I had planned an image for the top of this Diary. When I went looking, most were simply too horrific to post on a family blog!
There is something deeply disturbing about the "hand-wringing" going on by experts assholes on the Right, with regard to the use of Chemical Weapons.
Quite frankly there are those who we should place somewhere quiet, uncomfortable, and as far from a microphone as we can possibly get them, because they are children, and it's time the adults joined the conversation.
Let me introduce you to just a few of the players. To this short list, please feel free to add all of their advisors, and anyone who knew what they were doing at the time.
While the hangovers from the Reagan and Bush Administrations get their slimey faces on the TV, making statements that would be better made to Federal or International Prosecutors, let's remind ourselves of what they actually did.
Rumsfeld supplied Chemical Weapons:
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld helped Saddam Hussein build up his arsenal of deadly chemical and biological weapons, it was revealed last night.
Well, it was just good business and he probably didn't know that Saddam was a bad guy:
The CIA had already warned that Iraq was using chemical weapons almost daily. But Mr Rumsfeld, at the time a successful executive in the pharmaceutical industry, still made it possible for Saddam to buy supplies from American firms.
They included viruses such as anthrax and bubonic plague, according to the Washington Post.
Oops! Apparently he did know!
But surely the President didn't know, because that would be a War Crime:
In contrast to today's wrenching debate over whether the United States should intervene to stop alleged chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian government, the United States applied a cold calculus three decades ago to Hussein's widespread use of chemical weapons against his enemies and his own people. The Reagan administration decided that it was better to let the attacks continue if they might turn the tide of the war. And even if they were discovered, the CIA wagered that international outrage and condemnation would be muted.
Well it was
just the once, right?
Napalm was first used in flamethrowers for U.S. ground troops; they burned down sections of forest and bushes in hopes of eliminating any enemy guerrilla fighters. Later on in the war B-52 Bombers began dropping napalm bombs and other incendiary explosives. Air raids that used napalm were much more devastating than flamethrowers; a single bomb was capable of destroying areas up to 2,500 square yards. Throughout the duration of the war, 1965 – 1973, eight million tons of bombs were dropped over Vietnam; this was more than three times the amount used in WWII.
That was it though .... What's a little napalm, among friends?
Except that wasn't "just it":
The research by the University of Otago's Department of Preventive and Social Medicine shows Vietnam veterans who served from 1962-1971 have double the rate of chronic lymphatic lukemia compared to the general population.
Many of the veterans deployed experienced a "toxic environment" and were exposed to Agent Orange.
"The study also shows a doubling of the risk of mortality from cancers of the head and neck, as well as an increase in oral cancers of the pharynx and larynx," lead author Dr David McBride said.
So where did Syria get the Chemical Weapons?
This is a little more murky. There is an unconfirmed suggestion they got them from Iraq, or maybe Rummy made a few sales on the side. We do not know. In any event, SARIN is easy to make, if a little dangerous and the chemicals involved have other, less genocidal uses.
What we do know is that the British approved the export of the chemicals, before hurridley disapproving it:
The Business Secretary, Vince Cable, will today be asked by MPs to explain why a British company was granted export licences for the dual-use substances for six months in 2012 while Syria’s civil war was raging and concern was rife that the regime could use chemical weapons on its own people. The disclosure of the licences for potassium fluoride and sodium fluoride, which can both be used as precursor chemicals in the manufacture of nerve gas, came as the US Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States had evidence that sarin gas was used in last month’s atrocity in Damascus.
We also can be fairly sure that
no one really tried to prevent the manufacture and stockpiling of such weapons:
Indeed, Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile results from a never-acknowledged gentleman’s agreement in the Middle East that as long as Israel had nuclear weapons, Syria’s pursuit of chemical weapons would not attract much public acknowledgement or criticism. (The Fact Checker, when serving as The Washington Post’s diplomatic correspondent, learned of this secret arrangement from Middle Eastern and Western diplomats, but it was never officially confirmed.) These are the sorts of trade-offs that happen often in diplomacy. After all, Israel’s nuclear stockpile has never been officially acknowledged, and Syria in the 1980s and 1990s was often supportive of U.S. interests in the region, even nearly reaching a peace deal with Israel.
Now we are facing the prospect of blowing up, at least parts of, Damascus, and Rumsfeld, a man who led the charge to supply the world's tinpot dictators with Chemical Weapons, is leading the charge to fire the missiles.
What, is he looking for more sales opportunities? Or did he just buy Tomahawk Cruise Missile futures?
I think we should be told!
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