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Should chemical weapons be legalized?
I'm not sure what to make of the chemical weapons ban. On one hand, it's like gun control, and we all know what the Bible says about gun control. But on the other hand, the chemical weapons ban is the main talking point for Operation Syrian Freedom, and any reason to blow up Arabs has to be a good one.
And then there's this article, I really don't know what to make of it:
And then there's this article, I really don't know what to make of it:
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4 Reasons why chemical weapons should be legalized
Of all the excuses to bomb Syria, there's only one of them that makes any kind of sense (until someone gives me some bomb-industry stocks). That excuse is that we need to enforce the international understanding that chemical weapons are barbaric, inhumane, unfair, and uniquely horrifying.
I call BS.
1. It's barbaric to give an advantage to barbarians. That's what any ban on a technology does.
Technologies aren't barbaric. Barbarians are barbaric.
Barbarians - or according to the polite terms of our time, "non-state groups" - terrorists, criminal gangs, general mobs of acid-chucking, boy raping, school-bombing bastards -ahem - diverse cultures - have almost all the advantages. They're tough mentally and physically, they're fanatical, they get to ignore the rules, and to win all they have to do is destroy.
What chance does civilization have? Our scrawny, spoiled, wishy-washy, regulated, productivity-distracted asses have only one advantage - technology.
So while terrorists, criminals, and the general forces of disorder are like a big, brawny ogre strutting around the boxing ring, we're a pencil-necked geek who not only has to survive, but also finish his homework. Our only chance is to outsmart the ogre. And the chemical weapons ban is like a referee who wants us to "fight fair" which is a fancy way of saying "have a contest of brute force, not brains".
2. "Fight fair" means "fight long and hard" - which is barbaric and inhumane
It's worth looking at where "fight fair" comes from. Rationally, "fight fair" should only mean one thing - spare the innocent.
So where do we get weird rules like "no hitting below the belt" or "no gas"? Both guilty and innocent get hurt by a nut-punch, so why the rule?
It turns out "fight fair" actually means "fight in a way that's entertaining to watch". Which comes down to "fight for a long time". Where nut-punches are legal, fights tend to end after a blurry second or two. Not much use to fight promoters.
In our case the fight promoters are people who profit from long, drawn-out wars. That means military-related industries, and the media. Two hugely powerful forces with a vested interest in keeping our wars long and indecisive. History teaches us that the longer a war goes on, the more barbaric and inhumane it gets.
3. Chemical weapons cause less fatalities than normal weapons - far, far less if you count tear gas, which the chemical weapons ban does
Of the dizzying array of different weapons systems we use in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's easy to forget the one that is always missing - tear gas. It's like they always forget to bring it to the fight. Did it slip between the couch cushions?
No, we don't use tear gas because of the chemical weapons ban - not that it actually bans tear gas, but because it's feared that using tear gas in battle would lead to a slippery slope where other chemical weapons are used also.
So let's imagine how the Iraq and Afghan wars would have gone if we had tear gas. In both wars insurgents can shelter among civilians - a huge advantage. The options available were to use firepower anyway, killing innocents, or to go in and fight without support, resulting in dead troops, dead innocents, and lots of bastards getting away to hurt more innocents. Or you could just let them get away. Now imagine if the troops called in an artillery or air strike to drop cluster-munitions of tear gas over the whole area. Now either the bastards run, meaning they have to drop their weapons or get shot, or they get incapacitated with everyone else. Then the troops, with gas masks, go in and sort out the good, bad and ugly. Don't worry about the kids, we already gave them free child-sized gas masks, and we already fired a certain color of flare, which everybody knows means to put your mask on (the bush-telegram is very effective.)
Now let's say that using tear gas ends up leading to other chemical weapons being used. Now instead of shooting and bombing people (as many as 30% of people incapacitated are now dead) chemical weapons are used (3% of the incapacitated are killed - as it was in ww1.) So imagine if the Russia-Georgia war of 2008 (~1100 killed, ~10,000 wounded, about 10% of incapacitated dead) had been fought entirely with chemical weapons. I'm not good at math, or counting, or hygiene, but I'm willing to guesstimate ~300 dead. That's 700 lives saved by barbaric, inhumane chemical weapons.
4. If chemical weapons are uniquely terrifying, that's another argument for them
The idea of being killed by something you can't see, hear, or smell has a certain psychological edge. That's good. The whole point of any weapon is to terrorize enemies into submission. Most of the time this means making your enemy watch his buddies bleeding out or being ripped to pieces until he just can't watch one more. But if your weapon is has a unique horrific that's far beyond its actual killing power, it might make him surrender without all of that.
All wars end, or or prevented, by someone being horrified into submission. Uniquely horrifying weapons simply speed up the process.
In conclusion
Chemical weapons are a weapon that stops barbarism, with less death than the alternatives. The ideal war isn't one that's fair and fun to watch. The ideal war is one that never happened. One way to prevent a war from happening is to have the barbarians outgunned and out-horrified, due to their being outsmarted by civilized people.
Of all the excuses to bomb Syria, there's only one of them that makes any kind of sense (until someone gives me some bomb-industry stocks). That excuse is that we need to enforce the international understanding that chemical weapons are barbaric, inhumane, unfair, and uniquely horrifying.
I call BS.
1. It's barbaric to give an advantage to barbarians. That's what any ban on a technology does.
Technologies aren't barbaric. Barbarians are barbaric.
Barbarians - or according to the polite terms of our time, "non-state groups" - terrorists, criminal gangs, general mobs of acid-chucking, boy raping, school-bombing bastards -ahem - diverse cultures - have almost all the advantages. They're tough mentally and physically, they're fanatical, they get to ignore the rules, and to win all they have to do is destroy.
What chance does civilization have? Our scrawny, spoiled, wishy-washy, regulated, productivity-distracted asses have only one advantage - technology.
So while terrorists, criminals, and the general forces of disorder are like a big, brawny ogre strutting around the boxing ring, we're a pencil-necked geek who not only has to survive, but also finish his homework. Our only chance is to outsmart the ogre. And the chemical weapons ban is like a referee who wants us to "fight fair" which is a fancy way of saying "have a contest of brute force, not brains".
2. "Fight fair" means "fight long and hard" - which is barbaric and inhumane
It's worth looking at where "fight fair" comes from. Rationally, "fight fair" should only mean one thing - spare the innocent.
So where do we get weird rules like "no hitting below the belt" or "no gas"? Both guilty and innocent get hurt by a nut-punch, so why the rule?
It turns out "fight fair" actually means "fight in a way that's entertaining to watch". Which comes down to "fight for a long time". Where nut-punches are legal, fights tend to end after a blurry second or two. Not much use to fight promoters.
In our case the fight promoters are people who profit from long, drawn-out wars. That means military-related industries, and the media. Two hugely powerful forces with a vested interest in keeping our wars long and indecisive. History teaches us that the longer a war goes on, the more barbaric and inhumane it gets.
3. Chemical weapons cause less fatalities than normal weapons - far, far less if you count tear gas, which the chemical weapons ban does
Of the dizzying array of different weapons systems we use in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's easy to forget the one that is always missing - tear gas. It's like they always forget to bring it to the fight. Did it slip between the couch cushions?
No, we don't use tear gas because of the chemical weapons ban - not that it actually bans tear gas, but because it's feared that using tear gas in battle would lead to a slippery slope where other chemical weapons are used also.
So let's imagine how the Iraq and Afghan wars would have gone if we had tear gas. In both wars insurgents can shelter among civilians - a huge advantage. The options available were to use firepower anyway, killing innocents, or to go in and fight without support, resulting in dead troops, dead innocents, and lots of bastards getting away to hurt more innocents. Or you could just let them get away. Now imagine if the troops called in an artillery or air strike to drop cluster-munitions of tear gas over the whole area. Now either the bastards run, meaning they have to drop their weapons or get shot, or they get incapacitated with everyone else. Then the troops, with gas masks, go in and sort out the good, bad and ugly. Don't worry about the kids, we already gave them free child-sized gas masks, and we already fired a certain color of flare, which everybody knows means to put your mask on (the bush-telegram is very effective.)
Now let's say that using tear gas ends up leading to other chemical weapons being used. Now instead of shooting and bombing people (as many as 30% of people incapacitated are now dead) chemical weapons are used (3% of the incapacitated are killed - as it was in ww1.) So imagine if the Russia-Georgia war of 2008 (~1100 killed, ~10,000 wounded, about 10% of incapacitated dead) had been fought entirely with chemical weapons. I'm not good at math, or counting, or hygiene, but I'm willing to guesstimate ~300 dead. That's 700 lives saved by barbaric, inhumane chemical weapons.
4. If chemical weapons are uniquely terrifying, that's another argument for them
The idea of being killed by something you can't see, hear, or smell has a certain psychological edge. That's good. The whole point of any weapon is to terrorize enemies into submission. Most of the time this means making your enemy watch his buddies bleeding out or being ripped to pieces until he just can't watch one more. But if your weapon is has a unique horrific that's far beyond its actual killing power, it might make him surrender without all of that.
All wars end, or or prevented, by someone being horrified into submission. Uniquely horrifying weapons simply speed up the process.
In conclusion
Chemical weapons are a weapon that stops barbarism, with less death than the alternatives. The ideal war isn't one that's fair and fun to watch. The ideal war is one that never happened. One way to prevent a war from happening is to have the barbarians outgunned and out-horrified, due to their being outsmarted by civilized people.
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