Non-lethal chemicals that Kill
Quote
By David Isenberg
ASIA TIMES
April 1, 2003
It is increasingly an Orwellian world. Up is down. White is black. Invading another country is providing for the defense of your own. And now, it appears that the use of lethal chemical weapons will be "non-lethal", if, as appears possible, so-called "non-lethal weapons" (NLW) are used by the United States in Iraq.
Military interest in NLW goes back many years. In 1991, then defense secretary Dick Cheney (now vice president) established a Non-Lethal Warfare Study Group chaired by his undersecretary for policy, Paul Wolfowitz (now deputy secretary of defense). Even back then, there was disagreement about how non-lethal such systems would prove to be. According to an April 1991 memo from Wolfowitz to then-deputy defense secretary Donald Atwood, NLW "disable or destroy without causing injury or damage". But comments written in the margin, apparently by Atwood, said "This claims too much."
NLW advocates have long tried to build support for these systems by characterizing them as a means of making war more humane. But such claims are highly questionable. A 1994 Defense Science Board study noted that "Non-lethal incapacitating chemical agents could lead to greater lethality by making enemies more vulnerable to lethal weapons. So, the results of non-lethal weapons are not clear-cut in all cases."
One controversial class of NLW likely to be used in Iraq is toxic riot-control agents (RCA), such as tear gas, CS gas and pepper spray. The media have reported that the US is preparing to use such agents in Iraq, particularly if the conflict centers on street fighting in Baghdad itself, as now seems likely.
The use of riot control agents would, in the view of many legal and arms control experts, violate the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which entered into force in 1997. The CWC bans the use of these agents in battle, not least because they risk causing an escalation to full chemical warfare. This applies even though they can be used in civil disturbances at home.
https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Non-lethal_chemicals_that_Kill
-------
http://www.ultra-hyperspike.com/
-------
EMERGING NONLETHAL WEAPONS TECHNOLOGY AND STRATEGIC POLICY IMPLICATIONS FOR 21ST CENTURY WARFARE
http://dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a345532.pdf
Brak komentarzy:
Prześlij komentarz