USA Image problem?

Can I request that people are choosy about what they quote. Including huge chunks of quote makes the page hugely long and unwieldy.

This is a personal request, not an official one, so feel free to ignore me

 

Okay Ricky. No problemo.
Oh wait. I just quoted you when agreeing to your request to not quote excessively didn't I?

 

Right, that's it! I'm off to apply for a gun licence!

Do you think 'shooting some guy who cheeked me' would be ok to put on the form as a reason for wanting to own a gun?

 

By all means go ahead 3rd year actually so I'm not completely retarded

I know its never going to happen, and I'm just thinking as I write... Have almost no idea how things work in the US, though I'm sure you do things as similarily civilized as we do Although I think the comparison with weeding is not really a good one when considered in the context of the Biological Weapons Act...

Article one says "for peaceful purposes" and theres a difference in say, weeding your garden and, defoiling square kilometers of forest so you can see the enemy and kill him... I'd hardly say Agent Orange was used for peaceful purposes, as it was used with the intention of making it easier to kill people...

That makes it a toxin utilised "for anything other than peaceful purposes" and thus makes its' use forbidden

 

You still have to get past the fact that the wording specifically mentions chemical weapons as not being covered by this convention.
How does one consider a chemical herbicide as a biological weapon? No bacteriological or viral action, purely chemical.
You are confusing the toxicity of the chemical dioxin with the use of the term toxin in the convention which clearly is meant to apply to biotoxins..say botulism, for example.

 

Yet Agent Orange is nevertheless recognised as having biological symptoms, like Spina Bifida... Does that qualify it as being a biological weapon? It depends what the legal definition of a 'biological weapon' is in reference to the act, whether it is a weapon which exists in a biological form, or merely one which has a biological reaction with human tissue... Agent Orange is the latter

Same with toxin, we could argue all day what they meant the word 'toxin' to encompass :smok:

Article IX also seems to indicate a conventional prohbition on chemical weapons, though wheter it is legally biding is questionable

 

I read art IX as a continuation of the intent expressed in the preamble statement..

Insofar as biological symptoms go I think you are on the wrong track.
Can you imagine a chemical weapon that did not have biological effects or symtoms? Wouldn't be much of a chemical weapon, I think.

No, the stretch to even consider Agent Orange, a plant defoliant, as a chemical weapon is probably going too far for most people. There was no intention of harming people. In fact it was considered to be so safe as to only take minimal precautions for the people handling and spraying the chemical.
All legal wrangling aside( and recognizing the fact that class action attorneys have to make a living too ,albeit a quite good one) I personally doubt the claims of the level of harm attributable to dioxin used in those concentrations.

 

Yes I can... Corrosive acids spring to mind as a chemical weapon which doesn't biologically effect human tissue, so much as it simply destroys it...
I would have thought that a biological weapon would be one that caused a biological reaction, deformities for instance... Whereas a Chemical weapon would have a more direct 'physical' effect, like a corrosive agent

Intention of use usually isn't required in defining what a weapon is... A kitchen knife is made for cutting vegetables but that doesn't stop it from being used as a weapon... Same with a car, which can be used to deliberately run someone down... Even so, can you really say there was no intention of harming people, when the whole point of using defoliant was to make it easier to see and kill the enemy? Its like saying I bought a laser-scope for my rifle, and when I tried to shoot my victim, the gun jammed but the laser still blinded him... Am I liable for his disability? Silly analogy but its the best I can come up with right now

 

IMO the confusing of biological and chemical weapons is the result of making a relatively simple distinction needlessly complex and strained.
Biological weapons are weapons that use bacteriological or viral agents whereas chemical weapons have chemically toxic agents as the mode of action. If you read the articles in the convention of 1972 they didn't seem to have that problem of distinquishing between chemical weapons and biological weapons.

Don't confuse the weapon with the action. Knives are not charged with crimes nor are cars. People are charged with crimes, not inanimate objects which cannot possess intent. Virtually all crimes require some level of intent either general or specific.

Your remarks regarding the intent in defoliating the forest in order to kill the enemy using conventional means illustrates the point to which intent can be confused. We aren't talking about the general intent to kill the enemy. That is considered a given in war and isn't actionable so long as certain conventions are adhered to. What we are discussing is the intent of using the defoliant. What was the expectation when the defoliant was chosen to be used? Was it to expose the enemy by removing his cover anc concealment so that he could be attacked using conventional means or was it in the expectation that the defoliant would poison him or poison his unborn children or the unborn children of peasant farmers?
Clearly, there is no evidence to suggest the latter and all the evidence available in the form of memos and orders within the military and the civilain contractors that supplied the chemicals point to the former case and not the latter.

 

the nva ,chicom and vc were masters of the cloaking device ...they can vanish into the trees ,into the ground and even into rivers ...in 67 we were trying our best to kill these wiry little buggars ....(because , you see they were working for the communists ...and silly us ,we thought commies were bad ) ...our leaders reasoned that ,as we had to fight them somewhere , anyway .. , why not fight them somewhere far away from OUR hearths and homes ....ie. korea ...viet nam ...salvador ..
...in korea ,where the hills are often grassy barrens , open to airborn scrutiny .. the nk and chicom enemy were often very diffIcult to spot ....( when you have no airforce to protect you , you must be adept at hideing from jabos...i mean really REALLY adept !!!! ) ... viet nam is very dense with ground cover ,,,..cover is the enemys freind ......we prefer the ground deviod of cover ...so at great expense we attempted to use american aggie know how to make the bads guys easier to see ...so ....we could kill them !!!! ...alas ...in spite of our best efforts , the invisable soldiers of the north prevailed ...we made a good effort to stop a bad nasty thing ...the bones of a million asians who died fleeing uncle ho after we pulled out bear mute witness .......in hindsight , we prolly woulda won , if we had just pikaboned hanoi with agent uranium !!!! ...but then we woulda had to defoliate pyongwang and pee peng and vladivosdick ..and so on ... of course this woulda been lots easier on the flora of viet nam ...i think birth defects miight be MORE prevalent though ...like everything , smeg , itsa trade off ...its our silly western democracy do gooder policys .. intead of killing lottsa people ( it woulda been a snap ,too ) ,,,we naively thought we could mabey win the war by killing lottsa PLANTS !!! lol ... mabey your right ,smeg ....we should be sued , for being so dang goofy ... you wanta sue somebody ...check out how the jap army defoliated nanking in 37 ..well , they pretty much defoliated most of east china ... they were envormentally freindly though ,,mostly relieing on simple copper jacketed lead or cold steel injection methods ... however , and its been proven scientificly beyond a doubt , bayonets can cause serious birth defects if passed through a pregnant womans abdomin ... as was VERY often demonstrated in japanese style gardens in china ... the japs smeg , sue THEM !!!!! they got lottsa money and nowadays they like to pretend they never defoliated nothin in china ...which is a capital good reason to sue them in itself!!!...imo..

 

For a definition of a biological and chemical weapon follow this link.

http://www.army.mod.uk/equipment/nbcds/index.html

 

On the image problem.

Comes with the territory of being a super power I guess.
Same thing happened when Britain ruled the oceans in the 19th century and used gun boat diplonacy all over the world, which gave them a bad image. Now the baton has been passed to the Americans and their doing the same and are copping the same flak.

All we need is America to come up with super statesmen to match there super power status.

From Roosevelt and Marshall with the superb''Marshall plan'' to Bush, Rumsfield and Wolferwitz with the ''Wolferwitz manifesto''

Suppose it can only get better....can't it?

 

.

Could lead in bullets be deemed to be biological agent ?

lead poisoning or saturnism is one of the first accepted work related hazard
the question is what was the primary intend,
I love baiting grieg on occasion but agree with him that agent orange was more of a stuff up than an act of bastardness

As for being criticized for being the top dog , the same went for the dutch republic at its greatest , venice and athenes also ,

A russian proverb said " a big man has a big foot " :roll:


.