- Joined
- Mar 9, 2018
- Messages
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Chemical Weapons Aren’t Assad’s Only Atrocity. We Need New ‘Red Lines.’
BEIRUT — On Saturday, aid groups accused Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria of carrying out a suspected chemical attack in the rebel-held suburb of Douma, east of Damascus. That would mean Assad has once again violated a string of U.N. Security Council resolutions and warnings regarding his use of chemical weapons. Casualty figures range from 40 to 70 killed and hundreds to thousands injured.
The international response has thus far been familiar: Words such as “monster,” “vicious” and “unacceptable” are being recycled in news statements and interviews; another round of strikes on Syrian regime facilities appears to be on the table, with Russia warning of “grave repercussions” in the case of a U.S. military response. President Trump warned Wednesday morning that missile strikes “will be coming, nice and new and ‘smart’!” and that Russia “shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!”
After the last time Assad used chemical weapons, almost exactly a year ago, U.S. strikes on a Syrian airfield did little to deter him. An effective U.S. response this time should take into account the overall brutality with which the Syrian president has conducted this war — including the use of chemical weapons but also other atrocities that the world has up until now shrugged off.
The signal that the international community for years has given Assad is that conventional military tactics that may constitute war crimes are acceptable, while chemical weapons use is (sometimes) not. With some calling this a “defining moment” for Trump, it is critical for him and his aides to refrain from an emotional, one-off strike that would do nothing to change Assad’s behavior, and instead work to prevent any further war crimes and crimes against humanity.
As both the Obama and Trump administrations have previously demonstrated, the core U.S. interest in Syria has been the defeat of the Islamic State. Second
on the list of U.S. national security concerns is, as Trump’s new national security adviser John Bolton recently articulated, to “prevent people from violating treaties that try to restrict the use or the spread of weapons of mass destruction.”
However, given the unfathomable suffering that has beset the Syrian people at the hands of this brutal regime, the unwillingness of the international community to threaten action unless the Islamic State (ISIS) or chemical weapons are involved (and even then, only selectively) is doing much more harm than good. In all the current discussions about next steps, one element is noticeably and consistently absent: Syria’s civilians, who for the past several years have lived in a terrifying hell on Earth, often unable to leave their houses. In December, the Syrian Network for Human Rights estimated that the regime had dropped nearly 70,000 barrel bombs since July 2012 — and sometimes forced people to watch as children slowly starved to death.
Assad knows he will not be punished for the myriad war crimes and crimes against humanity that his regime has committed. The International Mechanism gathering evidence for a trial that may or may not take place in the future is probably a source of great amusement ...MORE
https://inhomelandsecurity.com/chem...e-need-new-red-lines&utm_campaign=20180412IHS
BEIRUT — On Saturday, aid groups accused Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria of carrying out a suspected chemical attack in the rebel-held suburb of Douma, east of Damascus. That would mean Assad has once again violated a string of U.N. Security Council resolutions and warnings regarding his use of chemical weapons. Casualty figures range from 40 to 70 killed and hundreds to thousands injured.
The international response has thus far been familiar: Words such as “monster,” “vicious” and “unacceptable” are being recycled in news statements and interviews; another round of strikes on Syrian regime facilities appears to be on the table, with Russia warning of “grave repercussions” in the case of a U.S. military response. President Trump warned Wednesday morning that missile strikes “will be coming, nice and new and ‘smart’!” and that Russia “shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!”
After the last time Assad used chemical weapons, almost exactly a year ago, U.S. strikes on a Syrian airfield did little to deter him. An effective U.S. response this time should take into account the overall brutality with which the Syrian president has conducted this war — including the use of chemical weapons but also other atrocities that the world has up until now shrugged off.
The signal that the international community for years has given Assad is that conventional military tactics that may constitute war crimes are acceptable, while chemical weapons use is (sometimes) not. With some calling this a “defining moment” for Trump, it is critical for him and his aides to refrain from an emotional, one-off strike that would do nothing to change Assad’s behavior, and instead work to prevent any further war crimes and crimes against humanity.
As both the Obama and Trump administrations have previously demonstrated, the core U.S. interest in Syria has been the defeat of the Islamic State. Second
on the list of U.S. national security concerns is, as Trump’s new national security adviser John Bolton recently articulated, to “prevent people from violating treaties that try to restrict the use or the spread of weapons of mass destruction.”
However, given the unfathomable suffering that has beset the Syrian people at the hands of this brutal regime, the unwillingness of the international community to threaten action unless the Islamic State (ISIS) or chemical weapons are involved (and even then, only selectively) is doing much more harm than good. In all the current discussions about next steps, one element is noticeably and consistently absent: Syria’s civilians, who for the past several years have lived in a terrifying hell on Earth, often unable to leave their houses. In December, the Syrian Network for Human Rights estimated that the regime had dropped nearly 70,000 barrel bombs since July 2012 — and sometimes forced people to watch as children slowly starved to death.
Assad knows he will not be punished for the myriad war crimes and crimes against humanity that his regime has committed. The International Mechanism gathering evidence for a trial that may or may not take place in the future is probably a source of great amusement ...MORE
https://inhomelandsecurity.com/chem...e-need-new-red-lines&utm_campaign=20180412IHS