A Bit Of Reality
Hitting another country with explosives is an act of war, and universally recognized as such. You can dance around it all you want, but it is an act of war. No one waited to see if the Japanese would have some other explanation for bombing Pearl Harbor, the government of the United States at that time understood that it was an act of war.
Syria has not signed any of the protocols or treaties regarding chemical weapons, so they can’t be in violation. They are in violation of the charter of the International Criminal Court, and the leaders can be charged with war crimes for using chemical weapons. The US can’t refer the Syrians to the International Criminal Court, because the US has not signed the treaty, but Britain could make the referral.
No one has ever been attacked by an outside party based on their use of chemical weapons. Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against Iranian forces in the Iran-Iraq War, and against his own people, but no one in the international community did anything about it.
What Zero wants to do is unprecedented, and suggesting that the President of the United States can just attack anyone for any reason, is not likely to do good things for the nation’s credibility or standing in the world.
4 comments
Millions have been killed in genocides around the world over the past half century, and the US has done nothing. Worse than nothing, in some cases. What makes Syria so different? Other than the fact that currently there’s no genocide there, only civil war?
Oh wait, Likud wants a threat to protect the Israeli public from, and what Likud wants, Likud gets. I guess that makes Obama our first President who is a member of the Likud Party…
This is the last month of the government’s fiscal year and with the sequestration that is damn little left in the accounts to pay for this mess. The replacement for the current generation of Tomahawks cost $3 million apiece, so the resupply cost just doubled. This is going to have no actual effect on anything unless we hit a chemical weapons facility and accidentally gas several thousand people. The Syrians have newer and better surface-to-air missiles which will probably hit the Tomahawks which will increase the collateral damage while having even less effect.
The Syrians have been expecting this for months and have a plan in place to deal with it. It won’t be totally effective, but they will have already relocated critical facilities to secret locations. The Syrian government may be homicidal maniacs, but they aren’t stupid.
The Likud have really lost their minds. They are going to end up with total chaos next door, and the next chemical attack could be the result of the loss of control to the Saudis’ ‘freedom fighters’ in Syria.
Syria has not signed any of the protocols or treaties regarding chemical weapons, so they can’t be in violation. They are in violation of the charter of the International Criminal Court, and the leaders can be charged with war crimes for using chemical weapons.
This would be the charter that also clearly states that torture, deprivation of a fair trial to prisoners, and unlawful deportation and confinement are war crimes.
Can’t imagine why the US doesn’t want to validate it…
Everyone knows that rules are for ‘other people’, which is why the US hasn’t signed the land mine treaty or the cluster bomb ban.
The provision of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that allows Iran to deny inspectors access to their military facilities at Parchin was inserted by the US.
Agent Orange was not exactly a benign agricultural chemical, and depleted uranium isn’t as non-toxic as many have claimed, so we aren’t exactly in the clear. Also the use of tear gas is a violation if used by the military in war, not if used by the police for domestic purposes. Assad should just claim they thought it was tear gas and it was deployed by the Syrian police. That would cause heads to explode, if he used the same level of hypocrisy as the US.