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Originally Posted by gotrocks
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Sarin gas rarely gets you from asphyxiation before you experience the nerve pain/spasms. And you will definitely piss yourself, shit yourself, and vomit. I guess arguing which is the worst way to die is kind of a moot point, since they are all horrible, but there's a special sort of fucked upness that comes from dying from nerve gas that you just don't get from a bomb concussion (which is how people usually die from our missile's/bombs, not shrapnel).
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That's my point though. They are all horrible and yet Americans seem pretty apathetic
to conventional bombing. I think it's just a matter of shrapnel deaths being around for centuries and we've gotten used to the idea. In addition, the bomb concussion only kills those who are very close (within a few tens of feet). Shrapnel gets those farther away. So in a rather twisted irony, the people we're targeting (bad guys hopefully) die immediately while the collateral damage gets to live in agony for minutes or hours before dying. And I'm really not sure if living in agony for an hour is any better than living in horror for a minute. I'd imagine it's worse.
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I am not so naive to think all missile strikes cause zero collateral damage, but as daldolma states below, it's intent to reduce harm that's the difference. And that IS a difference. That missile through the window MAY take out the floor in the building and crush a bunch of children below - unfortunately, that's war, and its fucked up. The point is that we're advancing our technology to try to prevent that from happening. Chemical weapons do the opposite.
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To me, intent isn't anywhere near as important as outcomes. A ruthless dictator is horrible, but a dictator who thinks their intentions are pure... watch out. And while we're trying to advance technology to reduce collateral damage, and I'd hope we could fight a war without a single civilian death, we're nowhere near that point. We can't pretend like Assad's killing of civilians is somehow worse than our killing of civilians. Keep in mind that just in the past decade, we've killed many times what Assad has. And I haven't even brought up the use of white phosphorus or depleted uranium. Those are the low hanging fruit when discussing America's moral superiority, and I thought I'd take a shot at some less obvious points. Nothing anyone has said has really convinced me that these points are not valid.
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Also, your entire argument is based off the fact that chemical weapons are a cheap alternative to...? what? nuclear weapons? Sure. But they are far from cheap. The facilities required to create sarin gas in a safe environment are still expensive. I guess that could be taken as 'the poor man's' solution. But when your poor man lives in a 25,000 sq ft palace and rests his feet on the backs of religious slaves, its hardly an accurate analogy. Especially considering one of the poorest countries in the world, north korea, is nuclear capable.
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Chemical weapons are cheap in relation to conventional weapons. Yes, a single chemical tipped missile will cost more than an explosive one, but the chemical one will be far more effective.