mustard gas.
Get back to us on which one hurt more.
Why? 
For science!
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero



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Re: Chemical Weapons and the Laws of War/ Fairness- Why Such an Issue? [Re: ChuangTzu]
#14890444 - 08/08/11 01:48 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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> Why is it considered inhumane to hunt with full metal jacket bullets, but considered inhumane to conduct war with anything but full metal jacket bullets?
Because bullets with a full metal jacket are less likely to kill. This is good for soldiers that get shot, but bad for animals that get shot.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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ChuangTzu
starvingphysicist



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Re: Chemical Weapons and the Laws of War/ Fairness- Why Such an Issue? [Re: Seuss]
#14891310 - 08/08/11 04:16 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Seuss said:
Because bullets with a full metal jacket are less likely to kill.
I know this, but disagree with this:
Quote:
This is good for soldiers that get shot, but bad for animals that get shot.
Back when when the Hague Conventions (I believe those are the relevant treaties here) were passed (around the turn of the 20th century), I doubt there was any difference in lethality between the two types of bullets. If you got shot on the battle field, you were probably going to die or lose a limb depending on where you were shot. The only difference is that you were more likely to die much more quickly if shot with an expanding round. I'm not sure if there is even much distinction today depending on whose army you are fighting for and how far you are away from an actual hospital. In that case, you'd be in the same situation as the animal and a quicker death would seem to be more humane.
This is notwithstanding that the intent of just about every weapon the military uses is to kill. If someone is shot with a FMJ round and doesn't die, nothing is preventing them from being shot with multiple more rounds until they do, because the enemy is still trying to kill them, albeit with a slightly less quickly incapacitating tool. Soldiers in Mogadishu frequently complained that they had to shoot oncoming Somalis more than once to get them to stop charging, even though the first would probably would have been fatal given enough time. There are no proscriptions against the sizes of bombs or grenades even though larger bombs or grenades are more likely to kill. There aren't even proscriptions on caliber size used in an anti-personnel role that I know of. I'm sure you've seen the videos of the helicopters unloading on a crowd of people with a 30mm cannon. HEAP rounds are permissible.
Why are expanding projectiles somehow more inhumane than any number of much more lethal weapons permitted in war?
In order to make FMJ bullets more quickly lethal, some are made with an air pocket in the front of the bullet, inside the jacket. This causes them to yaw and tumble like crazy on impact creating a much larger wound channel on par with an expanding bullet, but remaining legal under conventions.
Even in the case of hunted animals, a center of mass hit is likely to kill the animal eventually. A larger wound track is just more likely to kill sooner. It's argued that it's more humane to kill them as quickly as possible (this is the reason that taking neck shots is illegal in some places).
I say that when the objective is to kill anything, and death is a likely outcome of your attempts, the quickest and most lethal means of doing the killing is always the most humane regardless of whether your target is game or human. We can't just soothe ourselves to sleep at night by noting that because we use FMJ bullets, a slightly higher percentage of our enemies that we are trying to kill, will not actually die, even though a higher percentage of them will suffer longer before they do die, as intended. 
Sorry for the ramble.
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4896744
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Re: Chemical Weapons and the Laws of War/ Fairness- Why Such an Issue? [Re: johnm214]
#14891454 - 08/08/11 04:44 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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I think I would agree that it was largely due to (possibly) unsubstantiated fear. Perhaps it is easier for people to comprehend a small projectile becoming lodged in your body than an unknown chemical wreaking havoc on your body in ways you don't understand.
It adds more fear of an unknown into an already deadly situation.
-------------------- Live your Life!
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Visionary Tools



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Re: Chemical Weapons and the Laws of War/ Fairness- Why Such an Issue? [Re: 4896744]
#14891780 - 08/08/11 05:50 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
iThink said: I think I would agree that it was largely due to (possibly) unsubstantiated fear. Perhaps it is easier for people to comprehend a small projectile becoming lodged in your body than an unknown chemical wreaking havoc on your body in ways you don't understand.
It adds more fear of an unknown into an already deadly situation.
Gas ia a terror weapon. So much so that despite the cost, in England everyone was issued with a gas mask, and inspections were regulary done by wardens to make sure people had their gas mask in their satchel and only their gas mask.
Gas doesn't guarantee a kill, and if it does, it's a long and slow process (this is back then, before the nerve gasses of today) Gasses are far more likely to maim than bullets.
Now, I'd say, if you were living in a bunker, and being bombarded for months on end, I'd be pretty terrified of bullets. But chances are, if you're going to get shot, it'll be a very quick and painless death.
It also ignores cover, and like a flamethrower (which at least you can shoot the weilder) it means even if you are ducking, that's no protection.
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4896744
Small Town Girl


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Re: Chemical Weapons and the Laws of War/ Fairness- Why Such an Issue? [Re: Visionary Tools]
#14891835 - 08/08/11 06:00 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
But chances are, if you're going to get shot, it'll be a very quick and painless death.
That is not true. Even today, only about 30% of gunshot wounds are fatal. And out of those 30% only a fraction of those will die instantly.
Edit: this statistic leaves out suicides
-------------------- Live your Life!
Edited by iThink (08/08/11 06:01 PM)
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trendal
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Re: Chemical Weapons and the Laws of War/ Fairness- Why Such an Issue? [Re: ChuangTzu]
#14891932 - 08/08/11 06:20 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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If someone is shot with a FMJ round and doesn't die, nothing is preventing them from being shot with multiple more rounds until they do, because the enemy is still trying to kill them, albeit with a slightly less quickly incapacitating tool.
I have heard that in battle it is much better to wound an enemy, rather than kill them. A dead soldier is a dead soldier...but a wounded soldier is someone who drastically needs help, and that help will take at least one other soldier out of the fight. Kill 50% of a fighting force, and you just piss off the rest of them. Wound 50%, however, and you've effectively destroyed the entire force.
This would also lend support to the idea of not using chemical weapons...lest they be used on you. Chemical weapons drastically increase the number of living casualties in an area.
Also, there is the fact that chemical weapons are much more suited to genocide and the like. Any advanced army can provide safety equipment for front line defenders, and in fact many do. So chemical weapons will only really do their best damage on areas that are unprepared - civilian areas.
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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DieCommie

Registered: 12/11/03
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Re: Chemical Weapons and the Laws of War/ Fairness- Why Such an Issue? [Re: ChuangTzu]
#14891951 - 08/08/11 06:22 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
ChuangTzu said: We can't just soothe ourselves to sleep at night by noting that because we use FMJ bullets, a slightly higher percentage of our enemies that we are trying to kill, will not actually die, even though a higher percentage of them will suffer longer before they do die, as intended. 
I dont think that the point is to soothe us. I presume the point is to mame and injure as much of the enemy as possible. 50,000 wounded is a bigger burden on the war effort than 50,000 dead.
@Johnm, Good points I agree.
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4896744
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Re: Chemical Weapons and the Laws of War/ Fairness- Why Such an Issue? [Re: trendal]
#14891962 - 08/08/11 06:24 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Trendal, I think you make a good point about chemical weapons seeming to be a form of warfare more suited for attacks on civilians. Chemical weapons seem good for spreading out over rather large areas with relatively few men performing the attack. Also, the fact that professional soldiers can be relatively easily equipped to handle such attacks coupled with the average civilian's relative capacity to handle such an attack makes this seem like a likely explanation imo.
-------------------- Live your Life!
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ChuangTzu
starvingphysicist



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Re: Chemical Weapons and the Laws of War/ Fairness- Why Such an Issue? [Re: DieCommie]
#14892350 - 08/08/11 07:33 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
DieCommie said: I dont think that the point is to soothe us. I presume the point is to mame and injure as much of the enemy as possible. 50,000 wounded is a bigger burden on the war effort than 50,000 dead.
Right, but that's a motivation to use wounding tactics against your enemy (in some cases--in many cases, you need the enemy to stop dead in their tracks immediately), but not a motivation to enter into contractual treaties obligating your enemies to use such tactics on you.
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Just as an aside, I'd like to add that as often as I've heard this logic for "less lethal" bullets being used, I'm not aware of any military doctrine, field manual, policy, or what-have-you which ever has publicly declared a scenario in which soldiers should shoot to wound. In training, soldiers are taught how to shoot to kill and they're taught how to maximize the killing potential of all of their tools, and all "insider tips" you will come across in field manuals describe the most effective means of killing the enemy. I have never seen, from any official military source of any nation, any directive to shoot to wound in any circumstances...
"Bouncing Betty" type landmines deploy at head height even though it'd be just as simple to deploy them at leg height. Soldiers are taught to shoot at center-of-mass and/or the head, not arms or legs. When an enemy is hit and falls, soldiers are told to continue engaging them until movement stops (this is clearly seen in the helicopter attack video I mentioned earlier where despite the wounded being no visible threat to anyone, especially those in the helicopter, the gunner is told to continue firing until nobody is left moving).
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DieCommie

Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 29,258
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Re: Chemical Weapons and the Laws of War/ Fairness- Why Such an Issue? [Re: ChuangTzu]
#14892429 - 08/08/11 07:50 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Wives tale huh?
edit - This wikipedia speaks of wounding rather than killing, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-personnel_mine
Im still skeptical now though...
Edited by DieCommie (08/08/11 09:14 PM)
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