In Paris, at the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, aggressor Germany waived the white flag to end the Great War. The Treaty of Versailles would be signed months later. Over 16 million soldiers and civilians were killed in the first war that relied on modern technology such as planes, tanks, and unfortunately, chemical weapons. In a book titled A History Of Chemical and Biological Weapons (2010), author Edward M. Spiers documents the history, proliferation, and use of these weapons. Professor Spiers teaches “Strategic Studies” at Leeds University.
He wrote that the Athenians dumped “cartloads of poisonous hellebore” into the water source of the Greek city of Kirrha, “incapacitating so many defenders that the Athenians were able to overrun the city and slaughter its inhabitants” circa 600 BC. The Byzantines used sulphur against the Greeks in the fifth century BC.
At the turn of the 20th century France and especially Germany manufactured chlorine for use against enemies during the trench warfare in Europe. Because of its effectiveness, the Treaty of Versailles banned the use of chemical weapons. However, the treaty did not deter the United States from using napalm during the Viet Nam war or India hiring Union Carbide to manufacture a “pesticide” that accidentally killed over 6,000 civilians in 1984. Saddam Hussein used gas in the 1980s, George H. W. Bush’s deployed depleted uranium during the Gulf War (read Ramsey Clark’s The Fire This Time), and recently, in Syria by unverified agents.
Satan’s Emissary on Earth (#43) used a cousin of napalm, white phosphorus, during the illegal invasion of Iraq. I emailed Professor Spiers regarding his book’s silence on the use of white phosphorus during the carnage, but he failed to reply.
Here is a video that displays the horrific (understatement) effects of white phosphorus:
Search for “birth defects in Fallujah” and get outraged. Same results happened in Viet Nam. War is the enemy of freedom.
PS: The Union Carbide advertisement (above right) creepily looks like blood being spilled. And, of course, my man Al Jourgensen of Ministry wrote a song about the Bhopal spill two years later with one of his side projects, Revolting Cocks.
