Chemical warfare has been pitch-forked into the headlines due to its use by the Assad regime in Syria against it’s citizens, including children (Rush Limbaugh and far right bloggers to the contrary…). It goes back may years. In fact, it goes back to 600 B.C., as The Week’s Harold Maass notes. Here’s part of his article:
How long have poisonous weapons been used?
For more than 2,000 years. As early as 600 B.C., the Athenians poisoned the wells of the Spartans, who later tried lobbing burning sulfur pitch over the walls of Athens, hoping to fill the city with toxic smoke. Genghis Khan used that same trick, catapulting burning sulfur pitch during his siege of fortified cities around A.D. 1200. Over the centuries, various armies put poisons on arrows and in bullets to make them more lethal. But it wasn’t until the 19th and 20th centuries that mankind began developing toxins and poison gases of devastating lethality, including mustard gas, chlorine, and the nerve gas sarin. Even before these gases were used in war, they created a special kind of fear and moral revulsion.What makes these weapons different?
In a literal sense, they’re not, since the goal of warfare is to kill lots of people in an efficient way. Bombs, missiles, and other munitions achieve very similar results, especially when dropped on civilian areas. But chemical weapons evoke a strong emotional response, perhaps because they can be invisible, and victims often suffer slow and agonizing deaths, convulsing and gasping for breath. “This ‘chemical weapons taboo’ appears to have originated in the innate human aversion to poisonous substances,” says Jonathan Tucker, author of a history of chemical weapons.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.