Syria And The Use Of Chemical Weapons

[mikey4444]

This was on the BBC website this morning :::

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22305444

Well, we have never come across a middle east dictator using chemical weapons before have we ?

[jim360]

We have, though:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_poison_gas_attack

[anotheoldgit]

Yes I suppose one could class 'Chemical Weapons' as 'Weapons of mass destruction'.

[Sharingan]

I assumed that was Mike's point Jim, I thought he was being ' tongue in cheek'.xx

[jim360]

Perhaps, Shar, I can't tell if I grabbed hold of the wrong end of the stick - wouldn't be the first time.

I thought it more likely that mike meant the WMD's that never were in the last decade.

[jake-the-peg]

Does white phosporus at Hospitals count?

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/israeli-armys-use-white-phosphorus-gaza-clear-undeniable-20090119

[mikey4444]

Thanks jim360 for the link... I was being ironic of course. But to hear some people talk these days, you would have thought that Saddam Hussein was some kind of saint that we should have let carry on killing his people with gay abandon.

The Syrian dictator is now just as bad. What is going in his country is atrocious and completely unacceptable To be honest I am not entirely sure what we in the West need to do but how much longer are we going to stand around while these atrocities are committed ?

[Davethedog]

Mikey exactly right, Hussain killed an estimated one million kurds and no one know s how many of his own people.

It suits a lot of people to make Hussein the victim

[jake-the-peg]

Who makes Hussein the victim For Funks Sake?

[jim360]

I suppose the problem is that flawed evidence became too big an issue. If Blair had never made anything on it and just focused on the "this guy's a bar steward and has been massacring his own people with impunity" at least those arguing against the War would have had a weaker case. Once the sexed-up dossier became a key part of the case for War, people can disagree with it and have a point. A sad, nitpicking point, but a point all the same.

As to Syria -- can we really go in with Russia and China so opposed at the moment? With the rebels in Syria corrupted by extremist militants? Certainly it's no longer possible to go in to support any particular side - but I'd argue strongly the case for a peacekeeping mission.

[mikey4444]

All those people that complain about the American and British forces going in to Iraq, finding Saddam and his ghastly family and bringing them to justice, that's who !

[jno]

Britain, and Germany, used chemical weapons in WW1, so we are well placed to tell other people not to.

[jim360]

Your point being...?

[mikey4444]

jim360...so would I. I have been following the news about Syria closely as I used to play Squash with a Syrian chap I knew years ago. What is going on, by both sides admittedly, is dreadful. Children being captured, sexually mutilated and dumped on the streets. Hospitals being deliberately targeted, etc, etc.

[jake-the-peg]

I don't think sop Mikey - I've never met anyone with sympathy for him

I've met a lot of people who think we should have just kept our noses out of George Bush's little familly fued but that's a very different thing

[jno]

only wondering if Cameron thinks it's a war crime when his own country does it.

[jim360]

Does it? Still? Or did so at some now-distant point in the last, that few are now alive to remember?

If it comes to that, it's well-documented that after the Allied liberation of France in 1944, many of the English and American soldiers behaved pretty poorly to those we were supposedly liberating. Rape and looting.

[jim360]

Does it? Still? Or did so at some now-distant point in the last, that few are now alive to remember?

If it comes to that, it's well-documented that after the Allied liberation of France in 1944, many of the English and American soldiers behaved pretty poorly to those we were supposedly liberating. Rape and looting were fairly commonplace. Perhaps because when you are recruiting such a large army, you'll also pick up the wrong kind of people who want to fight for the wrong reasons.

But that doesn't stop us condemning people who do the same nowadays. Just as we were wrong then, they are wrong now.

[jim360]

Sorry for the triple post - some strange accidental "submit in a new window".

[jno]

I don't think there's any statute of limitations on war crimes (hence 90-year-old Nazis being tried). I don't know if looting's a war crime, but Cameron says chemical weapons are. What does he say if Assad replies "We got the idea from you"? "Do as I say, not as I do?" Always a popular response.

[jim360]

No doubt Cameron could reply "yes and then we outlawed the use of Chemical Weapons in 1928."