Weapons of mass deception
The deadly potential posed by most so-called WMD has been vastly overstated by the Bush administration.
-The Source-
NEW YORK -- "Weapons of mass destruction." No term has been more abused, or less understood. George Bush has made it his personal mantra, and the slogan of his presidency. An administration that may have concocted fake evidence to launch its war on Iraq may yet conveniently "discover" unconventional weapons there -- before November's U.S. elections. So let's define what such weapons are -- and what they are not.
Three types of unconventional arms are called WMD: nuclear, chemical and biological.
Of those, the only true weapons of mass destruction are nuclear. The United States, Russia, China, France, Britain, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea alone possess them. Japan could make a nuclear weapon within 90 days.
But without specialized medium- and long-range delivery systems (aircraft or missiles), nuclear weapons are useless, even suicidal.
Last week, Bush warned of nuclear proliferation and called for a worldwide ban on the trade of nuclear material. This when U.S. ally Pakistan has been exposed as a major proliferator, Israel is covertly helping build India's nuclear forces and the U.S. plans to deploy a new generation of nuclear weapons designed to attack Third World targets.
Chemical weapons, which are not WMD, are blistering, choking or toxic agents. Mustard gas possessed by Iraq, Libya, Syria, Egypt and other nations is First World War technology. Horrible as they are, these are strictly battlefield weapons, requiring large, clumsy holding tanks, and depend on favourable winds.
Winston Churchill authorized using poison gas against "primitive tribesmen" -- Kurds in Iraq and Afghans -- when he was British home secretary. Benito Mussolini's Italian forces used mustard gas in Ethiopia and Libya.
Choking gas, such as chlorine, is also a tactical battlefield agent. French troops without gas masks defending a four-kilometre front at Verdun in 1916 were hit by 60,000 chlorine gas shells, yet held their lines. So did Canadian troops in Flanders, also without masks, who heroically fought off superior German forces.
Nerve gases, such as Sarin and VX, are Second World War vintage. Though deadly, they, too, are tactical agents designed for area denial and neutralizing high value targets.
Using nerve gas requires specialized vehicles or aircraft with highly complex dispensing systems. Using such gas is dependent on temperature, humidity and wind. The Soviets tried various nerve agents in Afghanistan, but found them ineffective and dangerous to their own troops.
Nerve agents would be extremely lethal if released by terrorists in a large building, mall or airport but, again, they are weapons of localized destruction, not mass destruction.
In 1995, a Japanese cult released nerve gas in Tokyo's subway system, killing 12 people.
Nerve gas was not used during the Second World War because of its unreliability and lack of wide area lethality. Many gases are unstable and have limited shelf lives.
Iraq and Iran used poison gas during their 1980-88 Gulf War -- killing or maiming many soldiers, but achieving no strategic breakthroughs.
Biological agents, such as anthrax, botulism, Q-fever, tularemia and plague, are the most feared, yet least understood weapons. They are difficult to produce, store, transport and deliver.
Germ weapons have never been successfully used in warfare. The Soviet Union was secretly working on mutated, drug-resistant forms of anthrax and plague when it collapsed.
In the 1930s and '40s, Japan used anthrax in bombs, and also released plague-infected rats against Chinese civilian and military targets. These attempts produced some localized casualties. The Japanese military ruled their biological warfare campaign a failure.
Biowarfare agents are weapons of uncertain, limited destructiveness.
Some conventional weapons can be as destructive as nuclear weapons.
The two atomic bombs the U.S. dropped on Japan in 1945 killed 103,000 people. But in one night alone, U.S. firebombs incinerated 100,000 civilians in Tokyo.
Japanese sources say one million civilians were killed by U.S. bombing raids. More than 100,000 German civilians were burned to death by the Allied firebombings of Dresden and Hamburg.
Fuel-air explosives, or thermobaric weapons, used by Russia in Chechnya and by the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq, can be as destructive as small, tactical nuclear weapons.
So can America's recently deployed 10-tonne MOAB bomb. Larger versions are planned.
Given these facts, it's important to dissipate the hysteria and confusion over WMD.
Even if Iraq had chemical or biological weapons in 1993 -- which it did not -- they were not true weapons of mass destruction. Iraq had no means of delivering them to the U.S., and they could never have posed the threat Bush claimed.
No terrorist group is likely to sneak enough chemical or biological material into the U.S. to cause more than localized damage.
Attacks such as those on the World Trade Center may be horrible, but they were not mass destruction. Even a small nuclear device would cause only limited destruction.
Ironically, the most lethal, yet most ignored, WMD faced by Americans today happens to be their beloved cars, trucks and SUVs, in which some 43,000 die each year in traffic accidents.
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Nice article by Eric Margolis. I love it.
The deadly potential posed by most so-called WMD has been vastly overstated by the Bush administration.
-The Source-
NEW YORK -- "Weapons of mass destruction." No term has been more abused, or less understood. George Bush has made it his personal mantra, and the slogan of his presidency. An administration that may have concocted fake evidence to launch its war on Iraq may yet conveniently "discover" unconventional weapons there -- before November's U.S. elections. So let's define what such weapons are -- and what they are not.
Three types of unconventional arms are called WMD: nuclear, chemical and biological.
Of those, the only true weapons of mass destruction are nuclear. The United States, Russia, China, France, Britain, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea alone possess them. Japan could make a nuclear weapon within 90 days.
But without specialized medium- and long-range delivery systems (aircraft or missiles), nuclear weapons are useless, even suicidal.
Last week, Bush warned of nuclear proliferation and called for a worldwide ban on the trade of nuclear material. This when U.S. ally Pakistan has been exposed as a major proliferator, Israel is covertly helping build India's nuclear forces and the U.S. plans to deploy a new generation of nuclear weapons designed to attack Third World targets.
Chemical weapons, which are not WMD, are blistering, choking or toxic agents. Mustard gas possessed by Iraq, Libya, Syria, Egypt and other nations is First World War technology. Horrible as they are, these are strictly battlefield weapons, requiring large, clumsy holding tanks, and depend on favourable winds.
Winston Churchill authorized using poison gas against "primitive tribesmen" -- Kurds in Iraq and Afghans -- when he was British home secretary. Benito Mussolini's Italian forces used mustard gas in Ethiopia and Libya.
Choking gas, such as chlorine, is also a tactical battlefield agent. French troops without gas masks defending a four-kilometre front at Verdun in 1916 were hit by 60,000 chlorine gas shells, yet held their lines. So did Canadian troops in Flanders, also without masks, who heroically fought off superior German forces.
Nerve gases, such as Sarin and VX, are Second World War vintage. Though deadly, they, too, are tactical agents designed for area denial and neutralizing high value targets.
Using nerve gas requires specialized vehicles or aircraft with highly complex dispensing systems. Using such gas is dependent on temperature, humidity and wind. The Soviets tried various nerve agents in Afghanistan, but found them ineffective and dangerous to their own troops.
Nerve agents would be extremely lethal if released by terrorists in a large building, mall or airport but, again, they are weapons of localized destruction, not mass destruction.
In 1995, a Japanese cult released nerve gas in Tokyo's subway system, killing 12 people.
Nerve gas was not used during the Second World War because of its unreliability and lack of wide area lethality. Many gases are unstable and have limited shelf lives.
Iraq and Iran used poison gas during their 1980-88 Gulf War -- killing or maiming many soldiers, but achieving no strategic breakthroughs.
Biological agents, such as anthrax, botulism, Q-fever, tularemia and plague, are the most feared, yet least understood weapons. They are difficult to produce, store, transport and deliver.
Germ weapons have never been successfully used in warfare. The Soviet Union was secretly working on mutated, drug-resistant forms of anthrax and plague when it collapsed.
In the 1930s and '40s, Japan used anthrax in bombs, and also released plague-infected rats against Chinese civilian and military targets. These attempts produced some localized casualties. The Japanese military ruled their biological warfare campaign a failure.
Biowarfare agents are weapons of uncertain, limited destructiveness.
Some conventional weapons can be as destructive as nuclear weapons.
The two atomic bombs the U.S. dropped on Japan in 1945 killed 103,000 people. But in one night alone, U.S. firebombs incinerated 100,000 civilians in Tokyo.
Japanese sources say one million civilians were killed by U.S. bombing raids. More than 100,000 German civilians were burned to death by the Allied firebombings of Dresden and Hamburg.
Fuel-air explosives, or thermobaric weapons, used by Russia in Chechnya and by the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq, can be as destructive as small, tactical nuclear weapons.
So can America's recently deployed 10-tonne MOAB bomb. Larger versions are planned.
Given these facts, it's important to dissipate the hysteria and confusion over WMD.
Even if Iraq had chemical or biological weapons in 1993 -- which it did not -- they were not true weapons of mass destruction. Iraq had no means of delivering them to the U.S., and they could never have posed the threat Bush claimed.
No terrorist group is likely to sneak enough chemical or biological material into the U.S. to cause more than localized damage.
Attacks such as those on the World Trade Center may be horrible, but they were not mass destruction. Even a small nuclear device would cause only limited destruction.
Ironically, the most lethal, yet most ignored, WMD faced by Americans today happens to be their beloved cars, trucks and SUVs, in which some 43,000 die each year in traffic accidents.
***********************
Nice article by Eric Margolis. I love it.