Inhumane and indiscriminate weapons

Name(s):

Dependence on inhumane and indiscriminate weapons

Nature

A fundamental principle of the laws of war is that choice of means of injuring an enemy is not unlimited, weapons should not cause superfluous injuries and they should not be employed indiscriminately against non-combatants and combatants. These provisions are being undermined by current means and strategies of warfare. The massive firepower of modern weapons systems and the use of chemical sprays, area weapons, delayed action fuses and a variety of means of environmental destruction tend to undermine those regulations intended as far as possible to protect civilian populations from the exigencies of armed conflict.

Incidence

In addition to nuclear and bio-chemical weapons, those that appear likely to cause indiscriminate killing or injury if developed and employed, include high volume sound at ultra low frequencies (infrasonics); radiation - either electromagnetic (plasmic fire-balls, differential lightning bolts, huge standing waves, etc) or nuclear (neutron beams); and human biological energy (psychotronics). In 1994 it was reported that portable laser guns had been developed, and would soon be widely available, that resulted in instantaneous permanent blindness without the ability of individuals to defend themselves. It is expected that if this form of weaponry gets out of control it could introduce a new and unnecessarily harmful form of warfare.

Claim

The horror and perversity of war is immensely magnified by the addition of scientific weapons. For acts of war involving these weapons can inflict massive and indiscriminate destruction, thus going far beyond the bounds of legitimate defense. Indeed, if the kind of instruments which can now be found in the armories of the great nations were to be employed to their fullest, an almost total and altogether reciprocal slaughter of each side by the other would follow, not to mention the widespread devastation that would take place in the world and the deadly after effects that would be spawned by the use of weapons of this kind. The unique hazard of modern warfare consists in this: it provides those who possess modern scientific weapons with a kind of occasion for perpetrating just such abominations; moreover, through a certain inexorable chain of events, it can catapult men into the most atrocious decisions.

Counter-claim

To be sure, scientific weapons are not amassed solely for use in war. Since the defensive strength of any nation is considered to be dependent upon its capacity for immediate retaliation, this accumulation of arms, which increases each year, likewise serves, in a way heretofore unknown, as deterrent to possible enemy attack. Many regard this procedure as the most effective way by which peace of a sort can be maintained between nations at the present time. (Second Vatican Council. Gaudium et Spes, 1965).

Broader

Narrower

Illegality of nuclear weapons

Inhumane methods of riot control