"US prepares to use toxic gases in Iraq"

[DanS]

Apparently, the US reads the treaty differently than does the UK?

[DanS]

UR:

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Gatekeeper
You'll have to refresh my memory: When does the United States military plan on using nerve agents and mustard gas on Iraq? Or are we comparing CS/pepper spray-like material use here to Iraq's possible use of its own chemical and biological stores on any U.S. forces, should a war become reality?

Chemical weapons do not have to kill, Gatekeeper. I think you are just bending the definition for your own needs. If CS/peper spray doesn't count, why are they in the Chemical Weapons Convention?

The US is preparing to use the toxic riot-control agents CS gas and pepper spray in Iraq in contravention of the Chemical Weapons Convention, provoking the first split in the Anglo-US alliance.

[PLATO]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


When you engage bunkers at close range, where you can potentially be targeted from other bunkers, or where the bastards can call artillery down on their own positions (they being safely inside, you being ****ed on the outside - the Germans were very fond of this with their fortifications in WW2), the enemy's opportunity to surrender happens before you go up to the bunker. If he doesn't get his ass out ahead of time and clearly signal his intention to surrender, sucks to be him. It's your own life and the lives of the men in your unit you're putting at risk.

An excellent point as well. I am just concerned about the use of chemical weapons by any force. We should not expect the world to recognize that we will use them wisely and decry those we feel will not.

That being said, I will support their use to save American lives. Call me prejudiced about Americans and I will admit it.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Sure. Glad to oblige, though I'm not particularly pro-war. First, let's forget the pepper spray and tear gas (CS) because those are uniformly non-lethal. Dosage control with calmative agents is problematic, but the application discussed was taking out command and control bunkers underground. The other methods of neutralizing those facilities involve inflicting 100% fatalities, so 9% ain't that bad.

The difference is that we are not going to use high-lethality agents applied with intent to kill over a large area. IF we use these agents at all, it is going to be very specialized applications on 100% military targets that are extraordinarily hard to get to any other way. And we may not have to use them at all - if the Iraqis realize those C&C bunkers ain't safe places to be, they'll tend to leave on their own, like they did in forward bunkers the first time, one they realized we just systematically squished bunkers with whatever happens to be in them.

There are two problems:

1. The gases themselves kill 9%. There's no telling whether the rest will die from *cough* other causes *cough* like bullets. Afterall, the US forces did the same thing in Vietnam.

2. A small crack in a dam can lead to a deluge. Pandora thought she opened the box just a little.

[PLATO]

UR: In principle, I agree with you. But what if their use actually would save lives?

[MichaeltheGreat]

The average bunker or fortification wouldn't rate the time and trouble to apply something like this. It'll get bypassed, blown or flattened.

This type of treatment is something that would be reserved for very high level command complexes underground - most likely Corps level or higher, with large connecting tunnels, the whole nightmarish tunnel rat works.

Taking them out in this way will save lives on both sides.

It is a violation of the CWC, but to me, that just points out the absurdity of abstract legal documents with respect to war - filling the whole thing up with a fuel-air binary and crispy-frying everyone in there is perfectly ok.

IMO, certain specified non-lethal applications of gas should be "legal" - especially when the common conventional warfighting alternatives are much worse for the recipients.

[Lung]

Originally posted by PLATO1003


An excellent point as well. I am just concerned about the use of chemical weapons by any force. We should not expect the world to recognize that we will use them wisely and decry those we feel will not.

That being said, I will support their use to save American lives. Call me prejudiced about Americans and I will admit it.

I think the U.S. will use them wisely, but doing so without attempting to change the rules is in defiance, and thus contempt, of existing agreements and the U.N. In any case, having some chemical weapons legal and others illegal is opening the rules to manipulation. I also forgot to mention reported consideration of development of small nukes by the U.S. They may use their weapons 'responsibly', but where's the guarantee that they will now and in the future?

[PLATO]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
The average bunker or fortification wouldn't rate the time and trouble to apply something like this. It'll get bypassed, blown or flattened.

This type of treatment is something that would be reserved for very high level command complexes underground - most likely Corps level or higher, with large connecting tunnels, the whole nightmarish tunnel rat works.

Taking them out in this way will save lives on both sides.

It is a violation of the CWC, but to me, that just points out the absurdity of abstract legal documents with respect to war - filling the whole thing up with a fuel-air binary and crispy-frying everyone in there is perfectly ok.

IMO, certain specified non-lethal applications of gas should be "legal" - especially when the common conventional warfighting alternatives are much worse for the recipients.

So you are proposing a change to the treaty? This could be an interesting process. Which countries do you feel would vote "yes" to allowing gas weapons to be used in warfare.

[MichaeltheGreat]

I think most treaties related to warfighting conduct are absurd. I could say that they're mostly written by a bunch of limp-dicked international lawyer types who have even less of a clue about the operational, tactical and human reality of modern combat than they do about how to get laid, but I'd probably offend a lot of people if I said that, so I won't.

These types of treaties are very politicized, and they remind me of those sorts of political groups in the US that use benign names nobody could oppose - like who'd be against the "Committee for Excellence in Education?" (never mind they're a Christian fundamentalist group with a little bit different concept of "excellence.")

After all, what "civilized" nation would be for the use of chemical weapons?

I don't put things like the Geneva Convention on the treatment of POW's, or occupying powers obligations in that category, because those are conventions, treaties, etc. dealing with post-combat issues. But trying to legislate the appropriate manner of killing some poor sod in war is absurd.

Let's say you have a hypothetical bunker complex that's located underground, and houses some high level commands.

It's "legal" to find all the vents, use incendiary devices to create an oxygen shortage and asphyxiate everyone inside. It's "legal" to seal off the vents and entrances and kill everyone inside that way. It's "legal" to use penetrating bombs and rip them to shreds with high explosives. It's "legal" to use something like daisy-cutters to trigger a structural collapse and crush them to death. It's "legal" to use napalm or a fuel-air binary and burn them to death.

It's "illegal" to use a non-lethal gas to conk them out, because a few of them might die from it's effects, even though the "legal" alternatives involve killing even more of the enemy, with absolute certainty. That makes no sense.

Changing the treaty language is an impossibility - it gets back to that political "spin" from the naming. We can't be for "chemical" warfare - ooooh. So we sign a treaty that has some absurd restrictions, along with some good ones, then we ignore the tactically absurd ones. Better than not signing the treaty, and listening to the whining about how we're against banning CW.

[Elden]

HYPOCRITICAL U.S. GOVERNMENT

Bush: We want oil, Iraq may have illegal weapons, we will destroy them.

Public: But for the war you will use tons oil and now illegal weapos too, WTF !!!

[Gatekeeper]

Lung, UR:

MtG has pretty much stated my thoughts on this particular issue clearer than I ever could, which is somewhat of a shame since writing and editing pays my bills IRL.

It's like making it illegal to shoot off bottle rockets, but allowing folks to still set off cherry bombs. The former has less of an "oomphf," but is illegal, while the latter has more power and can blow your hand off, but it's still legal.

If I had a choice between having to take out an entrenched enemy with lethal weaponry or a mixture of CS, pepper and "calmative" agents, I'd probably choose the latter. I'm sorry, but lead is permanently lethal to just about anyone it connects with, while CS, et al., isn't.

I suppose the next hissy fit will come over the use of "goo" agents to entangle rioters so they can't run helter-skelter. Or maybe we can find something offensive about "bean bag bullets." I mean, c'mon, there comes a time when logic and common sense should come to the forefront when considering things such as this.

Gatekeeper

[Urban Ranger]

Leaving whether some tactic is legal or not under international law, and ignoring the ethical issues (David Floyd can pick these up when he arrives), the one big sticking problem with using chemical agents is it leads to an escalation.

Unless you are using a chemical agent that absolutely won't kill anybody, you have opened the lid. Even an agent kills 9% of the people is an agent that kills 9% of the people, and it is only a dfference in degree with an agent that kills 90% of the people. 0% is not merely 1% less than 1% - none is the opposite of some.

[Demerzel]

I agree with you in most respects MtG, it is absurd to say that using a FAE or napalm is "legal" whilst a gas is not. However, when the causus belli ( sp? ) is about Iraq using chemical weapons then, by the convention definition, to use them or their precursors on Iraq is hypocritical.

I suppose no-one can stop you from using them but I'm glad we are refusing to allow our troops to be used where the gasses are employed.

Tbh, I'm sure this is mostly academical, you'll no doubt bomb the bejeesus out of most installations before any troops are allowed within 100 miles of them.

[Ned]

I only read thru the fist page of posts but did not see one mention of why we are thinking of using these "agents."

To save lives. The lives of Saddam's human shields. The lives of Iraqi civilians, of women and of children.

Not one mention in the posts on page 1.

You people are simply amazing.