Why We Cannot Allow Chemical Warfare, Even On ISIS

Nadene Goldfoot                                             

Child said suffering from chemical attack in Douma, Syria.
Most victims were women and children.

Russians, who have control
of Syria and Assad, plead that all pictures were staged.  Russia has been in Syria since 2012, maybe earlier.  They know the problems involved working with Assad and what he's capable of.  Copping a plea about this is hard to swallow.  Some people are just compulsive liars.  As to staging
pictures of the suffering seen on TV, that's pretty hard to do.  The picture above proves nothing.  

Homs, Syria is shown with the red dot at the top that was hit in an
attack by France, England and USA  Friday the 13th of April 2018.
After being warned last year not to use chemical weapons, they were warned a 2nd time with
3 times the strength as the first time since he hadn't believed the first message.  Just
west of Homs was the factory making the gas, Sarin that was destroyed. 

In World War I, chemical warfare was used by the Germans on the Allies.  "One of Germany's earliest uses of chemical weapons occurred on October 27, 1914, when shells containing the irritant dianisidine chlorosulfonate were fired at British troops near Neuve-Chapelle, France."
                                                                         

This Canadian soldier in WWI suffered from mustard gas burns 1917-1918.

 "Germany used another irritant, xylyl bromide, in artillery shells that were fired in January 1915 at the Russians near Bolimów, in present-day Poland.^[17] The first full-scale deployment of deadly chemical warfare agents during World War I was at the Second Battle of Ypres, on April 22, 1915, when the Germans attacked French, Canadian and Algerian troops with chlorine gas.

A total 50,965 tons of pulmonary, lachrymatory, and vesicant agents were deployed by both sides of the conflict, including chlorine, phosgene, and mustard gas. Official figures declare about 1.3 million casualties directly caused by chemical warfare agents during the course of the war. Of these, an estimated 100,000-260,000 casualties were civilians. Nearby civilian towns were at risk from winds blowing the poison gases through. Civilians rarely had a warning system put into place to alert their neighbors of the danger. In addition to poor warning systems, civilians often did not have access to effective gas masks.

Football team of British soldiers with gas masks, Western Front, 1916

World War I-era chemical ammunition is still found, unexploded, at former battle, storage, or test sites and poses an ongoing threat to inhabitants of Belgium, France and other countries. Camp American University where American chemical weapons were developed and later buried, has undergone 20 years of remediation efforts."

Chemical warfare technology timeline

	Agents	Dissemination	Protection	Detection
1914	Chlorine Chloropicrin Phosgene Mustard gas	Wind dispersal	Gas masks, urinated-on gauze	Smell

At the end of WWI, more had been created.  Gas was placed in shells that could be dropped.

1918

Lewisite

Chemical shells

Gas mask Rosin oil clothing

smell of geraniums

Conventional weapons are allowed in warfare,  but not the following; called the NBC  which are the  Nuclear, Biological and Chemical that have been known about.  These can take over and kill millions at one swipe.  They can kill one's enemy and one's friends alike all at once.  They could wipe out the earth of its population.  This was decided by 65 states in 1997, that late.  Israel has signed but not ratified it since the Palestine authority has not signed.   Only Egypt, North Korea, Palestine (which became eligible to accede to UN deposited treaties upon becoming a UN observer state in 2012) and South Sudan have neither signed nor acceded to the Convention. Aside from Palestine, the other four states which are not 
parties are suspected of possessing chemical weapons.

                 Signed        Deposited     Entered into force

Switzerland	14 January 1993	10 March 1995	29 April 1997
Syria	—	14 September 2013	14 October 2013

                                                                   

Devastation of Homs, Syria "It has been widely reported in the Western media that women and children trapped in Homs are to be rescued - allowed to get out of the city. At the time of writing civilians are leaving but it is of little comfort, the old city is beyond rescue. The losses that this city has endured surpass piecemeal attempts at intervention."
In fact it is a double siege; 73 Christian civilians with their priest are being held as hostages by troops, who are in turn being besieged with their families.  Only the chemicalfactory was the pinpointed target.  These people were not injured. I hope they were able
to escape.  

"In July 2012, Syria publicly acknowledged that it possesses chemical weapons. For a number of years preceding this announcement, the United States intelligence community assessed that Syria has a stockpile of chemical weapons, including mustard gas, blister agents, and nerve agents such as sarin and VX. Syria has the capability to deliver these agents using aerial bombs, ballistic missiles, and artillery rockets.

"A secret State Department cable from the U.S. consul general in Istanbul said there was compelling evidence that the Syrian military had used a chemical weapon known as Agent 15 in Homs on December 23, 2012."

The use of Sarin gas is about as bad as you can get. "It is a highly toxic chemical weapon that can kill in minutes and is estimated to be 26 times deadlier than cyanide." The nerve agent sarin is believed to have been used in the Assad government’s alleged chemical weapons attack on Douma Syria; his own people who may have turned against him. 

                                            

Assad is a bad guy, we know that.  As bad guys, go, his replacement could be worse.  Who is he fighting against? Who are

the rebels?  Syrians who want him replaced.  Who are they all fighting against?  ISIS.  Russia is not earning any halos in this debacle.  Iran is the really bad of the baddies.  Who earns the halo?  France, England and the USA who are upholding the international law of not using the c in the NBC list of abhorrent ways to kill people in a war.  Others in this world seems to keep on testing the waters constantly to see if the light has changed.  It's still on red as far as this disgusting method of killing goes.  It was President Trump who was not afraid to take this moral stand along with President Emmanuel Macron of France and Prime Minister Theresa May of Great Britain.  

                                               

                  The German soldier fought prepared as Germany

                   used gas and chemicals against the Allies. 

More than 16 million soldiers died in WWI, many from the use of chemical weaponry.  Over the course of the war — which lasted from July 28, 1914, to Nov. 11, 1918 — about 3,000 chemicals were investigated for military use, and 50 toxic agents were deployed on battlefields across Europe, killing an estimated 90,000 to 100,000 people and leaving 1.3 million people injured.

Reference:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_Weapons_Convention
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_the_Chemical_Weapons_Convention
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_warfare
http://thehill.com/policy/international/383170-haley-pictures-of-dead-children-in-syria-chemical-attack-not-fake-news
https://www.architectural-review.com/rethink/view-from-homs-syria/8658696.article
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3258573/what-is-sarin-gas-nerve-agent-syria-douma-trump-assad/
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43697084
https://www.historyonthenet.com/how-many-people-died-in-ww1/
https://www.livescience.com/58569-chemical-weapons-world-war-one.html