Amy E
By Amy E Smithson
The exact nature of what is going on inside Syria is tough to determine. The US, Britain, France and Israel have focused on the question of whether forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Al Assad have used chemical weapons. To answer that question and understand its implications, some myths need to be dispelled.
1. Witness reports can establish the use of chemical weapons.
Because Syria has blocked UN inspectors from entering the country, much of the “evidence” in play is from witness reports. The most detailed of those came this past week from France’s Le Monde newspaper: “No odour, no smoke, not even a whistle to indicate the release of a toxic gas. And then the symptoms appear. The men cough violently. Their eyes burn, their pupils shrink, their vision blurs. Soon they experience difficulty breathing, sometimes in the extreme.”
The problem with such reports is that while they may suggest exposure to toxic gas, they can’t identify which chemicals were present, who used them or whether they were intended as weapons. That information isn’t just nice to know — it’s critical for figuring out how to respond.
2. The use of chemical weapons is a “game-changer.”
President Barack Obama has been criticised for not following through on his declaration in March that the use of chemical weapons in Syria would be a game-changer.
Yes, there are laws. The 1925 Geneva Protocol outlaws the use of chemical and biological weapons, and the Chemical Weapons Convention, implemented in 1997, bans the development, production, stockpiling and use of poison gas.
But chemical weapons don’t always change the game politically. Consider the Iran-Iraq war. UN investigators found traces of mustard gas in soil and bomb fragments and examined dozens of soldiers with symptoms of mustard gas exposure. They concluded that Iraq had repeatedly used poison gas against Iran.
3. Chemical weapons are not weapons of mass destruction.
Pundits and experts alike play down the danger of chemical weapons by noting that the 1995 sarin attack on Tokyo’s subway killed only 13 people and that poison gas caused just 1 percent of First World War deaths.
Let there be no confusion: People who inhale or touch even a minuscule quantity of a nerve agent such as sarin will die within minutes unless antidotes are administered. Mustard gas sears the lungs and skin, killing if the exposure is great enough or leaving lifelong debilitation.
While chemical weapons are not nearly as ruinous as nuclear weapons, the potential for mass destruction is real.
Iraq’s 1988 attack on Halabja killed approximately 5,000 Kurds and injured more than 7,000.
4. The best response to the threat of chemical weapons is a military response.
With diplomatic efforts to convene a peace conference in Geneva faltering, calls for arming Syria’s rebels and establishing a no-fly zone have intensified.
The EU this past week lifted its embargo on weapons shipments.
But providing lethal assistance to rebels risks handing advanced conventional weaponry to the Al Qaeda operatives fighting with them. And a no-fly zone would take aerial bombs out of the equation but wouldn’t address Assad’s poison-gas-tipped missiles or rockets.
Better would be to negate Assad’s unconventional military advantage by outfitting Syrian civilians and opposition forces with chemical defiances.
The model here is Israel, which equipped its entire population with gas masks before the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Pointing to the Chemical Weapons Convention obligation to assist nations imperilled by chemical attacks, Washington could rally states to equip Syrian doctors with nerve-agent antidotes and opposition soldiers with chemical detectors.
Gas masks, which Syrians would need to carry at all times, would need clear Arabic instructions for fitting, wearing and maintaining them.
5. Chemical weapons are not much of a threat beyond Syria.
With 80 percent of the world’s declared stockpiles of chemical weapons destroyed since the mid-1980s, only a few pariahs remain in the dirty business of chemical weapons.
Yet future chemical weapons threats will be more sinister and difficult to detect.
Advanced mind- and body-control weapons are within reach of proliferators.
New processing technologies and the spread of multipurpose production facilities make it easier to hide poison gas programs.
This may tempt states to recalculate the desirability of a covert chemical weapons capability.
Terrorist groups and loan-wolf actors are drawn to the horror and harm that chemicals can generate, and their attempts to acquire and use poison gas are on the rise.
Japan’s Aum Shinrikyo cult, which built a $10m, state-of-the-art factory to produce 70 tons of sarin, is the most eye-opening case to date.
The FBI is investigating yet another letter sent to Obama that may contain ricin. By no means has the world seen the last of chemical terrorism. WP-BLOOMBERG
By Amy E Smithson
The exact nature of what is going on inside Syria is tough to determine. The US, Britain, France and Israel have focused on the question of whether forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Al Assad have used chemical weapons. To answer that question and understand its implications, some myths need to be dispelled.
1. Witness reports can establish the use of chemical weapons.
Because Syria has blocked UN inspectors from entering the country, much of the “evidence” in play is from witness reports. The most detailed of those came this past week from France’s Le Monde newspaper: “No odour, no smoke, not even a whistle to indicate the release of a toxic gas. And then the symptoms appear. The men cough violently. Their eyes burn, their pupils shrink, their vision blurs. Soon they experience difficulty breathing, sometimes in the extreme.”
The problem with such reports is that while they may suggest exposure to toxic gas, they can’t identify which chemicals were present, who used them or whether they were intended as weapons. That information isn’t just nice to know — it’s critical for figuring out how to respond.
2. The use of chemical weapons is a “game-changer.”
President Barack Obama has been criticised for not following through on his declaration in March that the use of chemical weapons in Syria would be a game-changer.
Yes, there are laws. The 1925 Geneva Protocol outlaws the use of chemical and biological weapons, and the Chemical Weapons Convention, implemented in 1997, bans the development, production, stockpiling and use of poison gas.
But chemical weapons don’t always change the game politically. Consider the Iran-Iraq war. UN investigators found traces of mustard gas in soil and bomb fragments and examined dozens of soldiers with symptoms of mustard gas exposure. They concluded that Iraq had repeatedly used poison gas against Iran.
3. Chemical weapons are not weapons of mass destruction.
Pundits and experts alike play down the danger of chemical weapons by noting that the 1995 sarin attack on Tokyo’s subway killed only 13 people and that poison gas caused just 1 percent of First World War deaths.
Let there be no confusion: People who inhale or touch even a minuscule quantity of a nerve agent such as sarin will die within minutes unless antidotes are administered. Mustard gas sears the lungs and skin, killing if the exposure is great enough or leaving lifelong debilitation.
While chemical weapons are not nearly as ruinous as nuclear weapons, the potential for mass destruction is real.
Iraq’s 1988 attack on Halabja killed approximately 5,000 Kurds and injured more than 7,000.
4. The best response to the threat of chemical weapons is a military response.
With diplomatic efforts to convene a peace conference in Geneva faltering, calls for arming Syria’s rebels and establishing a no-fly zone have intensified.
The EU this past week lifted its embargo on weapons shipments.
But providing lethal assistance to rebels risks handing advanced conventional weaponry to the Al Qaeda operatives fighting with them. And a no-fly zone would take aerial bombs out of the equation but wouldn’t address Assad’s poison-gas-tipped missiles or rockets.
Better would be to negate Assad’s unconventional military advantage by outfitting Syrian civilians and opposition forces with chemical defiances.
The model here is Israel, which equipped its entire population with gas masks before the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Pointing to the Chemical Weapons Convention obligation to assist nations imperilled by chemical attacks, Washington could rally states to equip Syrian doctors with nerve-agent antidotes and opposition soldiers with chemical detectors.
Gas masks, which Syrians would need to carry at all times, would need clear Arabic instructions for fitting, wearing and maintaining them.
5. Chemical weapons are not much of a threat beyond Syria.
With 80 percent of the world’s declared stockpiles of chemical weapons destroyed since the mid-1980s, only a few pariahs remain in the dirty business of chemical weapons.
Yet future chemical weapons threats will be more sinister and difficult to detect.
Advanced mind- and body-control weapons are within reach of proliferators.
New processing technologies and the spread of multipurpose production facilities make it easier to hide poison gas programs.
This may tempt states to recalculate the desirability of a covert chemical weapons capability.
Terrorist groups and loan-wolf actors are drawn to the horror and harm that chemicals can generate, and their attempts to acquire and use poison gas are on the rise.
Japan’s Aum Shinrikyo cult, which built a $10m, state-of-the-art factory to produce 70 tons of sarin, is the most eye-opening case to date.
The FBI is investigating yet another letter sent to Obama that may contain ricin. By no means has the world seen the last of chemical terrorism. WP-BLOOMBERG
