Best Of MetaFilter

Posts tagged with syria

Why chemical weapons deserve their Big No-No place

CMA reaches 45% destruction milestoneCMA reaches 45% destruction milestone by U.S. Army Materiel Command (cc by)

Punkey explains why chemical weapons actually are worse than nuclear or biological weapons.

[T]he big reason for it being on the No-No List is that chemical weapons are essentially useless against a real military force, and are only really good at killing and terrorizing civilians. Unlike white phosphorus, chemical weapons do absolutely no damage to structures or materiel, they only kill people. Even the most lethal nerve agents are stopped by standard-issue chemical protection ...which is great if you have those things, and most modern militaries do.... Chemical weapons are spectacularly effective against people that aren't prepared and can't easily leave the target area - which pretty much only describes civilians.

09/03/13
by jessamyn

Highlighting the best bits from the MetaFilter universe

MetaFilter started as a community weblog in 1999, later added question and answers, then music by members, jobs, projects by members, a podcast, and finally an area dedicated to meetups.

View Best Of Archive

feed  Subscribe to the Feed

twitter  Follow at Twitter

tumblr  Follow at Tumblr

facebook  Like at Facebook

Contributors

profile

taz

taz

profile

lobstermitten

lobstermitten

profile

Josh Millard

cortex

profile

Matt Haughey

mathowie