145.7 - Syria: Remember I told you so

Syria: Remember I told you so

Back in September, when there was a settlement emerging with Syria to destroy its stocks of chemical weapons, I talked about the how the US had been taking steps to destroy its own stocks of such weapons since the 1990s, that it had promised to complete that process by 2012, and that it had failed. In fact, the most recent forecast is that the process of "neutralizing" our chemical weapons stocks won't be completed until 2023 - 11 years later than our own self-imposed deadline in a process that already has taken around 20 years. And I urged you to keep that fact in mind when the first complaints came up about Syria being behind schedule in destroying its own stocks.

I'm here today to say I told you so.

On January 30, Secretary of War Chuck Hagel said he was "concerned" that Syria was behind schedule in turning over its chemical weapons for destruction and told reporters Syria "had to take responsibility for fulfilling its commitment."

Meanwhile, the US ambassador to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons - which is running a joint mission with the UN to oversee the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons - claimed that the effort had "seriously languished and stalled" and that "the spotlight is on Syria."

The agreement to destroy these weapons was only reached on September 27 and the deadline for completing the process is June 30, but already the US, which is going to miss its own voluntary, self-imposed deadline by 11 years, is saber-rattling over a deadline for Syria which hasn't even come yet. I warned you. I did.

By the way, something to put this in even more context: Another nation which, like the US, voluntarily gave up and destroyed its chemical weapons is Libya, which just completed doing so the end of January. It took a full 10 years. Meanwhile, Syria is expected to get rid of all its chemical weapons in less than nine months, in the middle of a civil war. I can't help but wonder if that requirement is intended to be unattainable.

And by the way, just to make it abundantly clear, I am not defending Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad against anything except the possibility that Syria is being set up to fail on destroying its chemical weapons stocks on schedule in order to justify inflicting more war, more violence, more bloodshed on that country.

Beyond that, he will get no defense from me; rather, I will make note of things such as the recent report from Human Rights Watch that describes how he has "deliberately and unlawfully" demolished thousands of homes, in some cases entire neighborhoods, in opposition strongholds in Syria as a form of collective punishment, which is yet another war crime in his string of war crimes.

Sources:
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2013/09/1262-scary-notion-that-president-can.html
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/11/us-syria-chemical-weapons-destruction
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-25968616
http://www.opcw.org/
http://opcw.unmissions.org/Default.aspx?tabid=6576&ctl=Details&mid=10358&ItemID=19898&language=en-US
http://www.opcw.org/news/article/libya-completes-destruction-of-its-category-1-chemical-weapons/