
We want to live in a world free of chemical weapons - doener
https://www.opcw.org/about-us
======
GuB-42
The best way to get rid of chemical weapons is to make people realize that
they are less effective than conventional weapons. Most armies realized it at
some point.

Chemical weapons tend to be hard to control, easy to defend against, and not
that lethal once you consider the difficulty of dispersing the agent.

Even terrorists don't use them much. The famous Sarin gas attack in Tokyo
subway "only" killed 10, a regular bomb would likely have been much worse.

The only application where chemical weapons are used effectively now are in
crowd control and less lethal weapons (tear gas).

~~~
mc32
Chemical weapons provide more of a terrorizing effect than raw kills. It
demoralizes civilians and it harasses the military. They can also have long
term negative effects on survivors as well.

~~~
newsclues
The benefit would be to kill the population of a city without destroying the
infrastructure.

~~~
greesil
The moderm stuff is sticky and persists even with rain and sun for months,
supposedly. It's terrifying.

------
ilaksh
I personally feel that the accepted moral standard is actually fairly
ridiculous in some sense.

Because although maybe in some way some weapons can be _more_ horrible, there
is no such thing as a weapon that is not terrible. Or even ethical in my
opinion.

The "ethical" mass usage of weapons is based on a kind of psychological trick.
Each side is certain that theirs is the just and righteous cause, and the
other is surely evil and inhumane.

When people fail to resolve large-scale conflicts without resorting to deadly
violence, especially in today's age of instantaneous mass communications and
auto-translation etc., that is where the civilization gives way to the
underlying savegery of humans, just like other animals.

~~~
analognoise
It's very easy to consider modern precision weapons like cruise missiles
ethical:

The alternative is carpet bombing, including all the civilians nearby.

Mass use of precision guided weapons is meant to avoid excess casualties. How
is that not ethical?

I'm guessing this relies on a naive convenience position like "we should never
have war" \- ironically a position that can only be held when you already have
peace, freedom, and a strong and effective military.

~~~
FpUser
>"ironically a position that can only be held when you already have peace,
freedom, and a strong and effective military"

The exact conditions that the US had when it attacked Iraq killing boatload of
their population directly and indirectly in a process.

~~~
giancarlostoro
The precursor peace was mentioned. Are you saying Sadam had some sort of peace
treaty with us?

~~~
FpUser
You mean not having a piece treaty is a just grounds for war? This is really
grasping at straws.

~~~
giancarlostoro
You are over simplifying Iraq and Afghanistan. Also misunderstanding the last
point: effective military. If someone breaks the peace (9/11) you have to shut
it down. We dont have all the secret intel the military had all along, some of
it prior to 9/11 easily. Its easy to make assumptions without all the facts
but it doesnt fix anything. How many of us would of acted differently if we
had the top secret intel the same army had at the time? Theres no way of
currently knowing but it wouldnt surprise me if history would not be altered
by much.

~~~
FpUser
I did not say anything about Afhanistan. As for Iraq - the reasons were
officially stated and they were false as far as I can remember. It is not me
oversimplifying, it is you trying to approve murder of hundreds of thousands
people.

------
eat_veggies
It's so funny to me that america signed this but continues to tear gas its own
citizens every night.

~~~
Popcorn_Butter
How else would you stop a riot.

~~~
capableweb
Fix the underlying issues that makes people riot.

~~~
cglace
Because systemic issues can be fixed overnight.

~~~
eat_veggies
They can't be fixed overnight, but they certainly can't be fixed by _doubling
down_ on police brutality.

~~~
readarticle
Meanwhile, the riot riots.

Tear gas won’t manage gentrification and economic inequality, and overarching
societal reform won’t manage a riot in progress.

Right tools for the job and all that...

~~~
eat_veggies
You say this with such certainty, but empirically we have seen that protests
turn violent once police start escalating and attacking them, and turn
peaceful again after the cops leave [0][1][2][3][4][5]. So no, it's not the
right tool for the job. The protests have continued precisely because the
government has not showed a single sign of even _beginning_ efforts toward
overarching societal reform.

[0] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/31/portland-
pr...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/31/portland-protests-
federal-calm/)

[1] [https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/2/21278285/peaceful-
protest-...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/2/21278285/peaceful-protest-
oakland-george-floyd-police-violence-tear-gas)

[2]
[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/26/opinion/blm-p...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/26/opinion/blm-
protests-police-violence.html)

[3] [https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/19/opinions/aggressive-police-
pe...](https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/19/opinions/aggressive-police-peaceful-
protest-wang/index.html)

[4] [https://www.vox.com/2020/6/12/21279619/protesters-police-
vio...](https://www.vox.com/2020/6/12/21279619/protesters-police-violence-
philadelphia-los-angeles-washington-dc)

[5] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/police-keep-using-
fo...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/police-keep-using-force-
against-peaceful-protesters-prompting-sustained-criticism-about-tactics-and-
training/2020/06/03/5d2f51d4-a5cf-11ea-bb20-ebf0921f3bbd_story.html)

~~~
giancarlostoro
And yet parts of the government with abilities to act locally (where protests
occur) allow the rioting instead of doing anything useful. When the
politicians show up they get attacked. There is plenty wrong on either side
but burning down your own city and destroying local businesses is not going to
help anybody.

~~~
eat_veggies
When a politician, singular, showed up, he got attacked [by protestors] in
Wisconsin. Of course, most of the violence and threats toward politicians at
protests has been at the hands of _police_ [0][1][2]

[0]
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2020/06/03/all-t...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2020/06/03/all-
the-times-police-arrested-or-attacked-politicians-at-protests/)

[1] [https://www.newsweek.com/nypd-sergeants-benevolent-
associati...](https://www.newsweek.com/nypd-sergeants-benevolent-association-
union-tweet-deleted-mayor-bill-de-blasio-daughter-1507750)

[2] [https://www.thedailybeast.com/norman-oklahoma-
councilwoman-a...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/norman-oklahoma-councilwoman-
alexandra-scott-fears-police-doxxing-led-to-neighbor-being-raped)

~~~
giancarlostoro
You seem to have forgotten about Rand Paul being attacked as well. Then theres
the teenager getting into a battle with three criminals (or so they allege) at
least one of which was holding a gun they had no right to own. What was the
Police's hand in that situation that caused grown adults to attack a teenager?

~~~
eat_veggies
Apologies. I forgot about Rand Paul because in all the videos of the incident,
he appears unharmed. To him, violence is being surrounded by his constituents.

~~~
giancarlostoro
I'm sure they would of left him unharmed if he had no police escorting him.

------
robomartin
I realize this organization is focused around chemical weapons. However, as
laudable as this objective might be, the elephant in the room are nuclear
weapons. I wish they had included them in their charter. Or, better yet,
merged with other organizations already working on de-nuclearization:

[https://www.icanw.org/](https://www.icanw.org/)

[https://www.globalzero.org/](https://www.globalzero.org/)

A focused effort by a larger organization would be far more powerful and
should be far more effective than a bunch of separately funded teams competing
for the hearts and minds of world citizens and their financial support.

Can we get rid of both chemical and nuclear weapons? I don't know. I think we
do know what to do with the nukes...

Let's give Elon all the nukes so he can take them to Mars and do something
useful with them:

[https://www.space.com/elon-musk-serious-nuke-mars-
terraformi...](https://www.space.com/elon-musk-serious-nuke-mars-
terraforming.html)

------
nabla9
Russians have been conducting Novichok murders in the Western Europe with very
little pushback.

~~~
chefkoch
But they could have done this without chemical weapons, pure Polonium worked
also back in the days.

~~~
nabla9
It makes it even worse.

They signal to the west and their enemies that they are willing to use
chemical weapons in the west, even when it causes civilian collateral damage.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Amesbury_poisonings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Amesbury_poisonings)

