100 Years of Chemical Weapons 224
MTorrice writes This year marks the 100th anniversary of the first large-scale use of chemical weapons during World War I. Sarah Everts at Chemical & Engineering News remembers the event with a detailed account of the day in 1915 when the German Army released chlorine gas on its enemies, igniting a chemical arms race. Read the diaries of soldiers involved in the first gas attack. By the end of WWI, scientists working for both warring parties had evaluated some 3,000 different chemicals for use as weapons. Even though poison gas didn't end up becoming an efficient killing weapon on WWI battlefields—it was responsible for less than 1% of WWI's fatalities--its adoption set a precedent for using chemicals to murder en masse. In the past century, poison gas has killed millions of civilians around the world: commuters on the Tokyo subway, anti-government demonstrators in Syria, and those incarcerated in Third Reich concentration camps. Everts profiles chemist Fritz Haber, the man who lobbied to unleash the gas that day in 1915.
Pesticides for humans (Score:5, Insightful)
Chemical weapons are essentially pesticides for humans.
Re:Pesticides for humans (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Pesticides for humans (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. I've also heard that there's essentially zero difference between a pesticide factory and one that produces chemical weapons. This was one of the problems the inspectors in Iraq had. Not sure of the veracity of that info, but given the historic link between pesticides and military chemical weapons, it doesn't sound all that far fetched.
Re:Pesticides for humans (Score:5, Interesting)
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Thanks for the interesting articles Sarah. I was familiar with many of the more commonly known facts, as I watch a lot of war documentaries, but I still learned quite a few things as well.
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After WWI, many chemists argued that there was no point making treaties against chemical weapons because you'd effectively have to outlaw the entire chemical industry... Chlorine gas & phosgene were both part of the dye industry.
Not only that but chlorine prodiction is utterly trivial: it might not be the cheapest way, but you can get it by electrolysis of brine.
Re:Pesticides for humans (Score:5, Informative)
Your recollection does not align with history. DDT was far from the first significant agricultural pesticide.
In the real world, pesticides and specifically insecticides date back thousands of years. Sulfur was burned to produce a noxious gas, and various naturally occurring substances, biological and mineral, were gathered and used. Hydrogen cyanide gas was used to fumigate citrus trees in California in the 1880s. Zyklon A, which was a compound designed to release hydrogen cyanide on the application of heat and water for pesticidal purposes, dates back to before WW1. It was banned after a similar compound was used as a chemical weapon in WW1.
Zyklon-B was a cyanide-based pesticide with an irritant additive to serve as a warning, dating back to the early 1920s. It was used for delousing clothes and controlling pests in ships, warehouses and trains. It was co-opted for more infamous purposes later. One of the inventors was executed in 1946 for knowingly providing the substance to a certain evil state actor.
Organophosphates were used as pesticides, followed shortly by use as nerve "gases".
*Ironic* Pesticides for humans (Score:2)
Chemical weapons are ironic because any country capable of producing them like WWI Germany is capable of using chemistry instead of produce material abundance for the world. Instead, it is ironic and tragic when people decide to use such tools of abundance from a scarcity mindset, killing other humans out of fear of competition for material things (and so snuffing out much diverse human imagination which might eventually produce even more abundance). Other paths are possible; look at how much a modern day G
Re:*Ironic* Pesticides for humans (Score:4, Interesting)
look at how much a modern day Germany produces mainly from within its own borders through using innovation and well-compensated laborers.
All it took was ten years of total war (WW1 + WW2), 46 years of occupation (1945 - 1990) and massive societal changes that were imposed at gunpoint. All that to civilize a mostly western country with whom we shared a common history, language, and religion. I wonder what it will take to civilize the middle east?
Interesting question on time... (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess it depends on how much everyone learns from history or example. Of course, it's been joked that those who study history are condemned to watch others repeat it... :-(
http://www.historyisaweapon.co... [historyisaweapon.com]
Those changes to Germany came from the values of a 1930s/1940s USA.
http://www.salon.com/2010/08/2... [salon.com]
"How did Germany become such a great place to work in the first place? The Allies did it. This whole European model came, to some extent, from the New Deal. Our real history and tradition is what we created in Europe. Occupying Germany after WWII, the 1945 European constitutions, the UN Charter of Human Rights all came from Eleanor Roosevelt and the New Dealers. All of it got worked into the constitutions of Europe and helped shape their social democracies. It came from us. The papal encyclicals on labor, it came from the Americans."
But, sadly, that USA and its values effectively no longer exist 70-80 years later. Today's USA has different values -- some are better (less racism and sexism overall, more respect for the environment), others are worse (less respect for workers, the "two-income trap", policies that promote a greater rich/poor divide, and more meddling in other nation's affairs which may produce profits for some connected few but produces huge costs for the whole USA let along the disrupted countries).
The real issue may be, like Gandhi is claimed to have said when asked by a journalist: "What do you think of Western civilization?", he said, "I think it would be a good idea."
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2... [quoteinvestigator.com]
At this point, as US citizen, I'm much more concerned about what the US government does both abroad and at home (including stuff like supporting a repressive Saudi Arabia, other actions abroad that make terrorist blowback more likely, domestic cage-like "free speech zones", domestic rulings saying border patrols can operate in a constitution-ignoring way up to 100 miles inland, etc.) -- than what people in the Middle East cradle of civilization do. And I remain always aware there are large numbers of nuclear weapons still ready to fly on short notice...
http://politics.slashdot.org/s... [slashdot.org]
http://www.salon.com/2015/01/2... [salon.com]
So, what will it take to civilize the USA? A basic income might be a start...
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So, what will it take to civilize the USA? A basic income might be a start...
I might support that, as long as the rest of the social safety net gets radically drawn back (particularly minimum wage, pension funds, and health
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I might support that, as long as the rest of the social safety net gets radically drawn back (particularly minimum wage, pension funds, and health insurance subsidies). Otherwise it's just more spending without the revenue to support that spending.
As somebody with no health insurance, working slightly above minimum wage, go fuck yourself, in the nicest way possible. Nothing personal against you, but we as a nation need basic income, for all the people who are, and will be out of gainful employment (and lack to credentials to receive it, really meaning, people without a college degree) in the near future. In general, you personal finance, fiscal responsibility types like to make issues far more complicated then they are. Your suggestion that increasin
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You do understand that basic income and minimum wage is the same thing?
Obviously not, otherwise you would not object against basic health care and pension.
Your idea about 'revenue' is obviously guided by the 'broken window fallacy' which is a wrong analogy in macro economics.
Basic income different from minimum wage (Score:4, Informative)
A basic income is like social security payments every month regardless of your age or whether you work. A minimum wage is the smallest amount an employer can pay you if you work. The two are completely different things, even though both benefit the poor in different ways. A basic income benefits (almost) everyone though, regardless of your wage.
Despite the AC post that is a sibling of this suggesting both a basic income and a minimum wage are needed, I tend to agree with the grandparent poster who suggests that with a basic income we can dispense with a minimum wage and other similar protections in exchange. A basic income is far, far better than a minimum wage. Economically, a minimum wage is only going to accelerate the automation of most jobs as well. That may not be a bad thing by itself, but automation is bad for many people without a basic income when people need a job to survive in our society.
That's one of the appeals of a basic to conservatives, and a reason something like a basic income was passed by the US House (but failed barely in the Senate) around 1970 in the USA. It was defeated in part by some liberal Senators thinking the proposal was not good enough (also with some conservative opposition), and sadly it has not come up again significantly since. Senator Daniel Moynihan wrote a book about the politics of a basic income back then.
With a basic income, most people can be more choosy about where they work, which is going to put pressure on companies to voluntarily adhere to better labor standards. Should that be a problem in practice, other labor protections could be revisited -- and a working populace with a basic income would have more time for political engagement about all that. Frankly, the benefits of the basic income politically for most people are probably one reason it has been back-burnered for so long.
However, that said, I also feel universal health care (at a minimum, Medicare for all) should also be part of any basic income program -- along with other health care reforms (like Andrew Weil or Joel Fuhrman or Blue Zones talk about) to focus more on prevention especially through good nutrition as well as things like promoting exercise, social interactions, music, meditation or similar, yoga or similar, and so on.
The reason why these questions of economics and a basic income and jobs and health care and so forth all matter in the context of chemical weapons of mass destruction is that whether countries go to war often hinges on all these factors. Socio-economic factors often drive war, for multiple reasons, including war is a convenient way to get a populace distracted from focusing on other domestic economic failings of leadership. A populace that is reasonably happy as-is may be less likely to support war for things like "lebensraum" or "oil profits" or whatever. And if citizens are not kept busy with make work, they would have more time to participate in the democratic process as well as educate themselves about current issues including war profiteering and the true cost of war. Citizens would also have more time to invent the next breakthrough to further prosperity, whether hot or cold fusion, useful domestic robots powered by free and open source software, new information management tools, innovative new products and materials by observing nature like how we got Velcro, and so on. They of course also would have more money on a regular basis (regardless of the ups and down of "employment") to actually purchase products produced locally. That might mean business (guided by steady-state non-expansive economic theory based on reliable demand given a basic income) might have less incentive to look abroad for "markets" and so to foster a militarism that enforces the openness of such markets at gunpoint (as with, say, the Opium war of the USA and Britain and such again China to force acceptance of Western-supplied narcotics into China, or with various more recent US interventions abroad related to oil profits or natural gas profits).
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Actually the gun point was over 1947.
And after 1950 it was not considered occupation anymore but security against the Russians.
However you are right, to get germany 'on track' the USA poured a lot of 'Marchall aid' into germany.
If now a middle east country is 'liberated', first the big companies pour in and exploit the 'law less' environment. Then when they fail, the country is left to the surviving war lords of the previous war.
You can not establish a democracy in a country like Iraq, Afghanistan where 90%
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Radio Lab did an interesting show on Fritz Haber -- his work resulted in commercial fertilizer without which we'd probably have five or six billion fewer people on the planet because you can't mine guano forever at a rate faster than it is replaced, but he also pioneered one of the most gruesome weapons out there. It's a very strange tale.
Radio Lab episode: http://www.radiolab.org/story/... [radiolab.org]
Commercial fertilizer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H... [wikipedia.org]
Guano: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G... [wikipedia.org]
Yes, Haber's life is an example of that irony (Score:2)
Haber created a way to feed billions of people via nitrogen fertilizers(*), but then Haber supports a war based in large part on the idea there is not enough to go around and people need to steal each others land...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org]
Sad to read Haber's first wife, who disapproved of Haber's poison gas work, committed suicide right after the first use of her husband's poison gas in war. Guess when something like that happens you either change or you embrace cognitive dissonance and dig in eve
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And "nitrogen displacing micronutrients" is a pure BS.
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Of course it can be replaced. ... known stuff since over 50 years.
Youtube is full with 'permaculture' videos
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Regarding your sig. â" the scarcity in our world is artificial.
Especially the 'problems' we have in the western world, like droughts in the USA. Thousands of years ago, civilizations that just had left the stone age, built irrigation networks spanning thousands of miles.
At that time people and governments understood why people pay taxes and what the government is supposed to do with them.
Now we get bombarded by idiots with posts about 'broken window fallacies' or why the private sector is more efficien
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Nevertheless germany is importing more or less all the raw resources for such productions. ...
Also after the industrial revolution is over since 50 - 100 years, we are now in an 'replacement industry'. We replace old cars with new ones, old washing machines with new ones
At that time all industries where expanding and exploited not even opened markets, the demand for resources, ore, coal etc. was much higher than in our days. Well, as coal is now mainly used for electricity production, that might not be true
Re:Pesticides for humans (Score:5, Informative)
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Equally macabre... chemotherapy for treating cancer was developed in part after the autopsies of victims of an accidental release of mustard gas in WWII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cancer_chemotherapy [wikipedia.org]
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There is no peaceful resolution to the conflict in the Middle East.
Perhaps that was the goal all along. An unstable Middle East can't get organized enough to become a significant threat to the west.
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No, that was not the plan. It is a result of poor planning and short-sightedness. We give the people who put us in these messes far too much credit. We'd prefer to believe that they planned it, as opposed to simply not planning anything at all or simply not caring at all.
Not that the West needed to be involved to make the Middle East unstable. If we left the place alone, it would be just as unstable. Tribesmen and various empires have been fighting over that area for centuries. Oil has just made it wo
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Tribesmen and various empires have been fighting over that area for centuries. If we left the place alone, it would be just as unstable.
The same could be said for every square inch of the earth yet we've managed to create very large and powerful countries. The oil wealth in the Middle East may be just the thing that one or two nations need to overcome the other factions and create a large stable influential nation rivaling the US, or China.
Re:War is Hell. (Score:4, Interesting)
To you he may be a hero, but to Southerners, he is a mass murderer of women and children
I'm guessing Black Southerners have a different opinion of him.
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There is no equation between the "clean hands" of the North and South on this particular issue. Nor is there on the issue of treason, since many of the most prominent leaders of the South (including their God, Robert E. Lee) swore oaths to the United States that they later broke. It's not a simple matter of someone fighting for home, these people specifically swore oaths to the United States. As far as I'm concerned the lot of them are traitors and the South got off easy for its crimes against the Union and Humanity.
What about those thousands of Irish and German immigrants the North essentially impressed right of the boats into the Union army? And those men like Robert E. Lee weren't traitors, they loved and fought for their homes just as much as the men from the North did. The only difference between them is that most in the South say themselves not just as Americans, but ultimately as Virginians, Georgians, Mississippians, etc. A traitor is someone who betrays their home. These men didn't betray their home; they
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And those men like Robert E. Lee weren't traitors
He served in the United States Army, before the war, as a Commissioned Officer, which by definition means he swore an oath to preserve and protect the United States. If you're worried about your State one day needing to leave the Union then you probably shouldn't be swearing oaths to preserve the Union.
The only difference between them is that most in the South say themselves not just as Americans, but ultimately as Virginians, Georgians, Mississippians, etc.
Parse this part of the 14th Amendment:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
You do realize the 14th Amendment was added to the Constitution AFTER the Civil War, in 1868, right? And that ratifying it was one of the conditions imposed on the Southern states during reconstruction. So there was nothing in the Constitution that prohibited what they did. Also, but 1898 Congress generally removed disabilities incurred due to the 14th Amendment by those involved in the Confederacy. Lee's citizenship was also restored retroactively to June 13 1865, but that didn't happen until 1975. Da
Re:War is Hell. (Score:5, Interesting)
Furthermore, there was no requirement to stay in the union when the US was formed
You've never read the Articles of Confederation, have you?
Your argument is basically, "The South held slaves, the North were angels trying to swoop down and protect the helpless slaves from their Southern oppressors. Sherman's killing of civilians is perfectly OK in that context."
Nope. My argument is that it was a total war and Sherman destroyed targets of military value. He didn't directly kill civilians; he rendered some civilians homeless, which is a difference that is apparently lost on you. The wanton killing and aimless destruction that you're imagining is a figment of Southern imagination. Special Field Orders No. 120 [ncsu.edu], emphasis mine:
IV. The army will forage liberally on the country during the march. To this end, each brigade commander will organize a good and sufficient foraging party, under the command of one or more discreet officers, who will gather, near the route traveled, corn or forage of any kind, meat of any kind, vegetables, corn-meal, or whatever is needed by the command, aiming at all times to keep in the wagons at least ten day's provisions for the command and three days' forage. Soldiers must not enter the dwellings of the inhabitants, or commit any trespass, but during a halt or a camp they may be permitted to gather turnips, apples, and other vegetables, and to drive in stock of their camp. To regular foraging parties must be instructed the gathering of provisions and forage at any distance from the road traveled.
V. To army corps commanders alone is entrusted the power to destroy mills, houses, cotton-gins, etc., and for them this general principle is laid down: In districts and neighborhoods where the army is unmolested no destruction of such property should be permitted; but should guerrillas or bushwhackers molest our march, or should the inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct roads, or otherwise manifest local hostility, then army commanders should order and enforce a devastation more or less relentless according to the measure of such hostility.
VI. As for horses, mules, wagons, etc, belonging to the inhabitants, the cavalry and artillery may appropriate freely and without limit, discriminating, however, between the rich, who are usually hostile, and the poor or industrious, usually neutral or friendly. Foraging parties may also take mules or horses to replace the jaded animals of their trains, or to serve as pack-mules for the regiments or brigades. In all foraging, of whatever kind, the parties engaged will refrain from abusive or threatening language, and may, where the officer in command thinks proper, give written certificates of the facts, but no receipts, and they will endeavor to leave with each family a reasonable portion for their maintenance....
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Furthermore, there was no requirement to stay in the union when the US was formed
You've never read the Articles of Confederation, have you?
You've never read the Declaration of Independence, have you?
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What makes you think my comment was a joke? It was a straight up expression of my opinion.
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That would be a biological rather than a chemical weapon if weaponized.
Urine! (Score:4, Interesting)
Our troops are awesome!
It's just too bad that we can't give the same respect to our "leaders".
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IIRC, what happened was that when the Canadians were being gassed by the Germans, an officer with a background in chemistry immediately recognized that the gas was chlorine gas, and also knew that it could be neutralized with ammonia. The only readily available source of ammonia was from the urine in the latrine, so he ordered his men to go to soak rags in the latrine and put them over their faces.
Imagine getting that order...
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Urine was also widely used during WWII to soften the hard leather boots that would otherwise hurt soldiers' feet.
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The sequence of events is more like this: notice gas is being dropped. Panic. Pee pants. Take off pants and put them over your head.
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Was it less effective when mixed with shit?
Chemical Weapons Mag? (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone else find it a little disturbing there's a chemical weapons magazine?
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Chemical & Engineering News - they seem to offer a tad more broad-based coverage than chemical weapons.
Remember - 'Without chemicals, life would not be possible '....
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Anyone else find it a little disturbing there's a chemical weapons magazine?
Well they tried a Candle of the Month Club but it came to an abrupt end after only 1 month. Not really sure who thought a Mustard Gas candle was a good idea.
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Anyone else find it a little disturbing there's a chemical weapons magazine?
No, not really. It's the nuclear weapons magazine that I'm really concerned about...
Chemical weapons are much older than 100 years (Score:3, Informative)
Greek fire is arguably a chemical weapon and well known.
National Geographic has a nice article about the long history of chemical (and biological) weapons, [nationalgeographic.com]
The real difference in the modern era, it has become an economical form of warfare as well as more effective (higher rate of casualties) than older chemical attacks.
Re:Chemical weapons are much older than 100 years (Score:4, Informative)
Greek Fire is an incendiary, it's no more a chemical weapon than napalm is. Using the classical chemistry definition, sure, but not in the context of arms control or warfare.
April 22, 1915 (Score:2)
Ypres was not the first time the Germans used chlorine in a gas attack.
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Yes, that's true, but it was the first successful attack.
Fritz Haber (Score:5, Interesting)
Fritz Haber was an interesting guy. He won a Nobel Prize for synthesizing ammonia from atmospheric hydrogen and nitrogen. This was the basis of nitrogen-rich fertilizer that basically fed the world by making crop lands more productive. But he also developed the chlorine gas for the german govt and advocated for its use. Two weeks after the first chlorine gas attack his wife killed herself with his service revolver after an argument over its use.
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And several Nobel Prize winners worked on the Manhattan project...
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I think we can all agree: scientists have killed more people than any other group in history.
I dunno about that - Genghis Khan supposedly killed 40 million, which was 11 percent of the total population of the time.
Hitler killed 5 million Jews, the Hutus killed a million other Rwandans. I'm not sure how many scientists were on their side(s), but none of the responsible parties (people who made the decisions, gave the orders, or actually carried out the actions) stand out as being scientists.
I don't know that scientists kill all that many people - as individuals they're pretty weak.
As a group, they'r
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Fritz Haber was an interesting guy.
His actions - turning chemistry to the task of killing soldiers - was considered abhorrent by many people and caused much political and philosophical debate at the time.
His position was that (I'm paraphrasing) his country and its way of life were in jeopardy, and any action taken to prevent that was justified. He saw no difference between shooting an enemy soldier dead and killing them dead with chemicals.
And although he used Chlorine, the other side (French Chemist Victor Grignard) was working on Phosgene
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Somewhat incorrect, there pardner...
Big-game hunting rounds are nearly all, if not all, expanding rounds; that is, the projectile breaks apart or mushrooms open to create a larger wound path that will do more damage to vital organs. The purpose of this is to have a better chance at a quick death from massive blood loss instead of a slow death. It is considered a more humane way to kill large game.
Militaries are not allowed to use expanding ammunition mainly because it is more likely to cause a quick death.
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I rather had a bullet in my leg that just penetrates through than deforming projectile that blows away my whole leg.
Not every shot hits your head or your chest, where the actual kind of projectile is irrelevant in 99% of the cases.
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And he developed nitrogen fixing for it's use in gunpowder and other munitions. The fertilizer use boomed when companies needed a use for all of their left over nitrates from WWI.
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yes it's crazy, no? Nobel invented the process of making TNT, but it required naturally-occuring saltpeter. Haber invented the process to make artificial saltpeter, which meant TNT could be made in a factory without needing to import the saltpeter from overseas. The same german factories that produced nitrogen fertilizer to make food also produced the TNT for war. the intersection of science and society is a weird place!
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" Nobel invented the process of making TNT"
No he did not.
Nobel invented dynamite which is nitroglycerin mixed with diatomaceous earth. TNT is Trinitrotoluene.
So much for science history education.
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Thank you for the clarification. I think the overall point still stands.
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Explosives/Incendiary are chemicals too (Score:2)
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Delivered by spring-loaded injector disguised as an umbrella.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G... [wikipedia.org]
Well Happy Anniversary! (Score:2)
'nuff said...
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
It's the missuse of chemistry. / Abusing science. (Score:3)
Most chemical weapons were not invented to be weapons at first, but during the era when chemistry evolved, many compounds were created to be used in chemical processes, to produce things like poly vinyl chloride (for the old folks modern 12" LPs are made of this)
Phosgene for example. Till today is produced in tons and tons and tons. And this very day today you had a 100% chance to touch things or ingest things(medicine) were produced using phosgene or familiar compounds.
Not weapons kill people, people kill people, but this is not ment as a let go for engineers and scientists to use this as an excuse.
Greek Fire (Score:2)
Battle of Bolimów (Score:2)
Poor Choice of Metric in Summary (Score:2)
It greatly underrates the significance of poison gas in WWI so summarize is as "Even though poison gas didn't end up becoming an efficient killing weapon on WWI battlefields...".
The most effective agents available in WWI were an extremely efficient in causing casualties, that is, putting men out of action, with crippling injuries in many cases.
Just one chemical agent, mustard gas, caused 14% of all British battle casualties, despite being introduced late in the war, and not being available on the scale that
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Not used in concentration camps (Score:3)
Excuse my nit picking, but the Nazis hardly used gas chambers in concentration camps. Mostly, they built special camps dedicated for murdering (mostly Jews, but it depends on the camp), and gas chambers was mostly used in those. These are, generally, refered to as "Extermination camps [wikipedia.org]".
There were gas chambers in some of the concentration camps as well, but their use there was relatively marginal. Most people who died in concentration camps died from the cold, starvation and diseases, as well as direct murders (i.e. - getting shot).
Shachar
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Cept the germans used it in ypres, Belgium - so they should of stayed the fuck out of Belgium and gassed themselves?
Re:If someone is attacking you, you should use it. (Score:5, Informative)
If you don't want to get gassed, stay the fuck out of our country.
When the Germans first gassed the French, the French were not in Germany. The Germans were in France.
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"le parfum".
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Overripe Camembert Mortars? Munster grenades?
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Germans seems to *always* be in France whenever there's a war on.
Not always. Before 1871, the French used to go to Germany. Especially this guy [wikipedia.org].
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However in war, most of the time, you are trying to claim that that spot of land is your territory. So depending on the outcome, you are either the the aggressor or defendor.
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WW1 was not a land dispute.
Austria wanted to punish Serbia because of the death of their crown prince. Subsequent events led to an escalation of hostilities between Germany/Austria and France/UK/Russia.
Re:If someone is attacking you, you should use it. (Score:4, Informative)
WW1 was not a land dispute.
It was definitely a land dispute. France wanted their land back that they lost to Germany in 1870. The Germans were remembering Frederick the Great, emulating his land grabs. The British offered territory to Italy to join the fight.
No one cared much about Serbia: even Austria didn't care too much. To think that the war was about the assassination is to overlook a lot of history. The assassination was merely the trigger so many people were hoping for.
It's called proportionality? (Score:2)
You're more likely to use nuclear or chemical weapons if the other side don't have them ref [theguardian.com].
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TL;DS
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I just hum 'Kumbaya'.
I really annoys people.
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We love this one, too, although it's got some pro-communist roots we don't personally agree with.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJS-M4ov5EY [youtube.com]
Meshworks & Hierarchies even among "brothers" (Score:3)
That song, "Peter Paul and Mary: Because All Men Are Brothers", reminds me of the new movie "Senn" which we watched last night. Specifically, the PPM lyrics of: "My brother's fears are my fears, yellow white and brown. My brother's tears are my tears the whole wide world around."
"Senn" is an impressive movie, especially considering it was produced supposedly for only US$15000. That goes to show what modern technology and an internet-connected gift economy can do nowadays.
http://sennition.com/ [sennition.com]
This is a bit o
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Re:I don't care how righteous your goal is... (Score:5, Insightful)
For those who don't know, it is quite common (even standard procedure) in military operations to allow a certain quota of "collateral damage". In other words, governments not only "OK" the killing of innocents -- they expect and plan for it.
You expect it and plan for it so that you can minimize it. Battles themselves if not whole wars, are fought over resources (whether they be towns/land/populations, gold/oil/lumber/diamonds, or even simply political capital in the case of wars-"our economy sucks and people are mad at our political party, let's invade someone!"-like the Faulklands War) and there are usually civilians found in these areas. It is not immoral to expect and plan for civilian deaths. Immorality occurs when you do nothing to mitigate those potential deaths, or even worse intentionally seek them out. Detonating a bomb in a crowded marketplace is immoral. Using precision ammunition to target a bunker underneath an apartment building or mortars/rockets in a school instead of carpet bombing them so you don't destroy surrounding buildings is not. Often, those who hide behind civilians benefit more from the deaths of those civilians than they would protecting them and will even go out of their way to ensure greater civilian casualties.
Re:I don't care how righteous your goal is... (Score:5, Interesting)
The second you approve of a policy that restricts action X based on moral grounds, you have defined a vulnerability that a less ethical enemy will exploit.
Furthermore, when you're in a war, it's chaos. Bad stuff happens. Collateral damage happens. You certainly don't plan to inflict 1000 civilian casualties, but you can predict that in a city of 1 million people undergoing an all out conflagration, there will statistically be civilians killed, displaced, wounded, orphaned, starving, etc. You don't stop a war just because you're better at math.
War also isn't the first choice of a rational society. Diplomacy, negotiations, sanctions, pressure, demonstrations, all these kinds of activities are intended to solve the problem before it degenerates into war. But there is always another side, and if it degenerates to war, it's because at least one side was acting in bad faith. ISIL isn't even acting as a rational society. They don't negotiate - they enter an area, kidnap and rape the girls and take them forcibly as wives, and kill, conscript, or indenture the males. They use civilians as human shields, betting that an opposing force won't bomb their headquarters if they have them located in a schoolhouse full of children.
An outside society can do two things: allow the continued expansion of slavery and genocide, or attempt to stop it. If non-military resolutions fail, what would you have them do? "Sorry, you can't fight those insurgents because they duct-tape kidnapped children to the front of their vehicles." "Right, we'll just let them continue on their homicidal path because we can't place those children at risk."
It's not like anyone in the West wants civilian casualties. The moral high ground may not be perfect, and it may not be absolutely 100% civilian casualty free, but you can't claim a millimeter of moral high ground if you let the atrocities continue unchecked.
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You certainly don't plan to inflict 1000 civilian casualties
Not always, but targeting civilians is still an option in modern warfare.
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The second you approve of a policy that restricts action X based on moral grounds, you have defined a vulnerability that a less ethical enemy will exploit.
"As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy."
Wars are not won by brutality. They're won by being smarter than the enemy or as Winston Churchill once uttered:
"Battles are won by slaughter and manoeuvre, the more a general contributes in manoeuvre the less he demands in slaughter".
History is filled with the destruction of empires built on brutality. Even the most successful ones barely outlast
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Table salt contains chloride, not chlorine. Chlorine is dangerous because it has a very high electron affinity. It will happily steal electrons from your lung tissue if you inhale it. Chloride is basically chlorine that already has stolen an electron, so it's quite harmless.
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The question is in what composition you have chloride, for example your 12" LP (polyvinylCHLORIDE) won't kill anyone except you play Xena the Warrior princess.
But this is why you should read the security warnings because you can get a reaction working to set chlorine(that from WWI) free.
Bleach
What is used in bleaches is HClO not Cl2, HClO is called hypochloric acid - strong oxidizer.
Pool
Yes, in big pools chlorine (enclosed in steel gas cans) is used.
Yes, it can be set free by acident.
Yes, there are emergenc
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