Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is always Charles W. Chuck Bryant Party and we're recording this is stuff you should know the aggressive version. Hey dude, Hey, dude, how are you? I'm tired. Hey, We're almost out of here. Man, I'm not. Let's wrap this puppy up. I'm not almost out of here. This is just like the middle of my day. You're working to like ten, and then you working Saturday. I'm working Sunday, So are you, Poul? That's right? Um, Chuck? Yes, Josh. Do you remember when we talked about brainwashing? We did a brainwashing one, right, Yeah? I enjoyed that one. I did too. Do you remember we talked about the Koreans brainwash American Peo dotes that's against the rules the rules of what the rules of war. I have more examples. Do you have you ever heard of the dak How massacre, the Dacha? Yes, yeah, you have the Dacha massacre. Yes you have, well, I mean you've you secretly told me, have you seen well, you've seen Shutter Island, right, Yeah. I didn't realize it was a connection there. Yeah, the flashbacks where Leonardo DiCaprio is like in the army and they're at this concentration camp and they're shooting the German guards. That actually happened, Yes, at Dachau. The American liberators who came like came and saw this and like, we're apparently so overwhelmed by it that they lined up the s S officers against the wall, seventy five of them and shot him. I guess I didn't know about it then. Yeah, so, um, it didn't come out until two do one actually that this actually happened. It was covered up, ignored, but it was against the rules. I can't do that, ABU great, remember that one. Yeah, that's been the news that was against like six or seven different rules, and all of these are there against the rules of war. It's actually kind of to me a triumph of the human spirit to know that there we've tried to figure out how to create structure insanity in a chaotic and insane institution. That's why do we look at it? What's another way, Well, what I was the most struck with was that how messed up it is that you have to keep revisiting this over the years because all of these rules that are in here are there because someone tried to do something awful to someone else, and that they said you can't do that in war, right, And so then then they said, oh, well, then let's think of something else awful we can do, and then they said, well, you can't do that now either. Well. In this article that Julia Layton wrote how the Rules of War work, she makes the point that as the technology of war progresses, it usually means that we're going to we are figuring out more horrible ways to inflict damage on one another. And so as that happens as technology progresses, the people who oversee the rules of war are trying to come up with new ways to stem that progression. Right. But yeah, that that's a little mopier way of looking at it than mine. That's weird because you're usually the moupier one. Usually interesting, Chuck, Let's talk about the rules of war. Where did they come from? How long have they been around? Well, they've been around for a long time, but prior to the nineteenth century, they were established per battle and per countries participating in that battle, and that was where they ended there, like for this skirmish where you can do this, this and this, but you can't do this, this and this. Once that skirmish was over, or once that war was over, then they would say, all right, for forget all that then, and let's just we'll make up a new set of rules if we fight again. Yeah, And then next time they were like, no, was scalping. That was messed up last time, do not scalp in this one. Finally, at some point, uh, well, actually we know exactly the point. Um. In eighteen fifty nine, a guy named Henry de Nant, who went on to found the Red Cross UM and was one of the was the co recipient of the first Nobel Prize. I understand, huh. Um came upon a battlefield after the Battle of Salaferno in Italy in eighteen fifty nine. That's German and Italian in one podcast. Um. He came upon this battlefield, I guess right after the battle that happened, and there were all these dying wounded soldiers laying around, and he he gathered up the villagers around the countryside and said, we have to treat these people and treat everybody both sides because we're human beings and that's what we do. That's one of the things that the Red Cross still does today in wars. Their neutral party, not on either side, the Red Cross and the Red Crescent um and they treat everybody regardless of um what side they're on. Sure, right, Um, So that happened in eighteen fifty nine. It gave birth to the Red Cross, and it gave birth to the first Geneva Convention, right, yes. And I think I told you at some point we were chatting about this that the whole convention aspect of it kind of cracks me up a little bit because I always picture like a bunch of world leaders with their name tags. Hi, my name is kaiserville Helm mulling about some Hilton conference room. Imagine that's how it went out. But uh, with the first Geneva Convention, is uh when they in eighteen sixty four, did you already say that they started becoming an international thing where it crossed the boundaries, that crossed the time frames and there were solid rules for everybody for any more they were just standing rules of war. That looks more sustinct way saying it. Sure, and the first, the first Geneva Convention produced the Convention for the Amelioration of the Edition of the Wounded and Sick and Armed Forces in the Field. Yeah. Yeah, that was the first one. Like you said, over time, as we saw new atrocities take place, they went and created and amended the existing conventions, created new ones. So there was a Convention Um that addressed sick shipwrecked members of the Armed Forces at sea. Yeah. They forgot the seamen and the first one and they said, yeah, we gotta think about those guys exactly. There's the rules can governing the treatment of POW's. And then the fourth Convention Um, which is ratified in nineteen fifty four, was the treatment of civilians, not surprisingly shortly after World War two. Yeah, and actually after World War two that drove the first Geneva Convention, and actually the first three we're all created before World War two, um, And people were like, that's really nice, we like that, it's a great idea. And then World War two happened and everybody came to the table under the auspices of the u IN and said we we need these. So a hundred and ninety countries have ratified the Geneva Conventions, and you get the impression that if you want to be recognized as a sovereign nation internationally, that's one of the steps toward toward being an independent nations. You got to ratify the Geneva Conventions. Yeah, otherwise what are you doing? You're just some rogue jerk jerk country. So that's the Geneva Conventions, and we'll get more into those later, but they're also everyone's heard of the Geneva Convention. Not many people have heard of the Hague Conventions, although they should because they were just as important. There were the Haguen the Netherlands is where these took place, and they were called the also called the International Peace Conferences. Yeah, about the same time that the Geneva Conventions were being held, right, Yeah, And they had one in seven They were gonna have one peace conference and then they decided to cancel it and have a World war instead, and that was World War One, obviously, and they the hag Conventions fall into categories of combat, weaponry, property rights, and duties of neutral countries. But in addition, so a lot of the a lot of the rules established in the Hage Conventions are similar to the rules of the Geneva convensions. They overlap, but one of one of the things that defines the Hague Conventions specifically is that there are steps outlined to prevent war. Right, So there's UM two in the lead up the build up to war. There's steps you have to take too to be in step legally with the Hag Conventions, which are there's like a thirty day cooling off period time out right, UM, arbitration, mediation, liberation, Sorry that was in access UM Committees of inquiry. Yeah, Basically, you have to UM also declare war formally, or you have to declare an ultimatum saying like give me back my sandwich and pull your troops out of my South Asian territories, or I'm gonna come at you. And that's after they've gone through all the previous steps, the thirty day time out in the corner and everything else has failed. Then you have to officially send the evite saying we're going to attack you at some point, not to distance surprise attack illegal Pearl harbor and actually right, that's illegal. UM. That's one of the reasons why they the democratic peace theory works. So democratic peace theories based on the idea that democracies, especially democracies that follow these conventions, are so transparent that two democracies will never go to war because they're both following the same transparent steps in the lead up to war, and communication will be um much more open um. One of the you a surprise attack is impossible, not only illegal, but impossible because they have vibrant independent media. Right, so so democratic piece theory says that two democracies will never go to war. I don't know that's necessarily true, but it's based in part on this Hague convention. Thanks so combat and weaponry and the Hague Conventions. They're pretty obvious. Things like you can't fly a white flag and then shoot someone in the face, which apparently Iraqi soldiers did in two thousand three in the US invaded. Not very nice. Illegal, You cannot if a person has surrendered or as injured, then that's it for them. You can't go shoot them in the face. I mean, you gotta treat him. While we'll get to that in a minute too. If a person has a visible or an audible speech impediment, you can't make fun of him. That's very true. You can't attack a defenseless person. You can't like attack a hospital or a building being used as a hospital. No, that's what they call using a human shield. And there's a huge no no, and it's yeah, that's big time jerk quality right there. Uh. Natural, And see, this is what I thought was kind of interesting. National and cultural symbols are protected, So you can't desecrate a flag or use the enemy's flag. You can like dress up as a soldier and say I'm really a Nazi, even though all those movies they always did stuff like that. Yeah, well it's illegal. Inglorious. Maybe it's sensible, but it's illegal. Yeah. The whole movie they were dressed up, well not the whole movie, but a significant portion of it. Yeah, they dressed his Nazis to kill Nazis. That was a great movie. It was pretty awesome, Chuck. You also can't hide out in museums or libraries, well yeah, you can't. Certainly can't bomb them, just like just like a hospital, they're protected as well. To talk a little more about later, Um, and there's certain weapons you can't use. The Higgs specifically, says Um. The right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited. Right, So basically, you can't use poison bullets, you can't use poison gas, you can't use weapons that are designed to inflict further harm beyond the initial injury. Yeah, Like they have those bullets that once they get inside of you start doing all sorts of wacky thing for further damage. Like they have the bow ties that spin around, flapping dickies. Uh. Chemical and biological warfare is made illegal all the way back in. Yeah. Sarin gas, chlorine gas, uh, mustard gas, all those are old timey poison gases. Yeah. Yeah, smallpox can't do that. So we were talking about wounded and sick. Uh. Basically the Hague Conventions spells it out pretty clearly. If you're wounded and you're sick, or if you see us another soldier an enemy that's wounded or sick, you gotta help him. Yeah, and we should probably say about at this point that you can, um, you can break down the Hagen Geneva Conventions by like combat weaponry treatment a civilian ship, or you can look at them the rules for overarching as they apply to the different groups involved, and the group with the least amount of protection are active combatants, right, but once you be once you're injured or you're sick and you're no longer capable of fighting, you slip into the sick or wounded soldier category and you suddenly enjoy far more protections than if you have a gun and you're coming at somebody. Right. Well, yeah, not like I said, not only can you not uh shoot the guy in the face, you have to help them or at least allow them to be helped by like the Red Cross, right and chuck Like, you can't just walk away right now, like after a battle. You can't just walk away from the battlefield after you've won. You can't just release the chows. Which did you know that that's what childs were originally bred for in China? Did not know that they would release them onto the battlefield? They chew the throat side of survivors. Yes, is that what the suckers are? So puffy and mean? Um, we used to have childs. Actually they're not mean, so you, but they are protective. You can do some damage, true, Um, but you can't release the child's out in the battlefield. But not only that, you can't just walk away from the battle field. You you have to um help injured soldiers. You gotta help it the injured, and you gotta clean your plate. You can't just leave the deadline around every No, as a matter of fact, you have to give the enemy soldiers that you've killed a burial that's appropriate to their religions. You're supposed to and at the beginning of every war, they're supposed to be a graves Registration Service, which is neutral party like the Red Cross, and it's possibly operated by the Red Cross. Where you bury a bunch of soldiers and you say you you contact the graves Registration Service and say, there's a bunch of dead soldiers here we killed, and they're buried here and here the coordinates, and the the graves Registration Service provides each side with these coordinates. After the wars, the bodies can be exhumed and sent home. Well yeah, not only that, but you're you're supposed to return all property found on the body. So you can't like you see in the movies where you go looting the body of of trinkets and things to take home like a broach. Right, let's say you can't do that. You're supposed to mail that to their next of ken, which kind of wonder about that how often that happens. I wonder it myself. You cannot perform experiments on a wounded or sick person like the Nazis love to do. That's a big one. Uh. And that's about it for the second wounded, and it's biological experiments. But I think also brainwashing sure constitute an experiment, and you're not allowed to do that either. UM. So let's say that you have been caught, you you are, you received treatment from the enemy, um, and they're like, well, you're well, now you're a pow. Do you still have some pretty wide um protections? Actually? Yeah, this is a fact at your next cocktail party that you should pull out of your hip pocket. You. If you're a pow, you're a prisoner of the country, not a prisoner of the soldier or the platoon or the commander in chief of that region. You're a prisoner of the United States of America if that's who is fighting against America America. But not only that, um, your detention is legal under international law. Therefore, an escape is illegal and can be punished unless you make it to your other side, to your side, and then they wipe this slight clean, right, it's totally clean like you were never captured in the first place. So if you're a spy and you're caught and your hell is a POW, you're going to be tried as a spy and possibly hanged. If you escape two, say an occupied territory that your army controls, you are your detention is just wiped off the map. And if you're caught again, say as a regular soldier, you can't be tried as a spy. It's like it never happened. Isn't that interesting? That's kind of cool telling about name rank and serial number. Yeah, you've you've often heard that in movies. Um, that is definitely a part of the Third Geneva Convention. But it is not merely for name identification. But you are awarded privileges if you are an off sir in europow, Like you don't have to dig the latrine ditches like the privates and the corporals do. If you're an officer, you have a little bit of a I don't know about cush your life, but you could drink ticket every day. You can train. But it's like when you see all the World War two movies, like The Great Escape, the Officers, Um, they were always had a little bit better deal than than their men, like they were the ones. Like Hogan's heroes, Hogan was always meeting with the uh what was with claim? But the rest of the guys wouldn't meet. It was always Hogan because he was the main, the main man. Did you ever see Auto Focus? You're gonna say that it's hard to watch Hogan's heroes ever again? And auto Focus? God, I love that. Yeah, it's right up your alley. H The other thing about POWs is, um they are prisoners, much like a civilian prisoner would be, and they're innocent until proven guilty, supposedly, and you have to treat him as such. Um. So, if you are captured, is a POW you are, or if you're captured you're required to grant this person POW status if you're supposed to err on the side of caution. There's very sure whether they're POW or not, right, but there's a very specific qualifications that you have to classify them. If they are obviously members of the armed force. They can be a member of a militia or a volunteer corps. Right, still got to be a pow. Right, they could be some guy who you who happened to be like carrying a gun out in the open, and you still have to say we're going to treat you like a POW until we set up a tribunal and they say, no, he's not a POW. Is a common criminal. Members of the media traveling with the armed forces, they have to be granted POW status and it's about it a cruise of merchant marine and civil aircraft they're working with army. One of the reasons why Abu Grab and the treatment, the degradation at Abu Grab was so illegal was because these combatants weren't granted POW status right off the bat. These captured combatants were treated as criminals. Basically, they were imprisoned. So that's one. You can't imprison a POW. You can intern them in an internment camp. Do they have borders, but not a cell. It's another one. Unless they're like a specific danger, then you can work around that, which is probably what they said. Um, you can't subject them to degrading treatment interrogation. Interrogation basically amounts to you ask him a question and it's up to them whether they want to answer it or not. And if they don't want to answer then you that's it. You can't ask them again even they can't be coerced or tortured under any definition of torture. Um, and you can't, um, they can't their detention can't be paraded in front of the media. That was another thing too. I mean you remember Lyndy England right, pointing and like, did you ever see the mad magazine one? Or is alfredy Newman is now it's again? Um? So there were several reasons why Abu Gray was just so horrendous. Well, yeah, and you also have to grant them any any rights that your own soldiers get like food, water, shelter, clothing, exercise, correspondence like you have to. You have to let them know exactly where they are, and you have to make them available to receive mail from their families. Yeah. Not only did you have to tell them where they are, you have to give them the mailing address so that they can receive care packages, letters, whatever. Crazy So Chuck, that's POWs right, Ah, yeah, pretty much. Let's talk about civilians. Do you remember Red Dawn. We've talked about this often. I should say that recently when we were hanging out with our friend Chad, he remarked after I said that I had just recently seen The Fly David Krodenberg's The Fly for the first time, that he had just seen Red don for the first time. And you, I thought, we're gonna beat him up, punch him in the face. I just don't understand how you could. He's our age our ages. Yeah, he seems like it. He should have seen Red Dawn long before this. That's hadn't seen war games if you were a child, like a teenage boy in the eighties. So back to it, read Dawn. Well, okay, so you remember Harry Dean Stanton where Jed and Charlie Sheen come to Jed and who it was Swayzie and Jean wasn't. Yeah, but I can't remember Thomas. Did they all three go? Possibly, but it was definitely Jed and his brother, Um, And they go to see their father, who happens to be Harry Dean Stanton. He's in turn. Notice he's not in a cell. They've put up fencing around the drive in right, and they're projecting propaganda up onto the screen and they're playing like Russian Soviet music. Um, that's legal. Right. When he passes by, I think Arturo's father, who's getting like a German shepherd to the face. Yeah, that's highly illegal. Can't use the dogs, No, you can't, um the chows. No, no child's, no German shops, no dogs of any kind. Um. When the Russians landed and opened fire on the unarmed high school students, that's highly illegal to I mean, they just flat out shot up that teacher, remember that. Yeah, and that kid too. Yeah, the kid's hanging out the window. That was one of the most disturbing images of my young life. Very impactful. See. I wanted to be a wolverine. Oh yeah, so did I. And and I guess all little boys like playing war. But I mean I didn't know I was going to be a peace nick later on. But at the time, man, I was like, bring it, I'll get a gun, I'll go to the woods, pack of football and some canned beans. I wish that, um, you could take the video of your life and edit it, because I would make a montage of all the times I shouted wolverines, like in the woods. There's a kid. That's what I would do with my time. It was more than once. Um, so Red Dawn somewhat on the Soviets took care of the civilians to a certain extent. They legally interned others, they illegally attack some with dogs. But um, let's say you were Darryll's dad, the mayor, and you're riding around with the the Cuban commander. Right, Um, what what rights do you have? Is just a general civilian who's not been deemed a threat? Right, Let's say, could Darryll's dad talk to Darryl's mom? Is open communication legal? Well? Yeah, it's it's a basic right that you're supposed to have. It can be curtailed if they think that there is uh, could be a detrimental effect on the correspondence. But even then they allow They law you to tweet basically, yeah, you're not really tweet, but they allow you like twenty five words. Right, there's special forms that every occupying force will have or should have that um, people can fill out to communicate with one another. Uh if if free speech is curtailed, yeah, um, and twenty five of those words have to be freely chosen by the person. You cannot be removed to another country unless it's for your own safety as a civilian, and you can't bring in your people as the occupying force. You can't bring in your civilians to settle that's right now, You're not allowed to do that and not allowed to do that. Um. They can force you to work, but they do have to pay you, and it can't be work, um like for your military, like against your own country. Right, you can't make You can't be made to make bombs that are gonna be used against your peeps, exactly. And if you are working and you're not making bombs, you can't be made to physically punish your own countrymen, if you're a middle manager forced laborer, and you can force kids to to work too. Really, and Chuck, it's um illegal to tattoo civilians for the purposes of identification. Yet another one that came out of World War Two. Yeah, boy, Hitler. They just went gaga after that, like with genocide. It that had never probably well, no, there was genocide before that, but after Hitler they said, no, we can't do this genocide thing. So Josh, let's talk about cultural property because I think it's one of the lesser known aspects of these conventions. I didn't know about it until I read this stuff. It's absolutely protected like your museums, your works of art and science. Like, um, remember when Saddam's statue was toppled, the American forces couldn't do that. The Iraqi people did that. But if the Americans had toppled his statue and like looted his palace, right because like you said, um, But the Hague and Geneva conventions specifically outlawed genocide, which is the systematic extermination of a group of people. In much the same way, the Hague convinces are like, you can't do that to their culture either, their cultural legacy and not just statues. Books are included, scientific achievements, works of art, archaeological areas, and then the buildings that house these things. Remember we said, like, you can't go hide out in a museum or library because these are culturally protected too. Yeah, but it's on the it's on the state to um provide identification there that these special symbols, and it's up to the country to to identify these places as such so they don't get bombed. So what happens if you break these rules? Let's say you're just like, you know, I don't want to follow these rules. I want to I want to shoot this guy's face in even though he's wounded already. Yeah, I don't like the way he looked, or he's dating my girlfriend. Are those awful things you've seen in the in the Vietnam War movies when one like, uh yeah, when they just go nuts and just start doing bad, bad things. So neither the Geneva Convention nor the Head Convention specify what kind of punishment should be doled out, how offending parties should be charged. UM. They basically say, hey, everybody who's like on the side of the law, take these people to the the international court and then doll out whatever punishment you think is necessary. So for example, after Nuremberg, UM, before actually the Geneva Conventions we ratified UM. The the the I guess, France, Great Britain, in the US and Russia all formed this international tribunal where they try these Nazi war criminals and hanged. I think they executed eleven of them. So in much the same way we formed tribunals for UM Yugoslavia, the Balkan Moore, UM for Rwanda. But it's up to the country that has been um uh offended, it's not offended. It's up to the country that has been impacted to to do the legwork to make this happen. Like, there's not some big general body it's gonna say, yeah, we heard this happen, so we're gonna make sure they get prosecuted. No, but there is a standing body in the Hague called the International Criminal Court, and these are this This body hears these um war crimes trials. This is where you go to have a war crimes trial, right um. And there's a lot of debate over the legitimacy of this body. Some people want this body to take up more issues than that has Now. Are they already up and running? Actually I don't think so, but there's a big movement to get it going. Yes, there is one that's standing right, the World Court. Basically, do you know the other cool things? I got one more? You got anything else? Um? I have a little more, but go ahead, okay. Uh. One thing I found interesting, Joshures, is that the these rules don't just apply to the armies, but militia and volunteer corps. And we'll go back to red down here. Just for the sake of continuity. If you have a person in command read don who is that? Jed Swazy? God rest his soul. Um, if you have a representative symbol that can be recognized from a distance, if you spray paint wolverine, since you're representatives. So what they were doing, they were basically kind of putting themselves in the corner. They didn't realize it. Um, if they carry weaponry in the open, Yeah, they definitely did that. Powers Booth showed him how to do that with effectiveness. He was the pilot, right, Yeah, he was the guy that crashed and kind of headed things up for a little while, and then they got to follow the laws and customs of war. So if you meet those criteria as a militia. So if we just formed our own little pack of how staff forks ruffians, if we were attacked and we and you are our leader, and we carried open weaponry, and we had our symbol, which would be wolverines, clearly then we would be subject to the same rules as just like we were in the army. Well, that fourth one in particular is a little ticklish because it basically says, if you follow the rules of war, the rules of war apply to you. Yeah, so what happens if if you don't And we asked this guy, um, who's a professor of international Law's name is Michael Matheson. We talked to him actually about from yeah, George Washington University, and he said we we asked him, like, what how are these followed? Like how are these enforced? Like why would anybody follow these if you didn't really have to? And he basically said, the idea that if you don't follow him, the other person doesn't doesn't have to, and all of a sudden you can be tortured UM or you know, you can be attacked by dogs or humiliated, degraded, whatever, UM. The slippery slope that forms if you don't follow the rules of war UM keep both sides in line actually, and that they're these rules are indoctrinated into the military rules UM on each side already. So basically, each side regulates itself in the hopes that the other side will too. You know what they call the golden rule. That's right, I'm gonna end up at that all right. If you want to learn more about the rules of war and see what the cultural property emblem looks like, we know where you can find it type Rules of War and the search part how stuff works dot com. That means now it's time for the listener mail. Josh, I'm gonna call this handpicked by you. Yeah, you picked this one out. It's a good one in the Big day and it was a really good email. Actually it was on my list too, So this is from Clovis, and Clovis had some thoughts on the addiction podcasts that were very relevant and I think made some great points. Guys in your podcast on addiction, I thought you treated the issue fairly with a couple of exceptions. First of all, Josh, you said that a A was radically successful or something to that effect. The truth is, no one really knows how successful it is. It might be successful at helping someone obtain sobriety for some amount of time, but it might not be any stronger than if a person just cycles out of drinking on their own. Also, a a's goal of lifelong abstinence is a set up for failure to some studies showing that only about five percent of people remain completely abstinent for the rest of their lives. UH Clubus goes on to say, it also seems like you bought into the idea that UH that was cultivated by our government that rates use rates are the best measure of the harms that drugs and prohibition due to our society. So if use rates are up, that's bad. If down, if they're down, that's good. Not quite true. Use rates are actually a terrible way to measure the success or failure of a drug treatment and drug policy. Meaningful data would measure the increases and decreases and drug related death, disease, crime, and suffering. All of these things can be significantly measured and in some cases even more accurately accurately than self reported use rates. Use rates are especially useful to politicians who use this quote unquote evidence to say use rates are down, we're winning. You should increase our budget to help keep this fight. Or use rates are down, we're losing, so you need to increase our budget to put us to stamp this thing out. So either way, they're trying to get more money. Uh. And I guess the point about addiction. That's the point about addiction and treatment. Our society has defined both way too rigidly. Addiction is really drug use plus problems. What do we do for those people who can't use drugs without causing problems the addicts? We should give them treatment? And treatment can be anything that works for them. Can be a a can be heroin assisted treatment, it can be knitting. But if it lessens the death, disease, crime, and suffering associated with the drug use, then it should be considered a successful treatment. Putting them in prison cells is about the worst thing we can do for them. With all respect, Clovis, Thanks for that, Clovis, for one of the better emails we've ever received. I would say, yeah, it was a good one. Uh. If you have something you'd like to point out to Chuck and I'm that we've maybe erroneously bought into something and you want to tell us how it is, we always love that, Wrap it up and send it to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. Yeah. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of our homepage. The How Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on iTunes. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you

Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is always Charles W. Chuck Bryant Party and we're recording this is stuff you should know the aggressive version. Hey dude, Hey, dude, how are you? I'm tired. Hey, We're almost out of here. Man, I'm not. Let's wrap this puppy up. I'm not almost out of here. This is just like the middle of my day. You're working to like ten, and then you working Saturday. I'm working Sunday, So are you, Poul? That's right? Um, Chuck? Yes, Josh. Do you remember when we talked about brainwashing? We did a brainwashing one, right, Yeah? I enjoyed that one. I did too. Do you remember we talked about the Koreans brainwash American Peo dotes that's against the rules the rules of what the rules of war. I have more examples. Do you have you ever heard of the dak How massacre, the Dacha? Yes, yeah, you have the Dacha massacre. Yes you have, well, I mean you've you secretly told me, have you seen well, you've seen Shutter Island, right, Yeah. I didn't realize it was a connection there. Yeah, the flashbacks where Leonardo DiCaprio is like in the army and they're at this concentration camp and they're shooting the German guards. That actually happened, Yes, at Dachau. The American liberators who came like came and saw this and like, we're apparently so overwhelmed by it that they lined up the s S officers against the wall, seventy five of them and shot him. I guess I didn't know about it then. Yeah, so, um, it didn't come out until two do one actually that this actually happened. It was covered up, ignored, but it was against the rules. I can't do that, ABU great, remember that one. Yeah, that's been the news that was against like six or seven different rules, and all of these are there against the rules of war. It's actually kind of to me a triumph of the human spirit to know that there we've tried to figure out how to create structure insanity in a chaotic and insane institution. That's why do we look at it? What's another way, Well, what I was the most struck with was that how messed up it is that you have to keep revisiting this over the years because all of these rules that are in here are there because someone tried to do something awful to someone else, and that they said you can't do that in war, right, And so then then they said, oh, well, then let's think of something else awful we can do, and then they said, well, you can't do that now either. Well. In this article that Julia Layton wrote how the Rules of War work, she makes the point that as the technology of war progresses, it usually means that we're going to we are figuring out more horrible ways to inflict damage on one another. And so as that happens as technology progresses, the people who oversee the rules of war are trying to come up with new ways to stem that progression. Right. But yeah, that that's a little mopier way of looking at it than mine. That's weird because you're usually the moupier one. Usually interesting, Chuck, Let's talk about the rules of war. Where did they come from? How long have they been around? Well, they've been around for a long time, but prior to the nineteenth century, they were established per battle and per countries participating in that battle, and that was where they ended there, like for this skirmish where you can do this, this and this, but you can't do this, this and this. Once that skirmish was over, or once that war was over, then they would say, all right, for forget all that then, and let's just we'll make up a new set of rules if we fight again. Yeah, And then next time they were like, no, was scalping. That was messed up last time, do not scalp in this one. Finally, at some point, uh, well, actually we know exactly the point. Um. In eighteen fifty nine, a guy named Henry de Nant, who went on to found the Red Cross UM and was one of the was the co recipient of the first Nobel Prize. I understand, huh. Um came upon a battlefield after the Battle of Salaferno in Italy in eighteen fifty nine. That's German and Italian in one podcast. Um. He came upon this battlefield, I guess right after the battle that happened, and there were all these dying wounded soldiers laying around, and he he gathered up the villagers around the countryside and said, we have to treat these people and treat everybody both sides because we're human beings and that's what we do. That's one of the things that the Red Cross still does today in wars. Their neutral party, not on either side, the Red Cross and the Red Crescent um and they treat everybody regardless of um what side they're on. Sure, right, Um, So that happened in eighteen fifty nine. It gave birth to the Red Cross, and it gave birth to the first Geneva Convention, right, yes. And I think I told you at some point we were chatting about this that the whole convention aspect of it kind of cracks me up a little bit because I always picture like a bunch of world leaders with their name tags. Hi, my name is kaiserville Helm mulling about some Hilton conference room. Imagine that's how it went out. But uh, with the first Geneva Convention, is uh when they in eighteen sixty four, did you already say that they started becoming an international thing where it crossed the boundaries, that crossed the time frames and there were solid rules for everybody for any more they were just standing rules of war. That looks more sustinct way saying it. Sure, and the first, the first Geneva Convention produced the Convention for the Amelioration of the Edition of the Wounded and Sick and Armed Forces in the Field. Yeah. Yeah, that was the first one. Like you said, over time, as we saw new atrocities take place, they went and created and amended the existing conventions, created new ones. So there was a Convention Um that addressed sick shipwrecked members of the Armed Forces at sea. Yeah. They forgot the seamen and the first one and they said, yeah, we gotta think about those guys exactly. There's the rules can governing the treatment of POW's. And then the fourth Convention Um, which is ratified in nineteen fifty four, was the treatment of civilians, not surprisingly shortly after World War two. Yeah, and actually after World War two that drove the first Geneva Convention, and actually the first three we're all created before World War two, um, And people were like, that's really nice, we like that, it's a great idea. And then World War two happened and everybody came to the table under the auspices of the u IN and said we we need these. So a hundred and ninety countries have ratified the Geneva Conventions, and you get the impression that if you want to be recognized as a sovereign nation internationally, that's one of the steps toward toward being an independent nations. You got to ratify the Geneva Conventions. Yeah, otherwise what are you doing? You're just some rogue jerk jerk country. So that's the Geneva Conventions, and we'll get more into those later, but they're also everyone's heard of the Geneva Convention. Not many people have heard of the Hague Conventions, although they should because they were just as important. There were the Haguen the Netherlands is where these took place, and they were called the also called the International Peace Conferences. Yeah, about the same time that the Geneva Conventions were being held, right, Yeah, And they had one in seven They were gonna have one peace conference and then they decided to cancel it and have a World war instead, and that was World War One, obviously, and they the hag Conventions fall into categories of combat, weaponry, property rights, and duties of neutral countries. But in addition, so a lot of the a lot of the rules established in the Hage Conventions are similar to the rules of the Geneva convensions. They overlap, but one of one of the things that defines the Hague Conventions specifically is that there are steps outlined to prevent war. Right, So there's UM two in the lead up the build up to war. There's steps you have to take too to be in step legally with the Hag Conventions, which are there's like a thirty day cooling off period time out right, UM, arbitration, mediation, liberation, Sorry that was in access UM Committees of inquiry. Yeah, Basically, you have to UM also declare war formally, or you have to declare an ultimatum saying like give me back my sandwich and pull your troops out of my South Asian territories, or I'm gonna come at you. And that's after they've gone through all the previous steps, the thirty day time out in the corner and everything else has failed. Then you have to officially send the evite saying we're going to attack you at some point, not to distance surprise attack illegal Pearl harbor and actually right, that's illegal. UM. That's one of the reasons why they the democratic peace theory works. So democratic peace theories based on the idea that democracies, especially democracies that follow these conventions, are so transparent that two democracies will never go to war because they're both following the same transparent steps in the lead up to war, and communication will be um much more open um. One of the you a surprise attack is impossible, not only illegal, but impossible because they have vibrant independent media. Right, so so democratic piece theory says that two democracies will never go to war. I don't know that's necessarily true, but it's based in part on this Hague convention. Thanks so combat and weaponry and the Hague Conventions. They're pretty obvious. Things like you can't fly a white flag and then shoot someone in the face, which apparently Iraqi soldiers did in two thousand three in the US invaded. Not very nice. Illegal, You cannot if a person has surrendered or as injured, then that's it for them. You can't go shoot them in the face. I mean, you gotta treat him. While we'll get to that in a minute too. If a person has a visible or an audible speech impediment, you can't make fun of him. That's very true. You can't attack a defenseless person. You can't like attack a hospital or a building being used as a hospital. No, that's what they call using a human shield. And there's a huge no no, and it's yeah, that's big time jerk quality right there. Uh. Natural, And see, this is what I thought was kind of interesting. National and cultural symbols are protected, So you can't desecrate a flag or use the enemy's flag. You can like dress up as a soldier and say I'm really a Nazi, even though all those movies they always did stuff like that. Yeah, well it's illegal. Inglorious. Maybe it's sensible, but it's illegal. Yeah. The whole movie they were dressed up, well not the whole movie, but a significant portion of it. Yeah, they dressed his Nazis to kill Nazis. That was a great movie. It was pretty awesome, Chuck. You also can't hide out in museums or libraries, well yeah, you can't. Certainly can't bomb them, just like just like a hospital, they're protected as well. To talk a little more about later, Um, and there's certain weapons you can't use. The Higgs specifically, says Um. The right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited. Right, So basically, you can't use poison bullets, you can't use poison gas, you can't use weapons that are designed to inflict further harm beyond the initial injury. Yeah, Like they have those bullets that once they get inside of you start doing all sorts of wacky thing for further damage. Like they have the bow ties that spin around, flapping dickies. Uh. Chemical and biological warfare is made illegal all the way back in. Yeah. Sarin gas, chlorine gas, uh, mustard gas, all those are old timey poison gases. Yeah. Yeah, smallpox can't do that. So we were talking about wounded and sick. Uh. Basically the Hague Conventions spells it out pretty clearly. If you're wounded and you're sick, or if you see us another soldier an enemy that's wounded or sick, you gotta help him. Yeah, and we should probably say about at this point that you can, um, you can break down the Hagen Geneva Conventions by like combat weaponry treatment a civilian ship, or you can look at them the rules for overarching as they apply to the different groups involved, and the group with the least amount of protection are active combatants, right, but once you be once you're injured or you're sick and you're no longer capable of fighting, you slip into the sick or wounded soldier category and you suddenly enjoy far more protections than if you have a gun and you're coming at somebody. Right. Well, yeah, not like I said, not only can you not uh shoot the guy in the face, you have to help them or at least allow them to be helped by like the Red Cross, right and chuck Like, you can't just walk away right now, like after a battle. You can't just walk away from the battlefield after you've won. You can't just release the chows. Which did you know that that's what childs were originally bred for in China? Did not know that they would release them onto the battlefield? They chew the throat side of survivors. Yes, is that what the suckers are? So puffy and mean? Um, we used to have childs. Actually they're not mean, so you, but they are protective. You can do some damage, true, Um, but you can't release the child's out in the battlefield. But not only that, you can't just walk away from the battle field. You you have to um help injured soldiers. You gotta help it the injured, and you gotta clean your plate. You can't just leave the deadline around every No, as a matter of fact, you have to give the enemy soldiers that you've killed a burial that's appropriate to their religions. You're supposed to and at the beginning of every war, they're supposed to be a graves Registration Service, which is neutral party like the Red Cross, and it's possibly operated by the Red Cross. Where you bury a bunch of soldiers and you say you you contact the graves Registration Service and say, there's a bunch of dead soldiers here we killed, and they're buried here and here the coordinates, and the the graves Registration Service provides each side with these coordinates. After the wars, the bodies can be exhumed and sent home. Well yeah, not only that, but you're you're supposed to return all property found on the body. So you can't like you see in the movies where you go looting the body of of trinkets and things to take home like a broach. Right, let's say you can't do that. You're supposed to mail that to their next of ken, which kind of wonder about that how often that happens. I wonder it myself. You cannot perform experiments on a wounded or sick person like the Nazis love to do. That's a big one. Uh. And that's about it for the second wounded, and it's biological experiments. But I think also brainwashing sure constitute an experiment, and you're not allowed to do that either. UM. So let's say that you have been caught, you you are, you received treatment from the enemy, um, and they're like, well, you're well, now you're a pow. Do you still have some pretty wide um protections? Actually? Yeah, this is a fact at your next cocktail party that you should pull out of your hip pocket. You. If you're a pow, you're a prisoner of the country, not a prisoner of the soldier or the platoon or the commander in chief of that region. You're a prisoner of the United States of America if that's who is fighting against America America. But not only that, um, your detention is legal under international law. Therefore, an escape is illegal and can be punished unless you make it to your other side, to your side, and then they wipe this slight clean, right, it's totally clean like you were never captured in the first place. So if you're a spy and you're caught and your hell is a POW, you're going to be tried as a spy and possibly hanged. If you escape two, say an occupied territory that your army controls, you are your detention is just wiped off the map. And if you're caught again, say as a regular soldier, you can't be tried as a spy. It's like it never happened. Isn't that interesting? That's kind of cool telling about name rank and serial number. Yeah, you've you've often heard that in movies. Um, that is definitely a part of the Third Geneva Convention. But it is not merely for name identification. But you are awarded privileges if you are an off sir in europow, Like you don't have to dig the latrine ditches like the privates and the corporals do. If you're an officer, you have a little bit of a I don't know about cush your life, but you could drink ticket every day. You can train. But it's like when you see all the World War two movies, like The Great Escape, the Officers, Um, they were always had a little bit better deal than than their men, like they were the ones. Like Hogan's heroes, Hogan was always meeting with the uh what was with claim? But the rest of the guys wouldn't meet. It was always Hogan because he was the main, the main man. Did you ever see Auto Focus? You're gonna say that it's hard to watch Hogan's heroes ever again? And auto Focus? God, I love that. Yeah, it's right up your alley. H The other thing about POWs is, um they are prisoners, much like a civilian prisoner would be, and they're innocent until proven guilty, supposedly, and you have to treat him as such. Um. So, if you are captured, is a POW you are, or if you're captured you're required to grant this person POW status if you're supposed to err on the side of caution. There's very sure whether they're POW or not, right, but there's a very specific qualifications that you have to classify them. If they are obviously members of the armed force. They can be a member of a militia or a volunteer corps. Right, still got to be a pow. Right, they could be some guy who you who happened to be like carrying a gun out in the open, and you still have to say we're going to treat you like a POW until we set up a tribunal and they say, no, he's not a POW. Is a common criminal. Members of the media traveling with the armed forces, they have to be granted POW status and it's about it a cruise of merchant marine and civil aircraft they're working with army. One of the reasons why Abu Grab and the treatment, the degradation at Abu Grab was so illegal was because these combatants weren't granted POW status right off the bat. These captured combatants were treated as criminals. Basically, they were imprisoned. So that's one. You can't imprison a POW. You can intern them in an internment camp. Do they have borders, but not a cell. It's another one. Unless they're like a specific danger, then you can work around that, which is probably what they said. Um, you can't subject them to degrading treatment interrogation. Interrogation basically amounts to you ask him a question and it's up to them whether they want to answer it or not. And if they don't want to answer then you that's it. You can't ask them again even they can't be coerced or tortured under any definition of torture. Um, and you can't, um, they can't their detention can't be paraded in front of the media. That was another thing too. I mean you remember Lyndy England right, pointing and like, did you ever see the mad magazine one? Or is alfredy Newman is now it's again? Um? So there were several reasons why Abu Gray was just so horrendous. Well, yeah, and you also have to grant them any any rights that your own soldiers get like food, water, shelter, clothing, exercise, correspondence like you have to. You have to let them know exactly where they are, and you have to make them available to receive mail from their families. Yeah. Not only did you have to tell them where they are, you have to give them the mailing address so that they can receive care packages, letters, whatever. Crazy So Chuck, that's POWs right, Ah, yeah, pretty much. Let's talk about civilians. Do you remember Red Dawn. We've talked about this often. I should say that recently when we were hanging out with our friend Chad, he remarked after I said that I had just recently seen The Fly David Krodenberg's The Fly for the first time, that he had just seen Red don for the first time. And you, I thought, we're gonna beat him up, punch him in the face. I just don't understand how you could. He's our age our ages. Yeah, he seems like it. He should have seen Red Dawn long before this. That's hadn't seen war games if you were a child, like a teenage boy in the eighties. So back to it, read Dawn. Well, okay, so you remember Harry Dean Stanton where Jed and Charlie Sheen come to Jed and who it was Swayzie and Jean wasn't. Yeah, but I can't remember Thomas. Did they all three go? Possibly, but it was definitely Jed and his brother, Um, And they go to see their father, who happens to be Harry Dean Stanton. He's in turn. Notice he's not in a cell. They've put up fencing around the drive in right, and they're projecting propaganda up onto the screen and they're playing like Russian Soviet music. Um, that's legal. Right. When he passes by, I think Arturo's father, who's getting like a German shepherd to the face. Yeah, that's highly illegal. Can't use the dogs, No, you can't, um the chows. No, no child's, no German shops, no dogs of any kind. Um. When the Russians landed and opened fire on the unarmed high school students, that's highly illegal to I mean, they just flat out shot up that teacher, remember that. Yeah, and that kid too. Yeah, the kid's hanging out the window. That was one of the most disturbing images of my young life. Very impactful. See. I wanted to be a wolverine. Oh yeah, so did I. And and I guess all little boys like playing war. But I mean I didn't know I was going to be a peace nick later on. But at the time, man, I was like, bring it, I'll get a gun, I'll go to the woods, pack of football and some canned beans. I wish that, um, you could take the video of your life and edit it, because I would make a montage of all the times I shouted wolverines, like in the woods. There's a kid. That's what I would do with my time. It was more than once. Um, so Red Dawn somewhat on the Soviets took care of the civilians to a certain extent. They legally interned others, they illegally attack some with dogs. But um, let's say you were Darryll's dad, the mayor, and you're riding around with the the Cuban commander. Right, Um, what what rights do you have? Is just a general civilian who's not been deemed a threat? Right, Let's say, could Darryll's dad talk to Darryl's mom? Is open communication legal? Well? Yeah, it's it's a basic right that you're supposed to have. It can be curtailed if they think that there is uh, could be a detrimental effect on the correspondence. But even then they allow They law you to tweet basically, yeah, you're not really tweet, but they allow you like twenty five words. Right, there's special forms that every occupying force will have or should have that um, people can fill out to communicate with one another. Uh if if free speech is curtailed, yeah, um, and twenty five of those words have to be freely chosen by the person. You cannot be removed to another country unless it's for your own safety as a civilian, and you can't bring in your people as the occupying force. You can't bring in your civilians to settle that's right now, You're not allowed to do that and not allowed to do that. Um. They can force you to work, but they do have to pay you, and it can't be work, um like for your military, like against your own country. Right, you can't make You can't be made to make bombs that are gonna be used against your peeps, exactly. And if you are working and you're not making bombs, you can't be made to physically punish your own countrymen, if you're a middle manager forced laborer, and you can force kids to to work too. Really, and Chuck, it's um illegal to tattoo civilians for the purposes of identification. Yet another one that came out of World War Two. Yeah, boy, Hitler. They just went gaga after that, like with genocide. It that had never probably well, no, there was genocide before that, but after Hitler they said, no, we can't do this genocide thing. So Josh, let's talk about cultural property because I think it's one of the lesser known aspects of these conventions. I didn't know about it until I read this stuff. It's absolutely protected like your museums, your works of art and science. Like, um, remember when Saddam's statue was toppled, the American forces couldn't do that. The Iraqi people did that. But if the Americans had toppled his statue and like looted his palace, right because like you said, um, But the Hague and Geneva conventions specifically outlawed genocide, which is the systematic extermination of a group of people. In much the same way, the Hague convinces are like, you can't do that to their culture either, their cultural legacy and not just statues. Books are included, scientific achievements, works of art, archaeological areas, and then the buildings that house these things. Remember we said, like, you can't go hide out in a museum or library because these are culturally protected too. Yeah, but it's on the it's on the state to um provide identification there that these special symbols, and it's up to the country to to identify these places as such so they don't get bombed. So what happens if you break these rules? Let's say you're just like, you know, I don't want to follow these rules. I want to I want to shoot this guy's face in even though he's wounded already. Yeah, I don't like the way he looked, or he's dating my girlfriend. Are those awful things you've seen in the in the Vietnam War movies when one like, uh yeah, when they just go nuts and just start doing bad, bad things. So neither the Geneva Convention nor the Head Convention specify what kind of punishment should be doled out, how offending parties should be charged. UM. They basically say, hey, everybody who's like on the side of the law, take these people to the the international court and then doll out whatever punishment you think is necessary. So for example, after Nuremberg, UM, before actually the Geneva Conventions we ratified UM. The the the I guess, France, Great Britain, in the US and Russia all formed this international tribunal where they try these Nazi war criminals and hanged. I think they executed eleven of them. So in much the same way we formed tribunals for UM Yugoslavia, the Balkan Moore, UM for Rwanda. But it's up to the country that has been um uh offended, it's not offended. It's up to the country that has been impacted to to do the legwork to make this happen. Like, there's not some big general body it's gonna say, yeah, we heard this happen, so we're gonna make sure they get prosecuted. No, but there is a standing body in the Hague called the International Criminal Court, and these are this This body hears these um war crimes trials. This is where you go to have a war crimes trial, right um. And there's a lot of debate over the legitimacy of this body. Some people want this body to take up more issues than that has Now. Are they already up and running? Actually I don't think so, but there's a big movement to get it going. Yes, there is one that's standing right, the World Court. Basically, do you know the other cool things? I got one more? You got anything else? Um? I have a little more, but go ahead, okay. Uh. One thing I found interesting, Joshures, is that the these rules don't just apply to the armies, but militia and volunteer corps. And we'll go back to red down here. Just for the sake of continuity. If you have a person in command read don who is that? Jed Swazy? God rest his soul. Um, if you have a representative symbol that can be recognized from a distance, if you spray paint wolverine, since you're representatives. So what they were doing, they were basically kind of putting themselves in the corner. They didn't realize it. Um, if they carry weaponry in the open, Yeah, they definitely did that. Powers Booth showed him how to do that with effectiveness. He was the pilot, right, Yeah, he was the guy that crashed and kind of headed things up for a little while, and then they got to follow the laws and customs of war. So if you meet those criteria as a militia. So if we just formed our own little pack of how staff forks ruffians, if we were attacked and we and you are our leader, and we carried open weaponry, and we had our symbol, which would be wolverines, clearly then we would be subject to the same rules as just like we were in the army. Well, that fourth one in particular is a little ticklish because it basically says, if you follow the rules of war, the rules of war apply to you. Yeah, so what happens if if you don't And we asked this guy, um, who's a professor of international Law's name is Michael Matheson. We talked to him actually about from yeah, George Washington University, and he said we we asked him, like, what how are these followed? Like how are these enforced? Like why would anybody follow these if you didn't really have to? And he basically said, the idea that if you don't follow him, the other person doesn't doesn't have to, and all of a sudden you can be tortured UM or you know, you can be attacked by dogs or humiliated, degraded, whatever, UM. The slippery slope that forms if you don't follow the rules of war UM keep both sides in line actually, and that they're these rules are indoctrinated into the military rules UM on each side already. So basically, each side regulates itself in the hopes that the other side will too. You know what they call the golden rule. That's right, I'm gonna end up at that all right. If you want to learn more about the rules of war and see what the cultural property emblem looks like, we know where you can find it type Rules of War and the search part how stuff works dot com. That means now it's time for the listener mail. Josh, I'm gonna call this handpicked by you. Yeah, you picked this one out. It's a good one in the Big day and it was a really good email. Actually it was on my list too, So this is from Clovis, and Clovis had some thoughts on the addiction podcasts that were very relevant and I think made some great points. Guys in your podcast on addiction, I thought you treated the issue fairly with a couple of exceptions. First of all, Josh, you said that a A was radically successful or something to that effect. The truth is, no one really knows how successful it is. It might be successful at helping someone obtain sobriety for some amount of time, but it might not be any stronger than if a person just cycles out of drinking on their own. Also, a a's goal of lifelong abstinence is a set up for failure to some studies showing that only about five percent of people remain completely abstinent for the rest of their lives. UH Clubus goes on to say, it also seems like you bought into the idea that UH that was cultivated by our government that rates use rates are the best measure of the harms that drugs and prohibition due to our society. So if use rates are up, that's bad. If down, if they're down, that's good. Not quite true. Use rates are actually a terrible way to measure the success or failure of a drug treatment and drug policy. Meaningful data would measure the increases and decreases and drug related death, disease, crime, and suffering. All of these things can be significantly measured and in some cases even more accurately accurately than self reported use rates. Use rates are especially useful to politicians who use this quote unquote evidence to say use rates are down, we're winning. You should increase our budget to help keep this fight. Or use rates are down, we're losing, so you need to increase our budget to put us to stamp this thing out. So either way, they're trying to get more money. Uh. And I guess the point about addiction. That's the point about addiction and treatment. Our society has defined both way too rigidly. Addiction is really drug use plus problems. What do we do for those people who can't use drugs without causing problems the addicts? We should give them treatment? And treatment can be anything that works for them. Can be a a can be heroin assisted treatment, it can be knitting. But if it lessens the death, disease, crime, and suffering associated with the drug use, then it should be considered a successful treatment. Putting them in prison cells is about the worst thing we can do for them. With all respect, Clovis, Thanks for that, Clovis, for one of the better emails we've ever received. I would say, yeah, it was a good one. Uh. If you have something you'd like to point out to Chuck and I'm that we've maybe erroneously bought into something and you want to tell us how it is, we always love that, Wrap it up and send it to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. Yeah. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of our homepage. The How Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on iTunes. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you