{"id":35301,"date":"2013-10-21T12:00:01","date_gmt":"2013-10-21T11:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=35301"},"modified":"2015-05-05T22:21:22","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T21:21:22","slug":"chemical-weapons-in-focus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2013\/10\/chemical-weapons-in-focus\/","title":{"rendered":"Chemical Weapons in Focus"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Nobel Peace Prize, it\u2019s luster dulled by the wars of Barack Obama and the EU,\u00a0and Henry Kissinger\u2019s lifetime record of supporting massacres, dictators and Israeli exceptionalism, was presented to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons this year.\u00a0\u00a0 According to Thorbj\u00f8rn Jagland, Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, the award was not necessarily for their current work in Syria where they are currently dismantling the national stores of Chemical Weapons, but for a history of work\u00a0around the world to dispose of chemical weapons.\u00a0 Although the ongoing proxy war is an impediment to the process of\u00a0dismantling Syria\u2019s chemical weapons, according to Paul Walker, Program Director of the Environmental Sustainability and Sustainability Program at Green Cross International in a Democracy Now!<\/i> <\/a>interview today, the process is relatively straight forward as most of Syria\u2019s chemical weapons are in the form of\u00a0 (dual use) precursor chemicals stored in large drums.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This would indicate that the largest portion of Syria\u2019s chemical weapons are not (as of yet) chemical weapons at all.<\/p>\n

Only a handful of nations are not participants in the United Nations Convention on Chemical Weapons.\u00a0\u00a0 Syria has just signed up, Egypt is not interested in signing on, and\u00a0Israel has signed, but not ratified the Convention.\u00a0\u00a0 The U.S. is in the process of dismantling its chemical weapons, but the work is behind schedule.\u00a0 U.S. chemical weapons are conveniently stored in 2 locations, and are being destroyed on the bases where they reside.\u00a0 Among the problems are the diversity of substances involved, including\u00a0mustard gas, sarin and even more poisonous neurotoxins; the severe toxicity of these substances; the fact that about half the U.S stockpile is a weaponized.\u00a0\u00a0 What wasn\u2019t mentioned is the fact that the United States has been using white phosphorus and weapons made of depleted uranium with impunity in in the wars of the last decade.<\/p>\n

White phosphorus is a dual use chemical itself, which is allowed in war to create light for targeting.\u00a0\u00a0 However, it is not allowed to be used\u00a0 against human beings as it burns through the skin to the bone, and continues to burn when exposed to air even after it appears to be \u2018burned out\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 Depleted uranium (DU) is controversial in the sense that the U.S. government denies it is toxic, though there is mounting evidence that is the case.\u00a0\u00a0 It is, after all, uranium, which has a radioactive half life of 4.47 billion years.<\/p>\n

Use of DU in war is very convenient, economical and even, you might say, a conservation initiative.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Used up fuel from power plants and other nuclear technology purposes is\u00a0very difficult to dispose of.\u00a0\u00a0 No one wants it buried in their back yard. \u00a0 Converted to DU, it forms a substance that is very hard, hard enough to drill through armored tanks and other high tech defenses.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 However, it is difficult to defend taking this substance that is too toxic for safe storage at home, and distributing it across the landscape of countries where we are prosecuting imperial wars for resources, or just for dominance.\u00a0\u00a0 Hence, denial is the only recourse.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0tend to be a skeptic when it comes to the use of formal processes and international agencies to rein in\u00a0imperial abuses.\u00a0\u00a0 In many cases these efforts target only the weak, while the powerful continue unabashed to pursue their interests in any manner they choose while the global agencies operate at their behest.\u00a0\u00a0 Examples are the International Criminal Court targeting Africa and the International Atomic Energy Agency being used to target Iran.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In the former case, you can\u2019t say there were never any abuses; merely that only some criminals are subject to the law.\u00a0\u00a0 In the latter, the agency is being used to override and obscure the very rights it was created to safeguard, while the most egregious violations of its mandate go unmentioned;\u00a0not just unpunished or unmoderated, but unmentioned.\u00a0 Iraq\u2019s nuclear arms were dismantled by the self appointed arbiters of the \u2018Global Community\u2019 shortly before Iraq itself was dismantled by the very same players, for her own good.<\/p>\n

However, one might see a positive trend in this moment.\u00a0\u00a0 The possibility of a Nuclear Free Zone in the Middle East, though persistently blocked by the United States, is once again a subject for open consideration within the region and within the international community.\u00a0\u00a0 Globally, the No Fly Zone is no longer a respectable option for Humanitarian Intervention, nor will the true global community, the one represented by the General Assembly, accept such behavior as righteous.\u00a0\u00a0 Russia and China have repeatedly blocked a Western assault on Syria in the name of Human Rights. \u00a0\u00a0 Whatever ulterior motives have been attributed to them, they have stood up for\u00a0dialog and reconciliation within Syria as opposed to fueling an increasingly violent and chaotic insurrection.\u00a0\u00a0 Those in the U.S. and E.U. who insist on driving this process towards a pivotal singularity of deposing the current President seem oblivious to the disastrous consequences of a political collapse and the dismemberment of the country where there is no united force to replace his government, and no popular choice to replace him at the epicenter.<\/p>\n

According to Steven Zunes, Syria proposed a Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone<\/i> to the Security Council of the United Nations during their temporary membership\u00a0 in 2002 which was tabled due to a U.S. threat of a a veto.<\/p>\n

Syria has called for peace, while the U.S. insists that Israel, its toehold in the region,\u00a0remain armed with the latest and most powerful weaponry on earth. \u00a0 \u00a0This issue has also been supported by Iranian diplomats.\u00a0 This is a regional issue and should be addressed by the people of the region with the support of international community.\u00a0 Imperial prerogatives continue to undermine peace and security in the Middle East now, just as they have done for more than 100 years.<\/p>\n

But perhaps a new day is coming.\u00a0\u00a0 Pakistan is demanding an end to U.S. Drone Strikes in the (FATA) Tribal Lands while even the quisling government in Afghanistan is demanding an end to the war on civilians that appears to be the common result of so called counter-insurgency operations there.\u00a0\u00a0 Iran has a new president who talks about a Peace WAVE, a World Against Violence and Extremism<\/i>. \u00a0 I love his language as it reflects our Gandhian Wave strategy at Hancock airfield,\u00a0 a primary center of control for Reaper Drones over Afghanistan, and soon, over upstate New York as well.\u00a0 You can\u2019t end violence and extremism through the use of violence and extremism.\u00a0\u00a0 And I\u2019m thinking that Iran, the primary target of Saddam Hussein\u2019s Chemical Weapons for nearly eight years, would celebrate a Chemical Weapons Free Zone in the Middle East.\u00a0 Iran has a Peace Museum in Tehran, run by the members of the Society for Chemical Weapons Victims Support, a group of war veterans healing their war trauma\u00a0through working for a peaceful future.<\/p>\n

The world is tired of war, and some big players are trying to change the game.\u00a0 Now the Russians have pulled the rabbit from John Kerry\u2019s hat with the Assad Government\u2019s agreement to sign the Chemical Weapons Treaty and dispense with their chemical stores immediately, thereby saving Obama from a disastrous war, and perhaps giving the Assad regime an opportunity for international\u00a0 cooperation that would not be undermined by ruthless opposition forces.\u00a0 A remaining question is, \u201cWhere are those Chemical Weapons showing up here and there in Syria coming from?\u201d<\/p>\n

________________________<\/p>\n

Judith Bello<\/i> is an active member of Fellowship of Reconciliation, The Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars, and the United National Antiwar Coalition. She was on the street protesting the Vietnam War in Washington D.C. in 1969, and has been protesting the U.S. wars in the greater Middle East since 2001. She spent a month in Northern Iraq in 2009 and participated in two Fellowship of Reconciliation peace delegations to Iran. Please visit Judy Bello at her new blog, http:\/\/deconstructedglobe.com<\/a>\/ You can write to her at jb@deconstructedglobe.com.<\/i><\/p>\n

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

I tend to be a skeptic when it comes to the use of formal processes and international agencies to rein in imperial abuses. In many cases these efforts target only the weak while the powerful continue to pursue their interests. Examples are the International Criminal Court targeting Africa and the International Atomic Energy Agency being used to target Iran.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weapons-of-mass-destruction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35301","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=35301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35301\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}