Good rant, well done. This thread seemed to be about chemical weapons though. So perhaps we can avoid a circular conversation about your fear of cookware.

That was my reason for bringing up the pressure cooker bombs; an example that wouldn't fit most people's definition but was described as such by the US government.

The context was the OP:

When the existence of WMDs in Iraq was used as the excuse to go to war, everyone thought it meant nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

If WMD is now retroactively redefined to mean relatively small amounts of high or even low explosives, then every country has WMDs. Including Iraq.

My post was brief to the point of flippancy because I didn't think it required further exposition.

Resolution 687 wasn't vague about what a WMD was in that respect though. It is perfectly clear that it relates to nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, as well as missiles that might deliver such beyond a range of 150km.

The war was justified on the grounds of a supposed breach of R687. Offensive pots were never taken into consideration. And US internal statutes relating to what counts as a WMD within American jurisdiction has nothing to do with international law, for much the same reason that it is not an international crime to criticise the Chinese government.

So, we're all agreed that the US attempting to label a pressure cooker as a WMD is indeed nonsense, and the use of sarin gas is a Bad Thing that does indeed fall under the definition of a WMD?

Assuming the pressure cooker only contains items not in breach of the convention. I've not actually read anywhere what was in the offending pot apart from nails.

In terms of these pressure cooker bombs in Boston. How they kill and maim is pretty much the same as anti-personel land mines.
I know a lot of countries have banned them now, but I don't think the USA is one of them.
So this is a case of pot, kettle, black for the US to describe them as a weapon of mass destruction.

I think that they included ball bearings as well. Though should be licensed to buy nails now?

I was more curious about the explosive content. By the colour of the smoke I suspect it was an improvised low explosive made from agricultural chemicals, but I don't know.

Yes it was agricultural fertiliser. Though you cannot do the same thing here, as they banned explosive grade fertiliser years ago. Not sure where the IRA got their fertiliser from.

You can still take today's commercial stuff and adapt it. The explosive equivalent of reactivating a gun, but don't ask me about the process cos I dunno

Also, I don't know if the Provos couldn't have just gotten their stuff down South. Not to mention the dissidents are still obviously using fertiliser. The old-skool method IIRC was plastic tubing filled with semtex and coiled through the fertiliser mix, which often contained diesel and even coal for extra kick - again, don't ask me how that works. One electrical spark later...

Just saw it in a documentary?

Read it in various books. One that stood out was a Provo battering a lump of semtex into shape with his shoe lol.

Actually you probably hear quite a lot of interesting things from people that you know.