The immorality of chemical weapons

The world set a red line” under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Currently 189 states are party to the CWC, which came into force in 1997. But only the UN Security Council can authorise use of force against a state that resorts to chemical weapons.

Non-member Syria now says it will sign the CWC and hand its chemical weapons over to international control for destruction. This plan has helped it avert US air strikes for now, but Obama said force remains an option if Syria should go back on its word.

Some 110,000 people have perished in the Syrian conflict that began in April 2011. The nerve gas attack in Damascus on August 21 killed “only” 355, according to Medecins Sans Frontieres. Yet, US Secretary of State John Kerry called the attack “immoral”. Why is this comparatively tiny number of deaths considered so morally repugnant that it justifies US military intervention?

Now that Syria says it will give up its gas weapons, it will presumably be allowed to continue killing its citizens with impunity so long as it uses only conventional arms.

Why are chemical weapons morally more abhorrent than conventional ones?

Jonathan Tucker, author of “War Of Nerves”, claims there is a taboo “deeply rooted in the human psyche” against chemical weapons. As early as 431 BC, the Spartans lobbed burning pitch-and-sulphur mixtures into inhabited areas, where the resulting sulphur dioxide smoke caused asphyxiation.

In the Middle Ages, Genghis Khan’s forces used the same tactic. In the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War, Japanese soldiers stuck burning arsenic-soaked rags in the trenches where Russian soldiers were hunkered down.

But large-scale chemical warfare was a First World War development. The Germans were the first to deploy poison gas on a wide scale in war. On April 22, 1915, near Ypres in Belgium, they released 150 tonnes of chlorine from gas cylinders, killing 5,000 Allied troops. Then, in 1917, they introduced mustard gas, which causes burns and blisters in the skin, eyes and breathing passages while killing slowly.

In the First World War, chemical weapons, primarily mustard gas launched via artillery shells, were estimated to have caused 100,000 deaths. It is the imagery of trenches with soldiers choking in a fog of yellow gas that is seared in the public’s imagination. Perhaps this is the origin of the taboo, if one really exists. It could also be linked to the gas chambers and Hitler’s “final solution”. Such fears were stoked in 1988 by news that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had gassed a village called Halabja, killing 5,000 Kurds there.

Perhaps chemical warfare is viewed as immoral because those under attack in conventional warfare can surrender and escape further harm. No one has that opportunity in a chemical attack. The gas might be colourless and odourless, so victims may not even know what hit them. But why is being blown to smithereens by a smart bomb less likely to attract international opprobrium?

Perhaps chemical weapons are viewed as morally abhorrent because the killing is indiscriminate. But conventional explosives kill indiscriminately too. Or, it might be the long-term impact of chemical residues after an attack that catapults it into a more reprehensible category. This could lead to genetic mutations in survivors and their offspring. In Halabja, long after Saddam’s attack, a study found a raised incidence of childhood leukemia and lymphomas.

But nuclear WMDs would have the same effect and more.

It might well be here that the truth lies: Western powers have a competitive advantage in nuclear and biological WMDs, as well as high-tech conventional arms. Chemical weapons are the poor man’s WMD. As Edward Spiers’ book “A History Of Chemical And Biological Weapons” noted, some industrial chemicals have dual uses. Take thiodiglycol, used in ballpoint pen ink. 

It is also an ingredient in mustard gas. So a poor country with a ballpoint pen factory could potentially make mustard gas that is easily weaponised in a low-tech lab.

Is this why the West demonises chemical warfare without also demonising nuclear, biological and conventional bombs and rockets? The US employed non-lethal chemical weapons in Vietnam widely. Authorised by successive US presidents, from John F Kennedy to Richard Nixon, 76 million litres of the defoliant Agent Orange were used in Vietnam from 1962 to 1971. This saw 400,000 Vietnamese killed and 500,000 born with congenital defects.

Chemical weapons appear to be no worse morally than conventional weapons. Used against defenceless civilians especially, they are equally abhorrent. Intervene in Syria if you must, but chemistry offers you no moral high ground to justify it.