Herr Haber, you see, was the inventor of Zykon B, the gas used to murder millions of his co-religionists, including his relatives, as part of Hitler's "final solution". In 1909, he and colleagues discovered a way to synthesize ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen. This artificial fertilizer went on to be used on a large scale, bringing about a huge increase in crop yields, and practically banishing the fear of famine in large parts of the world. For this, Herr Haber received the Nobel Prize.
Then came World War I. Herr Haber, now working for the Kaiser Bill's research institute in Berlin, was desperate to prove his patriotism.
He began experimenting with chlorine gas which, he said, would shorten the war. So it did, but only for 1000s of Allied troops who died in gas attacks at Ypres and subsequent battles.
After WWI, Herr Haber resumed his work on chemicals which would be useful in improving food security. In the 1920s, he and his colleagues were successful in developing pesticide gases, the most effective of which was Zykon B, the trade name of a cyanide-based pesticide, which, as it turned out, Zyklon B was effective not just against insect pests, but on higher orders of life, including more than a million Jews and other "undesirables" at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek, and other extermination camps.
Zyklon B was manufactured and marked by Interessengemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG, commonly known as IG Farben, a German chemical and pharmaceutical conglomerate. Formed in 1925 from a merger of six chemical companies, it was seized by the Allies after World War II and divided back into its constituent companies.
So it is that no-one currently makes Zylon B. Which means that the state of Arizona is going to make a batch of home-brewed hydrogen cyanide, with which to end the lives of inmates currently on death row.
The Grauniad reports that the state has purchased a brick of potassium cyanide, sodium hydroxide pellets and sulfuric acid, and is undertaking a refurbishment of the gas chamber at a prison in Florence AZ, to make it "operationally ready."
The usual suspects have been quick to criticize the project, not just because of the method's infamous use in the mass killings of the Nazis, but also because (they say) it has produced some of the most botched, disturbing executions in the United States.
It would have to go some to be worse than the botched electrocution depicted in The Green Mile, but which is the lesser of the two evils is debatable. A law professor at Fordham University is quoted by the Washington Post as saying that "it's without question that lethal gas, or at least the lethal gas that Arizona is trying to bring back, is the most gruesome of all these methods we’ve had in this country."
For its part, the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry said it was "prepared to perform its legal obligation and commence the execution process as part of the legally imposed sentence, regardless of method selected." They point to the Arizona statute allowing a defendant sentenced to death for a crime committed before November 23, 1992 to choose between lethal injection or lethal gas.
Lethal gas is permitted for executions in six other states: Alabama, California, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma and Wyoming. Oklahoma, Mississippi and Alabama have authorized nitrogen hypoxia, which uses nitrogen to deprive the body of oxygen. Arizona’s preparation to use lethal gas comes amid a scarcity of execution drugs, which has caused other states to re-examine firing squads and other execution methods.
There would seem to be an investment opportunity there for an existing company [like Bayer, which was part of IG Farben? Ed.] or "emerging entrepreneur" unconcerned about the morality of the death penalty. Much in all as there are 1000s of miscreants whose removal from society would be a public good, Walt remains opposed to the death penalty. Exodus 20:13.
No comments:
Post a Comment