April 5, 2003

FINE, SHOOT 'EM:

U.S. Use of Tear Gas Could Violate Treaty, Critics Say (NICHOLAS WADE with ERIC SCHMITT, 4/05/03, NY Times)
President Bush has authorized American military forces to use tear gas in Iraq, the Pentagon says, a development that some weapons experts say other countries might see as a breach of the Chemical Weapons Convention. [...]

Under the Chemical Weapons Convention, signatories forswear possession and use of chemical weapons, and undertake not to retaliate in kind if chemically attacked. Iraq has not signed the convention, but it did sign the Geneva Protocol of 1925, in which signatories deny themselves first use of chemical weapons and some reserve the right to retaliate in kind.

If the United States used riot control agents on the battlefield, Iraq might claim it was justified under the Geneva Protocol in using chemical weapons against American forces, Ms. Harris said.

The potential conflict between the executive order and the convention was a sleeping issue that began to stir in February, when Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld told the House Armed Services Committee that he was trying to find legal ways to use nonlethal weapons in Iraq. "Absent a presidential waiver, in many instances our forces are allowed to shoot somebody and kill them, but they're not allowed to use a nonlethal riot-control agent under the law," he said.


Is it just me, or does international law seems in far too many cases to be dedicated to guaranteeing more people die? Posted by Orrin Judd at April 5, 2003 10:53 AM
Comments

International law seems to me to be international lawlessness: a set of vague and self-contradictory rules from competing authorities that can be applied arbitrarily to serve the ends of the invoking power. Those nations who actually believe in law and the rule of law end up being the only ones who don't invoke international 'law' to selfish advantage.

Posted by: Paul Jaminet at April 5, 2003 11:36 AM

I hate to even use the word "law" to refer to international customs and conventions. They are either not "law" or not "international" in any reasonable meaning of those words. But more to the point Orrin raises, because in practice it only applies to the US, the international law of war probably does kill more people than it protects.

Posted by: David Cohen at April 5, 2003 11:48 AM

No international law without an international

bailiff.



There is also the issue of whether poison gas

is qualitatively a more objectionable class of

weaponry than the rest. Many military analysts

think not.



At least in WW I, gas was less deadly by any

measure than explosives.

Posted by: Harry Eagar at April 5, 2003 1:18 PM

Wouldn't the solution be to put riot control in the hands of the police under the transitional government? Then they would be able to use it.



However, I am worried about Iraq forcing masses of civilians on the troops as human shields. I mean, teeming masses....how do you deal with that? Something that could incapacitate them without long term harm would be the best solution.

Posted by: RC at April 5, 2003 5:46 PM

That was my guess last night, when the

minister of information was threatening

unconventional assaults on the airport. I

envisioned 10,000 screaming women and

children being driven into American guns.

Posted by: Harry Eagar at April 5, 2003 6:05 PM

Yeah, me too. It's a tactic right out of the Iran Iraq war, and probably pretty effective against our troops.

Posted by: David Cohen at April 5, 2003 6:45 PM
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