[jmacusa]

I think not. The emotion generated by a seemingly diabolical weapon no doubt prompted it’s outlawing but the use of gas on the battlefields of the First World War ultimately proved impractical. If they were so worked up over it’s use perhaps they should have taken the step to outlaw war altogether but such a thing is wishful thinking at best. Had they had more of a devastating use they most certainly would have been used in WW2. The use of gas in a sealed chamber proved to be the more effective , as the Germans demonstrated in the concentration camps. Ironically outside of Auschwitz, where Zyclon-B, a prussic acid compound was used , the gas of choice in all the others was carbon monoxide, generated by using the diesel motors of captured Russian submarines. As to the European experience, I don’t know of gas being used against civilians in WW1 as it was in WW2. Two generations of men in my family fought for Europe’s freedom and both barely survived doing so. Thank you but I don’t need to be reminded of wars cost.

[Jumper]

Please just research a little about the Europeans aversion to using chemicals and gas, that is the only point. I was not inferring that in Belgium the gas was used against the civilian population, but rather that during WWI there is a town at the front lines that is famous, near the famous Flanders fields. In France there is an area where the Germans gassed the French trenches, and they literally just pushed the earth over the dead, in some places their bayonets still poke upward in testament to the soldiers who were ready to go over the top but did not survive the chorine, which still haunts over the grounds in small clouds, which visitors are cautioned to avoid so as not to be burned - been there and got the t-shirt. That effort you allude, the War to End All Wars, was a noble gesture, however I fear that as long as Old Men send Young Men to Fight there will always be war. It is really too bad that conflict is central to mankind's existence and the history of nations is always a history of war.

On a brighter note, Happy Thanksgiving!