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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bentway who wrote (165953)	7/12/2005 9:31:56 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Do you think the Iraqis have forgotten this: "I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have definitely adopted the position at the Peace Conference of arguing in favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare. It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gasses: gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected." * War Office Departmental Minute, 12 May 1919, Churchill Papers 16/16, Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge. Quotes from this passage are often taken out of this context, in which it is clear that by "poisoned gas," Churchill was distinguishing between non-lethal agents and the deadly gasses used in World War I, however so-called "non-lethal" gas killed many young and elderly Kurds and Arabs when the RAF used it in Iraq during the British occupation. It might also be worth noting that at the same time failed attempts were made to make use of mustard gas against the rebelling villages.