Quote Originally Posted by rory_20_uk View Post
Isn't it odd that we are completely fine with thousands dying every day from starvation, ethnic cleansing, machetes, small arms. But the Red Line is as soon as it is a chemical that kills people from a chemical reaction to the body as opposed to indirectly (e.g. explosives). It is INSANE!....
I am not sure of this rory. In purely logical terms, death via a nerve agent is unlikely to be any more horrific for the decedent that would burning to death following the use of an "accepted" weapon based on thermobaric principles. So I get your point about one painful death being about the same as another.

Yet I have heard vets talking about such issues and they seem to think that such weaponry is inappropriate on some level, that it somehow makes things worse. Maybe that is the same thinking behind men-at-arms not taking Arquebussiers prisoner because their weaponry was "unfair." I admit that I am not sure.

Still, WMDs that have the potential for a persistent lethality -- that can leave whole areas uninhabitable -- are a qualitatively different thing. Maybe they should be treated differently?


As I recall it from the 1980s, our European Allies (among others) opposed the USA's push for a neutron-centric weapon because it would NOT have the persistent effect of a "conventional" nuke and would therefore not deter its own use through some sense of horror. Or maybe they just wanted to ___k with Reagan.