Breaking News: US Missile Strikes Against Military Targets Inside Syria

[Crunchy]

I am aware, but there was hardly any outrage from your average person when conventional weapons were being used to massacre children, or when the regime was preventing food aid from entering a city. It's just stupid to start moaning now that chemical weapons were used, which is obviously terrible, but ignore the other shit.

Since WWI, gas has been viewed differently than other weapons.  As a kid in the 60s, I was aware of an 'old man' we frequently saw sitting outside his apartment as we went to the grocery store.  He was disabled, and had been since being gassed in WWI.  The lasting effects of gassing upon the survivors, and the indiscriminately lethal effects of it put it in a special category of armaments.

Additionally, in a theoretical orbit, restrictions on how warfare is conducted, if observed by both sides, will not affect the outcome.  WWII didn't see use of 'gas', but it was deployed.  There were even strong advocates for it's use.  US forces were injured by mustard gas in Italy, but the gas wasn't deployed by Germans or Italian forces, it was leaking from stores the US had sent to Italy, 'just in case'.

Also, President Roosevelt was under enormous pressure to approve the use of gas on at least one Japanese held island in the Pacific (IIRC, Iwo Jima), and it's hard to imagine a more 'perfect' situation for it's use (Japanese forces were dug in, and were definitely prepared to fight to the last man).  Still, Roosevelt, mindful of what happened in WWI would not approve it's use, 'even on Japanese soldiers' and subsequently suffered 20,000 marine fatalities in securing that island.

I would think any future use of gas by the US would irretrievably sully what those marines sacrificed in lieu of a 'cheap and easy' battlefield win with gas.

So gas is different.

I do find this a compelling argument that gives me pause.
While it seems almost insane to ignore the deaths of thousands of children from conventional weapons and freak out over the deaths of dozens of children from gas, it may be in humanities overall best interest to act this way. If everyone everywhere understands (including strongmen and theocrats) that any use of gas will be met with a fevered response, it will deter future use of such weapons.

However, another part of also understands that regular explosives are also "chemical" attacks. That's what C4 is. It seems to me that we may be using a primal fear of poison to ignore the real consequences of explosives thus giving murderers a way to kill people that is somehow acceptable. As far as I can tell, poison gas has not proven itself to be more deadly in armed conflict than regular weapons (I could be wrong here).

I would be very interested in hearing more opinions on this subject. Is gas a special case where we should ignore our normal diplomatic responses and attack regardless?