9 Most Horrendous Chemical Weapons
The silent, deadly assassins banned from warfare.
Even in the business of warfare, chemical weapons are taboo.
They are simultaneously viewed as cruel and unusual, but also less effective than more "traditional" weaponry, and they are considered an underhand technique. Although we are all pretty used to the idea of explosives and ballistics being used to kill and maim, chemical weapons retain their insidious and spine-chilling image and have never been normalised in quite the same way.
Chemical weapons are indiscriminate and pose a great threat to civilian populations, both within war zones and without. Their ability to mess with the physiology of the human body, beyond the trauma of conventional weapons, means that they have the potential to not only affect the targeted population, but their children and their children's children.
Whether or not they are actually any more cruel or gruesome than traditional weapons, they are roundly denounced by almost every state in the world, with 192 countries entering into the Chemical Weapons Convention (with the exception of Egypt, North Korea and South Sudan), and when you see the damage that these horrendous inventions inflict, you can certainly see why.
Nerve agents, choking agents, deadly diseases, incendiaries - chemical weapons are a chilling demonstration of man's creativity for killing.