"Crossing the line; Why are chemical weapons considered beyond the pale?" by Farah Stockman | Globe Columnist, September 04, 2013
As far back as the 18th century, poisoning wells in warfare was considered cowardly — and against the rules of gentlemanly killing.
Interesting.
Related: Traces of poison
Did they pass out infected blankets, too? We have a town named after that guy.
After World War I, when nearly 100,000 soldiers suffered the horrors of mustard gas, much of the world signed onto the Geneva Protocol of 1925, which banned countries from using chemical weapons first in a conflict. But countries retained the right to possess them and to retaliate if they were attacked first.
So John Kerry has a point, but Kerry failed to mention that it took the United States half a century to ratify the Gevena Protocol. In the meantime, we dropped napalm on Japan, which killed more people than the atomic bomb.
Related: The Worst Days in World History
We dropped Agent Orange — a toxic defoliant — on Vietnam. During the Cold War, we stockpiled 523 tons of liquid VX and sarin, which are still stored today in leaky barrels in a Kentucky military warehouse.
Sarin, huh? The same stuff the Al-CIA-Duh insurgents in Syria used.
Worst of all, in the 1980s, we continued to support Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, even he gassed Iranian soldiers and villages almost daily in the Iraq-Iran war. Iran begged for international intervention, but no one cared, even after UN weapons inspectors documented the attacks.
By the time Saddam killed 5,000 people with sarin in the Iranian-held Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988, US diplomats had been reporting smaller attacks for five years....
That's the worst, huh?
We even helped Saddam cover up his crime. After Iraq’s planes dispersed poison from planes that flew so high that some blew back on Saddam’s own troops, Iraq accused Iran of using chemical weapons. According to Joost Hiltermann, author of “A Poisonous Affair,” US intelligence agents helped keep that rumor alive.
“I think there was a lobby inside the US intelligence community that wanted to play up Iranian culpability, even though there was no solid evidence,” Hiltermann said.
Okay.
All that means is the US intelligence community is NEVER TO BE BELIEVED AGAIN!
Being accused of using chemical weapons — after being attacked with chemical weapons for years — showed Iranians that “international laws are nothing but ink on paper,” Hashemi Rafsanjani, chairman of Iran’s parliament, declared bitterly at the time.
Fast forward to now. What’s so different? Well, for one thing, the world passed a new, tougher treaty in 1993. Americans ratified it and began destroying US stockpiles of poisons. We are slated to be finished in 2021. Better late than never.
Like war crimes trials.
Related: Israel used chemical weapons in Gaza
Even that simple search is skewed by Joogle.
Also see: For 30 Pieces of Goldstone
Israel and the Bomblets
Israel and White Phosphorous
FLASHBACK - Israel Drops White Phosphorus Bombs, Littlest Victims Suffer
FLASHBACK - Israeli crimes against humanity: Gruesome images of charred and mutilated bodies following Israeli air strikes
never mind the FUMIGATION of SOUTH AMERICA and AFGHANISTAN with CHEMICAL WARFARE in the name of a "DRUG WAR," -- and still doing it -- or the use of Willie Pete in Iraq!
You missed all that, girl.
A handful of countries refused to sign the treaty, including Syria. That’s why Obama says Assad is violating international “norms,” not international laws. Syria never agreed to follow that law in the first place.
Oh, so Syria is not even breaking the law, huh?
Btw, has Israel signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?
It is a noble goal to rid the world of chemical weapons. It is noble to try to force brutal dictators to live up to certain standard of civility. But for those standards to be real, we have to enforce them fairly, on behalf of our enemies as well as our allies.
John Kerry told Congress on Tuesday that the US must act because “if the world’s worst despots can flout with impunity prohibitions against the world’s worst weapons, then those prohibitions are just pieces of paper.”
He works for a flouting despot!
Unfortunately, that’s a lesson some countries have already learned.
--more--"
Also see: Feeling Sorry For Farah Stockman
Must be related. Either that, or she learned her lesson.
