Tear Gas – Illegal in War but OK for Riot Control | Hacker News Reader

Tear Gas – Illegal in War but OK for Riot Control

washingtonpost.com

23 pointszo113 comments

Its illegal in war because of a fear of miscalculation, not because of its effects: i.e. a soldier may call in a retaliatory strike proportional to chemical weapons because its difficult to tell the difference between tear gas and something more lethal in the heat of battle.

the OPCW claims the convention was formed due to rapid innovation in the chemical weapon section - leading to the realization that small countries could own an arsenal capable of producing doomsday without much material wealth. [0]

[0]: http://www.opcw.org/news-publications/publications/history-o...

That's not really accurate. They're banned because there is no net benefit if both sides have them, and they only serve to make wars more destructive. The exact same logic lead to parallel bans on exploding / poisoned / expanding / fragmenting ammunition and later land mines.

In war you have an alternative, though: Live ammunition. Soldiers don't need tear gas, and if you took it away from cops eventually the live ammunition would come out.

A really bad argument.

I thought all chemical weapons are out, just like all nukes are out.

Yes there exist nukes less destructive than conventional weapons but it's probably best to just have a blanket ban.

> "An infant exposed to CS in a house into which police had fired CS canisters to subdue a mentally disturbed adult developed severe pneumonitis requiring therapy with steroids, oxygen, antibiotics, and 29 days of hospitalization."

Baby got sick while being saved? from a mentally disturbed adult because they didn't put a bullet in the adults head as a matter of course.

Not a great argument either.

And if you dump enough tear gas in a truck full of adults you can asphyxiate them......

Would allowing tear-gas and other "chemical weapons" in war break down what we consider war? Would it somehow lead to wars so brutal no one would want to wage them?

How desperate does a relatively sane country have to get before it deploys tactics we would currently reserve as "terrorism" and "weapons of mass destruction"?

The article tapdanced around the reasoning because it sounds so awful, but torture of civilians is permitted and when the USA does it, its now the greatest most ethical thing evar (although years ago only the bad guys tortured people, at least officially, sometimes thats how you knew they were the bad guys...). And torture in general isn't legal under rules of war. So thats why, at least on paper, we treat enemy soldiers better than our own people.

I don't think there's a causal connection between torture policies and tear gas being allowed for crowd control, I think they are both linked to the same cause - that governments are more interested in protecting themselves than the populous, and are perfectly willing to look at their citizens as an enemy.

It seems to me there's much less to risk in terms of mistreating your own populace than a foreign one.

For one, outside countries don't get in the middle of internal/civil disputes. Only in extreme cases does an outside country intervene on behalf of people that aren't its citizens, when most/all the civilians are in favor of intervention, and only when the outside country will gain more than it could lose.

Two, mistreating enemy combatants will not only escalate the conflict, it will reduce the support of your allies. Mistreating your own people goes back to point one, so most people just don't get involved, and the citizens have no recourse.

Three, citizens have to obey the laws set down by their government. Trying to fight your government's abuses of its people is essentially going against your government, which will just get you punished.

Tear gas is used because it's incredibly effective and non-lethal. It disperses crowds without having to resort to other potentially damaging or lethal means, ie. sonic guns (deafness), rubber bullets (broken ribs or death), batons, etc.

Not every "riot" is peacefully gathering citizens. Most start that way, but often go far off the "peaceful" trail. That is when things like tear-gas are deployed.

> governments are more interested in protecting themselves than the populous

Be careful using the plural there. The United States government is the only government from a Developed country that does this.

If you want to compare the United States to Developing and Undeveloped countries, go right ahead.

I'm sorry, it seems like you haven't been paying attention to the world stage. America's is definitely not the only government putting itself before its citizens. Look at Australia, Canada, the UK, and arguably, many of the TPP nations.

France and Greece have in recent memory. Pretty much any country that has hosted the G8 the last 10 years or so.

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