Ship of Fools: Chemical Weapons

Thread: Chemical Weapons Board: Purgatory / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Humble Servant (# 18391) on :

What is it about poisoning people with chemical weapons that makes it more abhorrent than blowing up the same people with explosives?
There seems to be a consensus that only a truly evil dictator would do the former, whereas a good and well balanced democracy may, in certain circumstances, do the latter without any moral issue. I can't see a fundamental difference between the two acts. Can any shipmates help me out?

[corrected typo in thread title]

[ 05. April 2017, 12:06: Message edited by: Eutychus ]

Posted by Humble Servant (# 18391) on :

Ah, just noticed this discussion is also available in Hell

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

There is a qualitative difference. OK, I was in the forces but when I was being shot at something goes bang and it's pretty binary - you either get killed or a real minority are left screaming in agony until they're dealt with.

Chemical weapons on the other hand go straight to the screaming in agony stage for everyone. All I can say is that the day the nerve agent alarm went off (accidentally as it turned out) was the scariest moment in my brief exposure to warfare.

IMO that's the difference, as the Blitz shows even civilians can pretty quickly come to terms with/rationalise explosions of, er, explosives - simply because the outcome tends to be quick and binary.

The human mind seems less able to cope with/process the threat from biological/chemical agents - no idea why that should be the case but it does seem to be observably true.

As far as it goes from my experience I'd say that this is one occasion where governments are following public opinion rather than leading it - all-out pacifists aside, most people do seem more resigned to having a leg/arm/whatever blown off than they are to having an external agent attacking their internal organs.

That last paragraph might seem a bit blunt, but I think it's true.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

I think ultimately it's just a horrible way to die. So horrible that even humanity (or most of it, anyway) has decided that it's beyond the pale.

There's also the fact that chemical weapons can kill a lot more people than an equivalent amount of conventional ordnance, and can be used quickly and effectively against civilian populations. As they were this week.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

There is also a much greater danger of the gas or chemical taking out the attackers. There were cases in the Great War of gas disastrously blowing back in the wrong direction.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

"...for a long timr, the Government for excellent reasons has preferred the world to think we still held some scruples and attacked only what the humanitarians are pleased to call Military Targets. I can assure you, gentlemen, that we tolerate no scruple." (Sir Richard Peirse, Cmdr in Chief, UK Bomber Command, Nov 1941).

which tells us that killing noncombatants has been considered legitimate in modern war since at least WW2, a return to war practices of antiquity. If cities, children etc are fair targets, then it isn't about who gets killed, it merely about how they get killed. Which rings rather hollow: we are good because blow up and incinerate people. This dictator (whom we supported in the past) is bad because he poisons them.

Is this a nice thing for trumpy to have available as a distraction? If he can't blame North Korea for ISIS? Who gets it first? Who will kill more people?

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

I've just finished a biography of Genghis Khan and I'm now reading Max Hastings' All Hell Let Lose, WWII through the eyes of ordinary participants. This evil fits in just fine. 1/1,000,000,000th - a billionth - of what we've done so far. There will be no justice, just more non-state terrorism in kind for state terrorism.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Humble Servant:
I can't see a fundamental difference between the two acts.

Put simply, a bullet or explosive might be slow and excruciating, but gas will be.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
I've just finished a biography of Genghis Khan and I'm now reading Max Hastings' All Hell Let Lose, WWII through the eyes of ordinary participants. This evil fits in just fine. 1/1,000,000,000th - a billionth - of what we've done so far. There will be no justice, just more non-state terrorism in kind for state terrorism.

To compensate, consider reading The Better Angels of Our Nature by Stephen Pinker. He argues that, over the long haul, we are indeed becoming less violent.

Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :

Yeah. Our institutions, structures, thinking, education, politics, literature, even religion, have accumulated a little learning through much suffering.

One of the things learned is that it's entirely down to us.

To put Assad in The Hague. In 30 years.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
To put Assad in The Hague. In 30 years.

If human civilisation is to reassert itself against this apparent creeping slide into the pit, then that would indeed be a commendable objective. Even if it is against a backdrop of hypocracy from those us calling ourselves Civilised

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

People who have inhaled mustard gas and survived, have health problems for the rest of their lives. My father was a doctor, and in the 1940s he was treating patients who had been gassed in 1918.

Moo

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

We Are civilised. Nothing in that word means we cannot kill each other or treat each other poorly.

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

To reiterate what I put in the Hell thread, I think one reason that chemical weapons are worse is that they are aimed at people not property.

There has always been an acceptance that using weapons against "things" can be justified. You can blow up military targets to hamper the opposition. Military personnel who are there are valid targets just because they are using or defending the installation.

But chemical, biological and radiation weapons are explicitly intended to kill people, not damage things. It turns the intent around - to deliberately kill people, and deliberately not damage the "things".

I think these weapons say that people are disposable, and things are important, whereas explosive weapons are the opposite. And I think that is important. And Saddam has made an explicit attack not on institutions, but on individuals.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
People who have inhaled mustard gas and survived, have health problems for the rest of their lives. My father was a doctor, and in the 1940s he was treating patients who had been gassed in 1918.

In 1915 when stalemate was established on the Western Front Germany's Generals were offered the use of chemical agents similar to laughing gas to incapacitate the enemy. However they insisted on a lethal agent and went for Chlorine. This meant the Geneva convention on gas use was meaningless and British Generals quickly deployed Phosgene gas, infamously gassing their own troops at Loos that same year.

Mustard gas was used as a contamination weapon to stop areas being reoccupied. Canisters still lie buried in France, still potentially hazardous.

On medals awarded to soldiers after the war was inscribed 'The Great War for Civilisation'. Yet still 100 years on and historians cannot altogether agree as to what the hell it was all about. Observers could be forgiven for having the same sentiment with regards to Syria today.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

Land mines. The anti-personnel variety.

Drone attacks. 20% kill civilians.

Also:
USA bombs used by Saudi found at funeral where 140 killed. I am still having great trouble with all of it. Also with the general desire to keep wars and instability going. Must be good for business.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

This touches on a question I was wondering the other day: plenty of communities in the UK are kept afloat by weapons factories of one kind or another, and any attempt at arms control is met by pointing at job losses. My question, I suppose, is how many jobs are worth a life? 5? 500? Are we willing to say that we're willing to sacrifice the livelihoods of any number of people to save lives?

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
This touches on a question I was wondering the other day: plenty of communities in the UK are kept afloat by weapons factories of one kind or another, and any attempt at arms control is met by pointing at job losses. My question, I suppose, is how many jobs are worth a life? 5? 500? Are we willing to say that we're willing to sacrifice the livelihoods of any number of people to save lives?

While I think that is a valid point, at least (sigh) we don't see chemical or biological weapons. I don't think. These tend to be developed in-house, or adapted from other devices.

So I think there is a good discussion here on whether it is moral to run the economy of tea, scones and weapons, I think that is a fundamentally different one from the question of Chemical Weapons.

[Not trying to junior host here, but I think Humble Servant raises an interesting question that is distinct from this one.]

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