{"id":33342,"date":"2013-09-02T18:05:48","date_gmt":"2013-09-02T17:05:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=33342"},"modified":"2015-05-06T08:59:07","modified_gmt":"2015-05-06T07:59:07","slug":"hot-off-the-press-britain-sold-nerve-gas-chemicals-to-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2013\/09\/hot-off-the-press-britain-sold-nerve-gas-chemicals-to-syria\/","title":{"rendered":"Hot Off the Press: Britain Sold Nerve Gas Chemicals to Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"justice\"<\/a>If you want to know why PM Cameron was keen to launch an immediate attack on Syria while the UN mission was still collecting evidence on the ground,\u00a0 but then was very quick to scrap the idea all together, dailyrecord.co.uk provides the answer<\/a>. Britain and Cameron\u2019s government may as well be complicit in the unfolding tragedy.<\/p>\n

Seemingly, British firms sold Syrian companies the chemical components needed for the production of chemical weapons, long after the beginning of the civil war.<\/p>\n

\u201cBRITAIN allowed firms to sell chemicals to Syria capable of being used to make nerve gas\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cExport licences for potassium fluoride and sodium fluoride were granted months after the bloody civil war in the Middle East began.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the Daily Record, \u201cthe chemical export licences were granted by Business Secretary Vince Cable\u2019s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills last January \u2013 10 months after the Syrian uprising began. They were only revoked six months later, when the European Union imposed tough sanctions on Assad\u2019s regime.\u201d However, it is far from being clear yet who is responsible for the attack. There is clear evidence that Rebel forces also possessed chemical weapons. One of the possible explanations for the recent tragedy is that Syrian artillery shells hit rebels\u2019 WMD storage and it was the explosion that spread the lethal substance that killed so many innocents.<\/p>\n

\u201cYesterday, politicians and anti-arms trade campaigners urged Prime Minister David Cameron to explain why the licences were granted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dunfermline and West Fife Labour MP Thomas Docherty, who sits on the House of Commons\u2019 Committees on Arms Export Controls, wrote to Cable:<\/p>\n

\u201cMPs will be horrified and furious that the UK Government has been allowing the sale of these ingredients to Syria.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the hell were they doing granting a licence in the first place?<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to know what investigations have been carried out to establish if any of this
\nmaterial exported to Syria was subsequently used in the attacks on its own people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The SNP\u2019s leader at Westminster, Angus Robertson, MP, said: \u201cApproving the sale of chemicals which can be converted into lethal weapons during a civil war is a very serious issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to know who these chemicals were sold to, why they were sold, and whether the UK Government were aware that the chemicals could potentially be used for chemical weapons.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe on-going humanitarian crisis in Syria makes a full explanation around these shady deals even more important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, I don\u2019t feel so patriotic.<\/p>\n

___________________________<\/p>\n

Gilad Atzmon is a public opponent of Israel. Born into a pro-Zionist family and serving in the first Lebanon War, he had a dramatic turnaround. He quit the army, picked up his sax and exiled himself to London. Atzmon writes\u00a0on political matters, social issues,\u00a0Jewish identity and culture. His\u00a0papers are published around the world: TRANSCEND Media Service<\/a>,<\/a> World News,<\/a> The Guardian<\/a>, Rebelion, <\/a>The Daily Telegraph<\/a>, Uprooted Palestinians<\/a>, Veterans Today<\/a>, Palestine Telegraph<\/a>, Counterpunch,<\/a> Dissident Voice, <\/a>Aljazeera Magazine, \u00a0 Information Clearing House, <\/a>\u00a0 <\/a>Middle-East-Online<\/a>, \u00a0 Palestine Chronicle, The People Voice<\/a>, Redress<\/a>,\u00a0Shoa (The Palestinian Holocaust)\u00a0<\/a> and many more.<\/i><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 gilad.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seemingly, British firms sold Syrian companies the chemical components needed for the production of chemical weapons, long after the beginning of the civil war. \u201cBritain allowed firms to sell chemicals to Syria capable of being used to make nerve gas\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[204],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-syria-in-context"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}