We'll meet again, Don't know how, don't know when:

[underlankers]

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/21/politics/mustard-gas-us-troops/index.htmlRead more... )

Comments

[abomvubuso]

The use of a chemical weapon does not make WW3. A number of powerful militaries getting involved in the same conflict, each with its own interests and fighting on different sides, is.

[underlankers]

Using WMDs to retaliate to a WMD strike in proximity to a hostile nuclear-armed force might well do it. Given Russia's definition of "ISIS" it might well declare whatever the USA decides to hit, if it hits anything 'innocent civilians', with plenty of gullible buffoons believing anything Moscow puts out while rightly applying to Washington skepticism never applied equally to anyone else deciding they're right and shit spirals downhill from there.

Likewise ignoring a mustard gas attack is not exactly a good idea, nor is giving people infinite license to do it. Iran didn't enjoy that experience very much in the 1980s.

[htpcl]

And yet, even with all that extensive use of WMD, Iran and Iraq still didn't cause a WW3.

[underlankers]

Kind of a challenge to start WWIII in the midst of the Cold War when both superpowers are simultaneously backing one side and enabling it to use WMDs on the other. ;)

[ddstory]

The response should be to follow the trail of WMD trade back to the source, and cut it.

You might be surprised.

[underlankers]

Well if we're being perfectly crude it's probably from stockpiles from the old Soviet Union and Egypt. So what then? More useless sanctions on a Russian despot who's happy to turn Russia into a Chinese puppet? More useless sanctions on Egypt? Or bombing them to send a message that US troops won't accept WMD attacks in line with 50 years of foreign policy?

Or deciding MAD really was mad and giving open season to terrorists to figure out how to make chemical technology actually work.

I mean yes, your idea is what should be done in an ideal world, but to call the clusterfuck in Syria ideal would be more optimistic than Pollyanna and superpower realpolitik doesn't allow for the ideal, wise option. Especially where NBC weapons are involved.

[policraticus]

Mustard gas isn't exactly difficult to produce. My guess would be that it was a captured Syrian army shell, or a legacy shell from Saddam's "non-existent" Iraqi WMD program.

[underlankers]

In which case if it was a Syrian army shell, it's probably dysfunctional as much because the USSR manufactured it, and since that would involve going after *Russia* now, well....back to the WWIII possibility intensifying there. It's actually kind of amazing how much historical amnesia there is involving the USSR's role in the Middle East. You'd never know that one of the closest WWIII calls in the Cold War was in 1973 or that Arab states suckled Moscow's teats before Washington became the only game in town.

[dexeron]

The "problem" with tear gas is that it certainly was appropriate to ban it in warfare, but riot control has few, if any, equally effective non-lethal alternative methods of implementation. There are problems, still, with futuristic alternatives like "pain rays," and things like "non-lethal" rubber bullets aren't as non-lethal as we'd like them to be