- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmit.online
- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmit.online
The logical end of the ‘Solution to bad speech is better speech’ has arrived in the age of state-sponsored social media propaganda bots versus AI-driven bots arguing back
For some reason the 5000+ chemical weapons removed from Iraq never seem to count as WMDs.
That’s because they aren’t.
Chemical weapons cause severe agony, but tend to kill a limited number of people.
According to the UN:
Weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) constitute a class of weaponry with the potential to:
Produce in a single moment an enormous destructive effect capable to kill millions of civilians, jeopardize the natural environment, and fundamentally alter the lives of future generations through their catastrophic effects;
Cause death or serious injury of people through toxic or poisonous chemicals;
Disseminate disease-causing organisms or toxins to harm or kill humans, animals or plants;
Deliver nuclear explosive devices, chemical, biological or toxin agents to use them for hostile purposes or in armed conflict.
So, they were WMDs
Iraq had those same stores of chemical weapons since the 1980s and was in the slow and arduous process of dismantling them (it had dismantled something like 90-95% of its WMDs by 2003 and was not stockpiling replacements). Given the lack of new production, many of the chemical weapons supposedly in Iraq’s stockpile would have turned harmless due to the short shelf life of chemical weapons.
By and large, people used this imagined idea that Iraq was still developing nuclear weapons as the justification for the invasion. American media ran stories about how aluminum tubes “used for uranium enrichment” were being imported by Iraq. American media brought out Iraqi defectors of questionable credibility who talked about Iraq’s burgeoning nuclear capability. American intelligence claimed that Iraq was actively seeking nuclear weapons development. Of course, all of these claims were entirely false.
By this definition, 9/11 proves that a jumbo jet is a WMD. I don’t know if I can call a jumbo jet a WMD.
No, jet didn’t kill millions.
How the fuck are 14 155mm shells filled with mustard gas and a few kilograms of expired growth media going to kill millions of people?
9/11 only had its effect because they hit the twin towers, chemical weapons can kill entire areas