Every housewife keeps a small chemical weapon at home specially developed to kill insects. ‘Raid’, ‘Persol’ and other brands compete to help humans in their fight against the eight-legged creatures who invade their homes.
Every housewife keeps a small chemical weapon at home specially developed to kill insects. ‘Raid’, ‘Persol’ and other brands compete to help humans in their fight against the eight-legged creatures who invade their homes.
The development of chemical and biological agents for the purpose of controlling harmful insects in the late 19th century, which paved the way for the large-scale commercial production of household pesticides in the 1950s, came a couple of thousand years later to be used as deadly chemicals in warfare. The crime of using Sarin gas in Syria was the latest addition in a sorry list older than many could ever imagine.
Early humans killed animals to eat, as all creatures did, but with the rise of civilizations, new types of killing were developed by humans setting them apart from animals— political assassination, ethnic cleansing and death by torture. With new forms of annihilation, new techniques were developed.
Vile methods
Plague-infested dead rats were catapulted by soldiers over the walls of cities or dumped in rivers and springs to pollute the water used by adversaries. During the Russian empire wars in the 18th century, Plague-infected human corpses were catapulted by Slavs over the walls of cities. The methods used to exterminate indigenous populations in America were not much different, but were surly more vile and insidious where smallpox-infested blankets were given to Native Americans by British soldiers, which led to the extermination of whole tribes.
If those deadly tricks could be described as vile, vileness has long been associated with chemical weapons, even with the huge advancement in the development of those weapons during the 20th century. The most famous chemical warfare agents – nerve gas, Sarin and VX – are characterized by being odorless and colorless and designed to attack the human nervous system through the body’s openings, eyes or skin. When this happens, the muscles contract and the victims suffer from headaches, runny noses, blurred vision, nausea and respiratory failure possibly leading to death.
It is hard to imagine that such a terrifying death is caused by short chemical formulas containing elements as simple as oxygen or sodium. Death from exposure to mustard gas, which was developed by German scientists in 1916, may not occur until the second week after exposure. Sarin, which was first developed in 1938, could cause death in a matter of minutes and its traces disappear from the air in a matter of days. Traces of VX gas on the other hand remain in the air for months in cold weather and may last longer in moderate ones.
The three aforesaid chemical agents, in addition to chlorine gas and hydrogen cyanide, are most commonly used by terrorist organizations according to the warning issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC). However, the only verified instance of chemical attack by terrorists occurred in Japan when the religious cult Aum Shinrikyo released Sarin nerve gas in a Tokyo subway station in March 1995. Fortunately, and thanks to Japan’s technological advancement, the authorities managed to radically minimize the number of fatalities. The number of deaths reached 12 out of thousands of victims who were affected.
An international ban
Chemical weapons exacted a terrible human toll during World War I and this led the League of Nations to adopt the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) of 1925, which banned the use of chemical and biological weapons. After seven years of demanding the “prohibition of uncivilized weapons”, the Red Cross’ demands were answered when more countries joined the CWC. However, it did not prohibit the “governmental” use of Sarin gas, which was originally developed as an insecticide and was used in the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988).
Sarin gas was also used in Syria, which did not ratify the CWC until after the attack, and once again the quick disappearance of traces of Sarin in the air compared to other agents was an important factor in the inability to accuse the Syrian government. However, the need for missiles to generate the chemical reaction necessary to produce the Sarin effect tends to support the theory that the government carried out the attack; compared to the Tokyo subway station attack 18 years ago, the Japanese terrorist group pierced Sarin bags with umbrella heads.
White phosphorus bombs are considered a mix of a conventional and chemical weapon and were used by Israel against Gaza in the 2009 war. According to many reports, including one compiled by Amnesty International, a phosphorus bomb is just like a conventional bomb in the sense that it suddenly produces a volume of rapidly expanding gas, but the chemical reaction produced when phosphorus reacts with oxygen in the air burns the skin and penetrates all through to the bones and it also can destroy the lungs and windpipe even if inhaled from a long distance, not to mention the environmental impact as a result of settling in soil and river beds.
Teargas, however, is one chemical weapon authorized by the international community to be used by governments for riot control and sometimes for crackdown where the holes of the grenade or canister carrying the teargas are covered by a layer of wax that melts by heat when the grenade is fired thus releasing the CN or CS particles in the air. A person engulfed by CS begins tearing, coughing and feeling dizzy or nauseous. Ancient Chinese used pounded chili rapped with rice hulls in the shape of grenades as a sort of weapon against adversaries and just like Sarin, it was first used as an insecticide and then a weapon to kill people. Last August, an Egyptian police officer fired a teargas grenade into a bus transporting detainees affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood and claimed the lives of 37 people.
