Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Don’t We Use Chemical Weapons Anymore?

acoup.blog

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 84 posts

Re: Why Don’t We Use Chemical Weapons Anymore?

#21

Post by free652 »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #13

> The other large-scale use has been in the Syrian Civil War, by the Assad regime against both military and civilian targets (but mostly civilian targets). False propaganda unfortunately according to the OPCW inspectors who actually went to Syria, including the director of the OPCW. But you can ignore them and take the CIA's word for it instead like the author of this article did. https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co…

That's article is absolute garbage, it doesn't convey any rebuttals of any kind. So you are just mudding the waters with he said / she said.

Re: Why Don’t We Use Chemical Weapons Anymore?

#23

Post by EarlKing »

codefreeordie wrote: post #2

Because they're not really useful. It's very difficult to keep chemical weapons contained so that they only damage your target and not your own soldiers or your allies or a bunch of civilians whose gruesome deaths will not play well in the media. In general, conventional weaponry is more effective at accomplishing military objectives.

It's not even that. The purpose of mustard gas, for example, is principally to force unmasked troops to vacate the trenches. As a rule we don't do much trench warfare anymore. (Yes, yes, I know... Ukraine enters the chat) With most warfare over the last century having been wars of maneuver, urban conflict, aerial bombardment, or artillery duels... there's just not much use for chemical weapons. They're only useful for clearing people out of confined spaces... hence why tear gas continues to be used for crowd control in cities.

Re: Why Don’t We Use Chemical Weapons Anymore?

#24

Post by nautilius »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #14

Good to see this posted again. I see a concurring example in aerial bombardment policy of the US and the UK throughout WWII. I even wrote a paper regarding it in college. Both the US and the UK wanted to target the war making capacity of the Germans. The Americans sought to achieve this with strategic precision bombing. The UK sought to do so with mass bombing campaigns targeting industrial workers. The disparity for…

Ooh, nice! "Targeting industrial workers to target the war making capacity" sounds so much nicer than "indiscriminate mass killing of civilians".

Don't get me wrong, the Germans had it coming, but let's stop lying to ourselves, shall we?

Re: Why Don’t We Use Chemical Weapons Anymore?

#25

Post by Comevius »

worthless-trash wrote: post #8
Comevius wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also because of a lack of imagination. Imagine using these puppies in large cities. The world lacks a better class of terrorists. Saudi Arabia used to do some wild stuff with planes back in 2001, prompting the United States to kill a million people in completely unrelated countries, but now we are back to car bombs and incels running with guns when we have a whole spectrum of biological, chemical and radioactive agen…

Its funny how the modern social commentiary associates "incels" with the classes of people they disagree with. It is evident that these people do reproduce.

They are actually calling themselves incels, they are not shameful of it. I wasn't being snarky, they are really digging the identity and the subculture, along with the rape and the mass murder. Every other post on incel forums is some variation of I'm being rejected by women, thus my bloodline ends with me, but not before I end many other bloodlines, which actually makes me a winner. Incels love violence, it's their entire thing.

Re: Why Don’t We Use Chemical Weapons Anymore?

#26

Post by [deleted] »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #13

> The other large-scale use has been in the Syrian Civil War, by the Assad regime against both military and civilian targets (but mostly civilian targets). False propaganda unfortunately according to the OPCW inspectors who actually went to Syria, including the director of the OPCW. But you can ignore them and take the CIA's word for it instead like the author of this article did. https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co…

[deleted]

Re: Why Don’t We Use Chemical Weapons Anymore?

#27

Post by mikem170 »

Funny, he never mentioned the chemical weapons that are used all the time, domestically, on protesters. Here's a couple articles I found:

https://www.thecut.com/2020/06/tear-gas-is-a-chemical-weapon...

https://www.newsweek.com/richmond-chemical-weapons-protests-...

My two cents: In general, shouldn't our elected "leaders" arrange to meet with protesters, people who are obviously very frustrated, and spend the time to talk to them, instead of sending in the police to gas them?

Re: Why Don’t We Use Chemical Weapons Anymore?

#28

Post by nautilius »

Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote: post #5

We do. Probably every day some police force is gassing its own citizens with things that would be a war crime were they soldiers.

Scary, how people argue that war is naturally a much more controlled environment than police action on citizens exercising their rights.

Re: Why Don’t We Use Chemical Weapons Anymore?

#29

Post by tenpies »

justapassenger wrote: post #18
Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote: post #5

We do. Probably every day some police force is gassing its own citizens with things that would be a war crime were they soldiers.

There’s a “slight” difference between tear gas and chemical weapons. Ones cause temporary (but very strong) inconvenience (of course there maybe some one off complications), others are designed to kill you, as efficiently as possible.

The biggest difference is political: when someone the media doesn't like does it, it's a chemical weapon. When someone the media likes does it, it's nothing.

See: https://www.salon.com/2020/06/02/trump-may-have-broken-inter...

vs

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/21/us/protests-portland-seat...

Re: Why Don’t We Use Chemical Weapons Anymore?

#30

Post by danuker »

mikem170 wrote: post #27

Funny, he never mentioned the chemical weapons that are used all the time, domestically, on protesters. Here's a couple articles I found: https://www.thecut.com/2020/06/tear-gas-is-a-chemical-weapon... https://www.newsweek.com/richmond-chemical-weapons-protests-... My two cents: In general, shouldn't our elected "leaders" arrange to meet with protesters, people who are obviously very frustrated, and spend the time to…

But you see, listening to people would be politics.

Why do politics when you can just selfishly squeeze what you can before you get kicked out of office? After me, the flood.

Post reply on HN