@arh bullets, mortars, and bombs are allowed in war. Do you propose they use those instead?
@arh So should anyone fighting who is not in the uniform of a country be arrested immediately and be put to death? The punishment for war crimes is death, after all.
@arh The point I'm making is that applying war law to a riot is not meaningful. The only reason to talk about war law is that it's good for propaganda purposes.
Let's look at some of the rules of war:
Tear gas is illegal but nuclear weapons are OK.
Everyone fighting must be wearing a uniform of an established nation.
Anyone fighting must do so with an established declaration of war.
Anyone fighting must be under the command of a responsible officer.
Anyone found violating the war law will be executed.
Still looking forward to apply the rules of war to a riot?
Let's look at some of the rules of war:
Tear gas is illegal but nuclear weapons are OK.
Everyone fighting must be wearing a uniform of an established nation.
Anyone fighting must do so with an established declaration of war.
Anyone fighting must be under the command of a responsible officer.
Anyone found violating the war law will be executed.
Still looking forward to apply the rules of war to a riot?
@arh
(Forgive the long post, I mostly wrote it because I was enjoying the research and connecting the dots, not because I'm some passionate tear gas advocate)
And I was pointing out that saying something is legal or illegal under wartime law isn't really meaningful.
The law on chemical weapons defines chemical weapons as follows:
---
1. "Chemical Weapons" means the following, together or separately:
(a) Toxic chemicals and their precursors, except where intended for purposes
not prohibited under this Convention, as long as the types and quantities are
consistent with such purposes;
(b) Munitions and devices, specifically designed to cause death or other
harm through the toxic properties of those toxic chemicals specified in
subparagraph (a), which would be released as a result of the employment of
such munitions and devices;
(c) Any equipment specifically designed for use directly in connection with
the employment of munitions and devices specified in subparagraph (b).
2. "Toxic Chemical" means:
Any chemical which through its chemical action on life processes can cause
death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm to humans or animals. This
includes all such chemicals, regardless of their origin or of their method of
production, and regardless of whether they are produced in facilities, in
munitions or elsewhere.
---
Note in particular that it's a blanket ban on the entire class of weapon.
The history of this body of international law comes from World War 1, when a variety of chemical weapons were employed. The Germans used Chlorine gas which is horrible -- it reacts with your skin, with your eyes, with your mucous membranes, with the tissue in your nose and mouth and throat and lungs. Phosgene would start causing harm but would not fully manifest until 24 hours after exposure, killing someone who appeared healthy after a battle is already won or lost. Mustard gas was incredibly painful, and would painfully harm the skin, the lungs, the eyes, the nose. Death by mustard gas could take weeks and was incredibly painful, chemical burns all over your body. By the end you might be coughing up two litres of yellow fluid every hour trying desperately to breathe before you choke to death. In addition, civilians could be injured as the deadly gas travelled on the breeze.
So as a result of the terrible nature of chemical weapons in general, they were totally banned in war, and because all chemical weapons were banned, so was tear gas.
The thing is, that doesn't really mean anything. It was banned incidentally because everything related to the practice was banned, but a chemical that causes some tears simply doesn't compare to mustard gas, phosgene, or chlorine gas.
So as I said before, it's an interesting factoid for propaganda purposes, but it's irrelevant. War law is irrelevant and if it was applied in any other way it would result in rioters being massacred due to mass violation of war law, and the fact that one chemical is banned because an entire practice is banned is also irrelevant.
The little kid whose lemonade stand was shut down because massive multinational corporations require health and safety regulations and the regulations don't differentiate between the two is technically illegal, but nobody thinks they're the same thing or that they're comparable.
(Forgive the long post, I mostly wrote it because I was enjoying the research and connecting the dots, not because I'm some passionate tear gas advocate)
And I was pointing out that saying something is legal or illegal under wartime law isn't really meaningful.
The law on chemical weapons defines chemical weapons as follows:
---
1. "Chemical Weapons" means the following, together or separately:
(a) Toxic chemicals and their precursors, except where intended for purposes
not prohibited under this Convention, as long as the types and quantities are
consistent with such purposes;
(b) Munitions and devices, specifically designed to cause death or other
harm through the toxic properties of those toxic chemicals specified in
subparagraph (a), which would be released as a result of the employment of
such munitions and devices;
(c) Any equipment specifically designed for use directly in connection with
the employment of munitions and devices specified in subparagraph (b).
2. "Toxic Chemical" means:
Any chemical which through its chemical action on life processes can cause
death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm to humans or animals. This
includes all such chemicals, regardless of their origin or of their method of
production, and regardless of whether they are produced in facilities, in
munitions or elsewhere.
---
Note in particular that it's a blanket ban on the entire class of weapon.
The history of this body of international law comes from World War 1, when a variety of chemical weapons were employed. The Germans used Chlorine gas which is horrible -- it reacts with your skin, with your eyes, with your mucous membranes, with the tissue in your nose and mouth and throat and lungs. Phosgene would start causing harm but would not fully manifest until 24 hours after exposure, killing someone who appeared healthy after a battle is already won or lost. Mustard gas was incredibly painful, and would painfully harm the skin, the lungs, the eyes, the nose. Death by mustard gas could take weeks and was incredibly painful, chemical burns all over your body. By the end you might be coughing up two litres of yellow fluid every hour trying desperately to breathe before you choke to death. In addition, civilians could be injured as the deadly gas travelled on the breeze.
So as a result of the terrible nature of chemical weapons in general, they were totally banned in war, and because all chemical weapons were banned, so was tear gas.
The thing is, that doesn't really mean anything. It was banned incidentally because everything related to the practice was banned, but a chemical that causes some tears simply doesn't compare to mustard gas, phosgene, or chlorine gas.
So as I said before, it's an interesting factoid for propaganda purposes, but it's irrelevant. War law is irrelevant and if it was applied in any other way it would result in rioters being massacred due to mass violation of war law, and the fact that one chemical is banned because an entire practice is banned is also irrelevant.
The little kid whose lemonade stand was shut down because massive multinational corporations require health and safety regulations and the regulations don't differentiate between the two is technically illegal, but nobody thinks they're the same thing or that they're comparable.
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@arh
We're living in an age of mass lies. Everyone is lying, everyone is misleading people, everyone has their propaganda machine out in full force. There's rooms full of people whose only job is coming up with ways to deceive us.
That misleading and incomplete fact about tear gas being banned in war caught my eye because it's irrelevant. It's propaganda. The information I've provided shows why it's deceptive.
Now on the other hand, "Tear gas is a terrible weapon and shouldn't be shot at protesters", that's something real. Notwithstanding some fringe cases including mass violence, I could even get behind it.
Why *do* we see so much use of tear gas at protests, particularly ones that don't seem to be violent?
We're living in an age of mass lies. Everyone is lying, everyone is misleading people, everyone has their propaganda machine out in full force. There's rooms full of people whose only job is coming up with ways to deceive us.
That misleading and incomplete fact about tear gas being banned in war caught my eye because it's irrelevant. It's propaganda. The information I've provided shows why it's deceptive.
Now on the other hand, "Tear gas is a terrible weapon and shouldn't be shot at protesters", that's something real. Notwithstanding some fringe cases including mass violence, I could even get behind it.
Why *do* we see so much use of tear gas at protests, particularly ones that don't seem to be violent?
@arh Compared to mustard gas, chlorine or phosphene, it's a completely different thing, yes.
It can be a terrible weapon, but comparing the two is like comparing a tazer to a handgun. Yes the tazer can be lethal, it can cause harm to a person and it has killed, but if you have a choice between getting hit with a tazer and a pistol, I'd choose the tazer every day of the week.
It can be a terrible weapon, but comparing the two is like comparing a tazer to a handgun. Yes the tazer can be lethal, it can cause harm to a person and it has killed, but if you have a choice between getting hit with a tazer and a pistol, I'd choose the tazer every day of the week.
@arh the comparison is built into the framing device. Instead of saying "tear gas is bad", the propaganda says "tear gas is a banned chemical weapons under the rules of war". The intention is to compare tear gas to other banned chemical weapons.
It all comes back to the same thing. The reason that war law is even brought up is that there's this idea that in war everything must be permissible so anything that's against the rules of war must be so incredibly terrible. In reality, many scholars and writers have written about the paradox of non-lethal weapons, that on the battlefield the law of war prefers you kill your enemy to incapacitating them.
This goes back to my original point when I asked if police should use the totally legal methods of guns and bombs. "This is illegal under the laws of war" isn't meaningful. You aren't following the laws of war, and a whole lot of rioters would be executed under the laws of war if they did. Referring to a body of law that isn't applicable is a specific choice made by propagandists then spread through media channels to individuals to distort issues and create division between people who would otherwise agree.
That's the ultimate point of most of this propaganda. It isn't to change views in any specific direction, it's to sow division. It's to take things we all agree on or can all agree on and turn them into wedge issues so that we're all divided. The rich and powerful are not divided. They are all working together to drive us apart because then they can twist the things we care about to get what they want, and what they want has nothing to do with tear gas.
It all comes back to the same thing. The reason that war law is even brought up is that there's this idea that in war everything must be permissible so anything that's against the rules of war must be so incredibly terrible. In reality, many scholars and writers have written about the paradox of non-lethal weapons, that on the battlefield the law of war prefers you kill your enemy to incapacitating them.
This goes back to my original point when I asked if police should use the totally legal methods of guns and bombs. "This is illegal under the laws of war" isn't meaningful. You aren't following the laws of war, and a whole lot of rioters would be executed under the laws of war if they did. Referring to a body of law that isn't applicable is a specific choice made by propagandists then spread through media channels to individuals to distort issues and create division between people who would otherwise agree.
That's the ultimate point of most of this propaganda. It isn't to change views in any specific direction, it's to sow division. It's to take things we all agree on or can all agree on and turn them into wedge issues so that we're all divided. The rich and powerful are not divided. They are all working together to drive us apart because then they can twist the things we care about to get what they want, and what they want has nothing to do with tear gas.
@arh that's not what "whataboutism" is. That's where when one side of a political debate does something bad the other side of the political debate says "well what about this thing that you're doing?"
That's not what I'm doing here.
What I'm doing is showing that your premise is incorrect and reinforcing my point. Saying something is banned in war does not say that it is necessarily a particularly horrible or dangerous weapon, it just says that it's banned. Almost all of the worst weapons in the history of humanity are totally legal for use on the battlefield, making bringing up a particular weapon's status as banned or not irrelevant. Tear gas might be banned, but bullets, bombs, fire bombs, nuclear weapons, grenades, howitzers, artillery, tanks, gattling guns and Vulcan cannons are all totally legal. Given a choice between being hit with the "illegal in war" tear gas and the "legal in war" Tzar Bomba (or even a legal in war bullet), anyone would choose the tear gas 100 times out of 100. Thus a weapon's status as lawful or unlawful under the rules of war is irrelevant to whether it's specifically dangerous or not.
That's not what I'm doing here.
What I'm doing is showing that your premise is incorrect and reinforcing my point. Saying something is banned in war does not say that it is necessarily a particularly horrible or dangerous weapon, it just says that it's banned. Almost all of the worst weapons in the history of humanity are totally legal for use on the battlefield, making bringing up a particular weapon's status as banned or not irrelevant. Tear gas might be banned, but bullets, bombs, fire bombs, nuclear weapons, grenades, howitzers, artillery, tanks, gattling guns and Vulcan cannons are all totally legal. Given a choice between being hit with the "illegal in war" tear gas and the "legal in war" Tzar Bomba (or even a legal in war bullet), anyone would choose the tear gas 100 times out of 100. Thus a weapon's status as lawful or unlawful under the rules of war is irrelevant to whether it's specifically dangerous or not.
@arh I've been raising the exact same issue this whole time consistently, and I'm not raising nuclear weapons as a counter-accusation, I'm raising it as part of the original point. You can't be raising a different issue if it's literally your original issue.
If you're trying to say that tear gas is horrible, say that tear gas is horrible, and stop using the propaganda. At this point, the propaganda is so ubiquitous makes people turn off their brains and stop paying attention to you.
Once you pointed out that tear gas is horrible and it's odd that it's used so much on protesters, I actually agreed with you.
If you're trying to say that tear gas is horrible, say that tear gas is horrible, and stop using the propaganda. At this point, the propaganda is so ubiquitous makes people turn off their brains and stop paying attention to you.
Once you pointed out that tear gas is horrible and it's odd that it's used so much on protesters, I actually agreed with you.