Word: lethally
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Chemical and biological weapons don't have to be as dangerous as nuclear armaments, but they can be. A chemical weapon works like an insecticide, except that chemicals may range from only temporarily debilitating to lethal. Biological weaponry works like any disease. In addition to ranging from non-lethal to lethal, a biological weapon can also be non-contagious or contagious. A contagious weapon could even kill people who were not in the original target zone, since the germs could spread to other areas...
Against this indictment, the proponents of CB warfare offer basically one argument: that this new weaponry would create a more humane way of making war. Although CB weapons can be lethal, the emphasis is certainly on the non-lethal versions, because it is their ability to incapacitate without killing that makes them unique. If it is noble to kill only soldiers in war while sparing civilians, how much more noble it is to render the soldiers unable to conduct war, without killing anyone...
Meselson believes that this argument breaks down when carefully examined. First, he says, one must realize that lethal and non-lethal are poles on a continuous spectrum of the effects of weapons. A weapon which is non-lethal can either temporarily incapacitate (like tear gas) or permanently maim. As long as it does not kill, it is non-lethal...
...smog's grey, grimy pall settled in for three days and nights, frightening residents with the specter of killer fogs such as those that had claimed up to 4,000 lives in London in 1952 and 240 in New York a year later. All the elements for another lethal siege were at hand...
...Houses did not serve dinner Thursday night, so sanitarian Wilfrid Krabek is investigating the possibility that Central Kitchen's Wednesday night meal may have contained the lethal ingredient...