But we have all these nukes just sitting around wasting space. If you think about it, it's really a genius plan. We fire the nukes and kill the bad guys, which the Republicans like, and then we don't have as many nukes, so we participated in nuclear disarmament, which the Democrats like.

I think this is a plan that could get a lot of bipartisan support.

This is why he is President.

I would +1 your thread but I'm too reminded that actual people actually think like this.

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/05/15706380-syria-loads-chemical-weapons-into-bombs-military-awaits-assads-order?lite

If Assad uses these weapons we need to kill or capture him and take the weapons. A regime that uses chemical weapons is a threat to international peace and letting chemical weapons fall into the hands of the Islamist factions of the rebellion is unacceptable. No nukes, no large invasion, just punishing air power and special forces missions (like in the early days of the Afghan War).

If that's imperialism I don't care. One sarin rocket attack on Israel could lead to Netanyahu nuking Damascus. One Japanese subway type attack in America or Europe could mean another ground war that lasts a decade. If Assad uses his chemical stockpile he has to go. Whatever repercussions that come from that action pale in comparison to the prospect of loose sarin weapons and the lesson to regimes and non-state actors that chemical attacks are tolerated by the world.

In what sense is killing civilians via chemical weapons worse than killing them with bullets and bombs?

@Octavious, we don't glamorize killing with chemical weapons like we do with guns.

"A regime that uses chemical weapons is a threat to international peace"

Amen. Let's haul the Clinton Justice Department honchos in front of the ICC for the Waco Massacre, as well as every American police chief who ever ordered the tear-gassing of protesters.

Technically dynamite is a chemical weapon when used as a weapon
C3H5(NO3)3

As is gunpowder whose primary ingredient is charcoal C7H4O

And tear gas is technically *not* a weapon. At least not unless the intent in its use is to wound or kill. Or maybe I should say it is a non-lethal weapon by intent. So perhaps Invictus just needs to better clarify his statement...

Convoy from STP.

Chemical weapons are specifically defined by international treaty and by the UN as substances which are designed to cause death or harm by the direct effects of their toxic properties.

Dynamite is not technically a chemical weapon. It is technically a weapon which is a chemical. It causes death by explosion, not by toxicity and so is not a chemical weapon no matter the use it is put to.

Tear Gas is not a chemical weapon. It is a weapon which is a chemical. It is not designed to cause death or harm, but is designed to produce discomfort which may cause death or harm as an unwanted side effect and so is not a chemical weapon unless used with the specific intent to cause death or injury.

Speaking as a chemist who has both seen and, in a lesser way, experienced such things, if you ever saw a person suffering the weeks or months-long effects of chemical toxicity or lacrimator inhalation, you would have no doubt that killing a person that way was orders of magnitude worse than killing them with bullets and bombs. By and large, chemical weapons are chosen not for their ability to kill but for their ability to terrorize with the potential for a horrible, suffering, lingering death.

Thank you to zardoz for bringing sense back into this thread. Sadly, it doesn't matter as this thread is started by a troll and its main purpose is for trolling.

Guys that's cool and all, but Syria is being really mean to people. We should really just nuke them quickly because otherwise they'll get really really mean and bad stuff will happen.

There is a not single shred of evidence backing up the claim that Syria is preparing to use chemical weapons against the NATO-backed terrorists. Not surprised the usual imperialist useful idiots fall for it, every time.

Yeah, idiots! I told you we should nuke them. Chemical weapons? Shmemical weapons! Let's get right to it. No holds barred. Sooner we use them, the sooner we save the good guys from the bad guys!

How many countries have NATO lied about preparing to use WMDs now? DPRK, check. Iraq, check. Iran, check. Syria, check.

Meanwhile they drop depleted uranium on civilian populations from high altitudes. Gotta love these fuckers.

How much you wanna bet that the terrorists, who have done nothing but suffer one defeat after another, are going to use their new Libyan connections to import chemical weapons from Libya along with the surface-to-air missiles they're already receiving. Another false flag operation in the works.

BTW, remember when Invictus said anybody who advocates the assassination of a head of state needs to be suppressed? Time to report him to the authorities.

putin goes and takes a troll thread seriously. might as well join in

DPRK does have nuclear weapons. They won't use them though, or even threaten to....not until they have a launch vehicle.
Iran - honestly I don't know whether to believe the official Iranian government position or not. If its legitimate, why all the secrecy? Why not be open to at least have Russia regulate it? Hell, I'd be all for Russia providing Iran with enriched uranium with UN oversight.
Iraq - he once did have chemical weapons and used them against his population. But yes, 2003 was a mistake.
Syria - I believe these reports Putin. Syria publicly admitted to holding chemical weapons

1 - In 2002 the Bush administration nixed the Agreed Framework after accusing the DPRK of secreting developing weapons grade uranium. Turns out they weren't doing anything of the sort.

2 - Iran. Few countries would agree to pay for uranium enrichment with not a single one of their own scientists employed in the process, and relinquishing pretty much all control of the process to another country. Why the secrecy? Seriously? Have you read about how the UN used UNSCOM in Iraq as an espionage program against Saddam Hussein?

Iraq - I don't buy that there is solid proof Iraqis used the weapons in the 80s. The intelligence community at the time denied Iraq was responsible. Beyond bizarre that the 80s war is the excuse for launching two wars of aggression combined with sanctions over *nuclear* weapons.

Syria - *No they did not*. Syria said no chemical weapons would be used vis-à-vis the terrorists in Syria. That was the statement.

Iran allowed the IAEA into all of their facilities, anyway.

Re: Iran and the IAEA...

http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2003_12/IAEAreport

I'll leave it to you to read and form your own opinion on this matter.

But it is generally known now that the DPRK has somewhere around a dozen nuclear warheads, no? And the Koreans aren't exactly denying this.

I actually did not read that about Iraq and UNSCOM, no. Could you provide a link to it so I can read when I have time? I understand that its true few countries would accept that, but to some extent there has to be a limit on how many countries are able to own and operate nuclear facilities. The majority of the world has now agreed that nuclear weapons should be eliminated from the world, but every country that has been granted the ability to have nuclear technology has pursued a weapons program. India, Pakistan, Libya, Iraq, North Korea. To prevent nations from pursuing weapons program, we need to take it out of there hands, and have existing nuclear nations regulate it, to prevent more nations from potentially arming in the future. And they did let the IAEA in, but didn't the IAEA inspectors complain about not being able to tour the full facilities, nor all of the nuclear facilities Iran had?

Even on the Kurdish massacres you don't buy it? Using it against the Iranians, okay I can perhaps consider the validity of that, but there is pretty solid proof Hussein used it against the Kurds.

All I mentioned about Syria is that they had them, and that I believe the reports that the Chemical Forces have been put on high alert and stockpiles have been condensed to the extent that weapons could be ready within hours should they choose to use them. I don't think they actually will.

This is gonna be unpopular, I know, but whjat the fuck right does any country or collective have to tell another sovereign nation it can't develop nuclear material or even limit that development to energy purposes? Every nation with the ability should have the right to develop whatever the fuck they want. Now, they threaten to use it and they get stomped into dust before they can. But they have a right to govern themselves and the UN and the US and the West as a whole has no right to tell any nation what they can and cannot do on their own soil beyond basic human rights violations. And developing a nuclear deterrent in *not* a human rights violation.

Draug - at some point the world will need to have a form of global unified government, at which point nations will relinquish portions of their sovereignty, much as states within the USA have, and nations within the EU have. Currently, the trend is towards regional blocs, but it will happen eventually.

They do have a right to govern themselves, Draug. But at some point the collective safety of the global community comes into question and you must act. If the Suez Canal or Straights of Malacca were shut down, the global community would intervene and forcibly open them. Those are Egyptian and Malaysian/Indonesian waters, yes, but they're a global public good. Nuclear power is a similar thing - a global public good.

President Eden obviously thinks using chemical weapons is a laughing matter.

No big deal, doesn't affect him in his dorm room.

But for Fuck's sake those israelis...

"When violence answers violence in a growing frenzy that makes the simple language of reason impossible, the role of intellectuals cannot be, as we read every day, to excuse from a distance one of the violences and condemn the other. This has the double result of enraging the violent group that is condemned and encouraging to greater violence the violent group that is exonerated. If they do not join the combatants themselves, their role (less spectacular, to be sure!) must be merely to strive for pacification so that reason will again have a chance."

Albert Camus, PREFACE TO ALGERIAN REPORTS, March-April 1958.

You're quoting that hack who defended the French vs the FLN?

America good, other people bad! Yay America! Boo Other People!

Just think about it. If we nuke it, there won't be anymore terrorists there. Impeccable logic.

i know santa claus was trying to poop on my logic but i +1 him anyway

merry christmas santa

whoa i didn't give him dubloons

i hope

So a Arab dictator is just fine gassing his subjects but when Israelis inflict collateral damage it causes PE to shed the tears. Love it.

bro i want to nuke syria

israel is getting off easy

not that israel should be punished

israel is a Good Guy

"But it is generally known now that the DPRK has somewhere around a dozen nuclear warheads, no? And the Koreans aren't exactly denying this."

You're sort of missing the point. The point is the Bush administration lied about the DPRK "cheating" in order to kill the Agreed Framework which the DPRK had been following. They weren't developing nuclear weapons. But after being threatened and the treaty broken, they began developing plutonium for self-defense.

"To prevent nations from pursuing weapons program, we need to take it out of there hands, and have existing nuclear nations regulate it, to prevent more nations from potentially arming in the future."

Tell me, what incentive is there now for Iran to agree to any of this when Libya agreed to dismantle their nuclear program and their "reward" was a NATO military intervention and the murder of their head of state?

On Iraq & UNSCOM espionage:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4301889.stm

On US intelligence blaming the chemical weapon attack on Iran, not Iraq

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4301889.

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/a_war_crime_or_an_act_of_war.htm

"So a Arab dictator is just fine gassing his subjects "

Never happened.

Dr. Stahllove: Or, How I Learned To Stop Fighting On WebDip And Love The Bomb

(stahl is my econ professor for 3 classes this semester. he might have had this semester's least envious job in the first world)

Good name.

i sure stahled out on my studying

@Putin33: Well, there's Halabja.

"Tear Gas is not a chemical weapon"

Fun fact: tear gas is banned for use in war by the Geneva Convention, but is entirely legal for governments to use on their own subjects.

I just addressed Halabja. Some kind of blood agent was found on the Pashmergas there, which isn't something the Iraqis had.