100 Years of Chemical Weapons

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.

Comments

Pesticides for humans

[riverat1]

Chemical weapons are essentially pesticides for humans.

Re:Pesticides for humans

[Dutch Gun]

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:I don't care how righteous your goal is...

[Nidi62]

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.