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How the global trade in tear gas is booming
Non-lethal weapons are a multibillion-dollar-a-year business and the industry seems to be growing. The industry could be worth more than $9bn by 2022, according to Allied Market Research, a company that does industry forecasting. [Combined Systems, Inc (CSI)] supplies not only Egypt, but also Israel, Bahrain and US police departments, like the one in Ferguson, Missouri.
According to Amnesty International and internal letters published by the Egypt Independent newspaper, Combined Systems, Inc shipped tens of thousands of rounds of tear gas to the Egyptian government between 2011 and 2013, even as the crackdown on protesters became more deadly. The backlash against tear gas grew as more was sent to the country. After a particularly brutal series of clashes in 2011, dock workers in Suez refused a shipment of tear gas from CSI, saying they did not want to participate in further pain or death.
"Almost everywhere [that] we see images of large-scale protest, we will see on the streets a Combined Systems, Inc product," said Anna Feigenbaum, who wrote a book on the history of tear gas.
It's a common name for a family of chemical irritants, not actually gases, but fine powders dispersed by spray or aerosol. Tear gas doesn't just make your eyes water; it causes a burning sensation, difficulty breathing, chest pain and skin irritation. It can lead to nausea and vomiting. It's considered a chemical weapon.
[...] The 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention banned the use of tear gas in war, but many countries, including the US, still deploy it against domestic uprisings and unrest. Worldwide, the use of tear gas seems to be on the rise, but governments don't track its use so getting hard numbers can be difficult. [...] [Protesters] have died from tear gas - in Egypt, in Gaza, in Bahrain. Some died from asphyxiation, when gas was fired in too concentrated a dose in too small a space. And some died from the canisters themselves.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 17 2018, @06:19AM (4 children)
"If the protesters were really motivated, they would cause much more violence and overthrow the government."
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You have the mind of a child, and a very stupid child at that.
The US government ( and most other governments also ) has weapons which are not available to the civilian population, among which : drones with missiles, tanks, Apache helicopters, and various stuff you don't even know about yet that will be used if necessary.
Make no mistake, if things get far enough out of hand, everything that has been learned in places like Iraq and Afghanistan WILL be used against people who try to overthrow the government. I expect you will start whining about "Posse Comitatus" but I can tell you that if the shit hits the fan, all that stuff won't stop the military from doing whatever is necessary to suppress a rebellion.
A drone cutting loose with a few Hellfire missiles will change your mind about overthrowing anything, little boy. Of course your mind may be vaporized in the process and the only remnants of you may be trace amounts of DNA on a wall, but when you play with the big boys, that's what you can and should expect.
Thanks for playing, you never had a chance.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Monday December 17 2018, @07:50AM
Perhaps for a few days and, unfortunately, with great loss of human lives on the protesters side.
After at most a few days, the (leading heads of an) army of a democratic country will start thinking what they have sworn (usually, protect the constitution) and ditch the autocrats. Even mid/low level commanders will start to refuse following orders which would results in killing civilians indiscriminately.
To reach the point in which the army oppresses the population indefinitely, you will need the people in the army to be grateful for the privilege of being a soldier. You need to buy their loyalty with a very powerful coin, usually their very own survival. Happened a lot in in the South America countries where US installed dictators.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 17 2018, @01:31PM (1 child)
An iron spear needs a wooden shaft. Every sharp or blunted weapon must have an agreeable end to be held by the wielder.
Each instrument of killing and men wielding them rely on countless others providing logistics, and that others are civilians, aka "the people".
If civilians don't cooperate, don't yield, and even sabotage the lifelines of killing machine, it chokes and dissolves.
And if the killing machine which is an armed force must order its killers to go plow and raise wheat, and to dig stone and smelt iron, then it is thinning its ranks and sowing seed of mutiny among them.
So, to paraphrase a famous thought, all it takes for all the good men to do nothing, even if under duress to do, for an bellicose evil tyranny to wither and die.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 17 2018, @07:36PM
exactly. and all we need to do to get the federal government in check is to stop sheepishly funding it. watch the ticks shrink.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 17 2018, @04:11PM
If all this is true, why are they still fighting over there?