America - The Official Thread
- Thread starter ///M-Spec
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- Hammerhead Garage
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- GTP_Liquid
Of course they did. Mustard gas bombs were used infamously in the First and less infamously in the Second world war.
Chemical warfare has existed since antiquity. People might sneer at how crude they were and therefore don't meet the definition of a "chemical weapon" but poisoned arrows, poisoned water, turpentine bombs, Greek fire, sulfur bombs and burning bitumen have all been used by the ancient Greeks, the ancient Chinese, the Romans and early modern Europeans to kill people in wars, sieges or peacetime.
Germany used chemical weapons, mainly gas bombs, in the Black Sea campaign around 1942-1943.
Also, this is most pertinently what is being referred to - it is a chemical weapon; using toxic or chemical substances as a weapon.
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- driftking18594
- CiaranGTR94
I'd hate to imagine the intense euphoria in the darkest depths of 4chan right now, thinking that "senpai" noticed them.
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Throwing people with the plague with catapults, giving Native Americans smallpox blankets...
Against Hitler, in fact.
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- Johnnypenso
New video has emerged from the United incident where the passenger appears to say at one point, "you can drag me out I'm not going". I wonder if that could be construed as implied consent to drag him out.
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- ryzno
I just saw that. I didn't want to hear about linking TMZ again.
UKMikey
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Wouldn't that mean that if he protested on the way out then he'd be withdrawing his consent? Perhaps "no takey backies" is enshrined in the customer contract.
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- TenEightyOne
- TenEightyOne
And Wilfred Owen. All sides (Russia excepted, but they partook late-on for slightly different reasons) were attacked with the gas at some point.
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- Hammerhead Garage
United say that they asked for volunteers; when they got no takers, they chose four people at random. Dao, on the other hand, has reportedly suggested that he was chosen because he is Chinese; I say "reportedly" because none of the stories I have read about it quote him directly. I'm not sure if I believe either version.
I doubt it. It's hard to tell exactly what happened since all of the footage is obscured by seats and people, but it looks like he fought back pretty hard.
That's the problem with citizen journalism - you only ever get half the story. When I saw the footage, I was reminded of an incident at the Mardi Gras a few years ago, where a man was subdued and arrested, all the while asking why he was being detained while his friend behind the camera protested his innocence. It caused a furore, but as it turned out, the guy was being arrested because he'd assaulted someone an hour beforehand and had since taken party drugs.
While I'm not defending United's actions by any means, I struggle to believe that they resorted to such an aggressive action as a first response. I'm willing to bet that Dao fought back physically.
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- GTP_Mars
Meanwhile, designs/bids are being considered for Trump's 'border wall' with Mexico... one of the most visually appealing designs looks like this, although see if you can spot the design feature that Trump might disapprove of...
http://www.realclearlife.com/design/hyperloop-system-proposed-bid-president-trumps-border-wall/
http://www.realclearlife.com/design/hyperloop-system-proposed-bid-president-trumps-border-wall/
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- Rage_Racer_VOLK
- RageRacer48
Uhm... Chlorine and mustard gas are the first things coming to my mind when I think of World War I (the next are trenches, barbed wire and landships). Hitler himself was caught in a mustard gas attack and turned blind for some time. But the most probable reason why toxicants weren't widely used on the battlefields of WWII was their low effectivety in the conditions of WWII (more dynamic combat because of wider use of vehicles + effective chemical protection was invented). However, the Nazis used poison gases (carbon monoxide and Zyklon B) in gas chambers of concentration camps.
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- Simcoeace
Well, actually I think it's one more example of the stupidity of the Trump administration. Claiming that Assad is worse than Hitler in order to defend Trump's about-face on intervening in Syria is just ... stupid.
Dotini
(Banned)
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- CR80_Shifty
Probably machine guns were the deadliest factor of WW1, and the signature weapon.
Probably the most beautiful weapon of all time was the castle, which together with the mounted knight, dominated the battlefield for several centuries.
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- monkeylima
Danoff
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There's plenty of blame to go around. The news should not be puffing this story up, there are actual stories to talk about, so the news gets blame for doing a bad job. I don't think that the statement made a lot of sense or was accurate in any way, so Spicer gets blame for doing a bad job.
Regarding the Trump administration, it is a little different when chemical weapons start getting used. Not nearly as much different as everyone pretends. Kill a few kids with guns somewhere in the middle East and the US isn't interested, do it with chemicals and suddenly everyone loses their minds!
So I agree that there is some level of ridiculousness to the knee-jerk response. But I won't say that it's entirely without merit, and it was a fairly measured response.
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- HamiltonMP427
Meanwhile, designs/bids are being considered for Trump's 'border wall' with Mexico... one of the most visually appealing designs looks like this, although see if you can spot the design feature that Trump might disapprove of...
http://www.realclearlife.com/design/hyperloop-system-proposed-bid-president-trumps-border-wall/
How do we know that the gaps aren't filled with self cleaning bullet proof glass, so little Marianna's mother can say
"See that land over there is where the might freedom eagle flies! Land of dreams!"
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- Rage_Racer_VOLK
- RageRacer48
...wat?
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- Hammerhead Garage
Meanwhile, little Marianna's father is at work, cleaning up all the dead eagles that hit the windows.
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- TenEightyOne
- TenEightyOne
As they're an un-generalisable entity it's hard to say.
A few weeks ago they were comparing Trump to Hitler. Now they are outraged by comparing Assad to Hitler.
There's a difference between the expected output of the kind of publication that would make a Trump/Hitler comparison as a "serious" topic and a claim by a Presduntial proxy that Hitler didn't in fact use chemical weapons when Hitler definitely killed a lot of people with them.
Dotini
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- CR80_Shifty
It seems to me that "Presduntial proxy" artfully changed the narrative. I think he knew exactly what he was doing, even though he needed to play the fool.
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