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Chemical weapons...how I changed my mind.

That has ZERO bearing on the point.

Nothing in my explanation said anything about him questioning my intentions....because that has ZERO bearing on the point.
"mdchachi said there was no need to make this thread as I could just google counter-arguments, not ask for them."

that is not what he said, he literally said that he wasn't sure what you were trying to accomplish. You are perfectly capable of doing research on the topic, as I did in forming my response to your one-sided (and in my opinion, ill-informed) OP. Please tell us what documentary you were watching.

The logical end game of his "google it" to find opinions rather than open a thread to find opinions is completely contrary to the point of having a forum.
You also said you didn't want opinions; you wanted your questions answered. I answered them and you continue to focus on petty tangents.

Well at least you understood something that was going on here, I will give you that much.
Are you actually making a point? Do you care at all about the thread you started? Or is this another topic you've abandoned?
 
Are there any dead dogs here that can explain to me what seems so obvious to our combative OP? A live one would suffice in a pinch.
I am not asking for links to read. I am asking 1) if you think I missed something in my explanation and 2) if you can make a logical distinction between conventional and chemical weapons.
Oh wait I found it. Here are the two questions. I know he doesn't want my answers but my answers are
1) Yes, I think something was missed (see the first link I provided).
2) Yes, I think they are logically different (based on the information I read in the first link I provided)

Do you at least understand that I never advocated closing the forum??
That's true. And neither did I.

I most certainly did not.

Tired of your false accusations.

You too are trolling. Please leave.
If you read back MoZ's posts it makes a lot more sense if you assume he's writing most of them right after awakening from a drunken stupor. In that case it makes sense that they don't make sense. For example he asks for answers to questions and then get caught up on people calling them opinions. Yet any answer to these types of questions will be opinions by definition.
 
This is an engaging lecture on the subject

The most engaging part was how much of a biased and lying individual the presenter was.

Does it not strike you as odd the way he just had to point out Haber's being a Jew getting a promotion to defame him? I think his being a Jew and promoted despite being a Jew is an interesting side note, but that guy presents it as being as important as him leading chemical weapon development. The only thing that fact defames is Christian Europeans at the time who were pretty much all anti-semitic. But he doesn't go into that at all. Red flag for his own anti-semitism right there.

The speed with which he brushes past Haber's claim "the enemy did it first" should give you great pause. He just calls it a "straight lie" and "entirely untrue". If Haber made such a claim, surely he would have some sort of story or explanation for it no? Who would make such a lie without some supporting evidence? An idiot. Haber was not an idiot. However he may have been mistaken. This wiki entry is very short, but its also very strange. There just happened to be a chemical smell? People just died from concussion? Really? They just keeled over and died? Sounds like a great weapon. Who capitalized on it?


But all of that ignores the fact the French were the first to employ tear gas. So imagine you find a dud French tear gas grenade and there are rumors of Turpinite going around.

The old git did not even mention Haber's claim that the Hague Convention banned chemical shells but not chemical gas projectors and this was also key to Haber's rationale.

But hold on. It gets far, far worse. I can find ZERO evidence that Haber even ever said that...at all. So even if he did say it, I can not say when or even in what context. I mean, if he said it as an excuse to use chemical weapons during or after their use by Germany, that's one thing. But if he said it before, while investigating turpenite, and then later realized there was no turpenite and changed his rational before launching his first CW attack, its utter bullox to hold up that quote against him.

In short, that presenter is a dirt bag. I think his claim Haber said that might well be a "straight lie" and "entirely untrue". Hard to prove a negative though. Impossible even.
 
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Censorship through noise; if you pummel people with enough falsehoods (like "the enemy used it first!"), they won't know what to believe anymore, and the most oft-repeated lies worm its way into public memory.

This may be my line. Seriously.

Next up: submarine warfare and the Lusitania. (note how subs are used with total impunity now that the Allies have them too (groan)
 
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Soldiers in WWI, when asked, near-universally stated that if they had to die, they would prefer a shell or a bullet to poison.

Exposure to mustard gas resulted in "severe chemical burns, respiratory damage, blindness, suffocation, cancer, and death." An estimated 35,000 soldiers were killed by this gas alone.

Who cares how enemy soldiers prefer to die? Certainly the Allies themselves ignored them and used gas attacks in return.

An interesting note for you is that despite western nations providing chemical weapons to Iraq, which Saddam Hussein used during the Iran-Iraq war, Iran refused to use chemical weapons in return. Instead, they used suicide attacks, against Islamic tradition, and began the new tradition of the Islamic suicide bomber.

Another interesting note is that Hitler refused to use chemical weapons, himself having suffered an attack. And while you may think that works against me, oh no. Make war even more horrible for soldiers please. Then maybe people will stop supporting it.
 
It was hard to track down as the presenter of the video paraphrases too much but it does seem to me Haber was wrong about whether chemical weapons were permitted or not.

The entire article is here: The Avalon Prject - Laws of War : Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV); October 18, 1907

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Art. 23.
In addition to the prohibitions provided by special Conventions, it is especially forbidden -

To employ poison or poisoned weapons;

To kill or wound treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army;

To kill or wound an enemy who, having laid down his arms, or having no longer means of defence, has surrendered at discretion;

To declare that no quarter will be given;

To employ arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering;

To make improper use of a flag of truce, of the national flag or of the military insignia and uniform of the enemy, as well as the distinctive badges of the Geneva Convention;

To destroy or seize the enemy's property, unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war;

To declare abolished, suspended, or inadmissible in a court of law the rights and actions of the nationals of the hostile party. A belligerent is likewise forbidden to compel the nationals of the hostile party to take part in the operations of war directed against their own country, even if they were in the belligerent's service before the commencement of the war.

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I don't think I am going to be able to agree with Haber that poison gas/aerosol liquid projectors were permitted. But I feel I might be missing something in his interpretation. Like:

What is a poison exactly? Is tear gas a poison? If it is then the French used poison first. If its not because tear gas does not usually kill but DOES sometimes, including causing miscarriages, then what is the line between what is and what is not a poison??

I might have more on this in the future but I won't promise.

In the mean time, have a look at the second article and the fourth to last. They seem a bit unrealistic.
 
Soldiers in WWI, when asked, near-universally stated that if they had to die, they would prefer a shell or a bullet to poison.

For one, that is claimed in the video, but I don't know HIS sources. Was that both Axis and Allies? Really? Cause if it was just Allies how was Haber, a German officer, to know of it?

Also, its a bit of a strange question to ask people,who have not yet experienced dying, what method of dying they prefer. I mean, imagine dead soldiers in Heaven for a second. One says he is glad he died quickly on the battlefield with a single shot to head. But one who died after weeks of pain from a mustard gas attack might say "I got to say goodbye to my mother, father, wife and children. It was horrible pain, but it was worth it. " Shot in the head guy is now a little jealous. Meanwhile a third says he was shot in the stomach and spine in the middle of no-man's land and had his own intestines ripped out and hanging on barbed wire around him and lay there screaming in feces, rats and agony for days....and not even a cute nurse to look at.

A key thing to remember about chemical warfare is that a reason it was so opposed is because suddenly soldiers were dying at home or in hospital and civilians got to see them die, whereas before they just came home in a box...all quiet and peaceful like. Just bury them and forget 'em! Chemical warfare was real inconvenient for civies. It made war seem gruesome rather than some noble enterprise.
 
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