Red Line On WMD in Syria and "the Wrong Hands"

President Obama has drawn a red line in the figurative sand in saying that chemical weapons will be the tipping point for U.S. military engagement with Syria. (Read article, USAToday.com)

Syria almost certainly has these weapons and Assad, the lunatic running a campaign of state terrorism has threatened to deploy them. Yet the situation all too closely parallels a recent justification for launching a Middle East war ... the war on Iraq.

First, before you go sideways on me, let me say I absolutely detest Assad's reign of terror on his people. He has gone insane, if you ask me ... caring far more about his own temporal power (and neck?) than about his people. He is viscous — a badman in every light. He has killed over ten thousand of the citizens of Syria in merciless bombardments.

Saddam Hussein, like Assad, was insane. He was killing his people and, was killing Iranians WITH WMD ... chemical weapons. We launched a war on him, garnering support for attacking a sovereign nation by declaring that he had stockpiled WMD, both chemical and biological, and was a threat to ourselves and to Israel. We also implied he had something to do with the 9-11 attacks. A big difference there was that when we attacked Iraq ... we couldn't find a single chemical or biological weapon.

This must have been a great mystery to many for this simple reason: The U.S. sold Saddam millions of dollars worth of the supplies and technology necessary to make chemical weapons like mustard gas and sarin!

Consider this excerpt from CounterPunch.com:

"On August 18, 2002, the New York Times carried a front-page story headlined, 'Officers say U.S. aided Iraq despite the use of gas.' Quoting anonymous U.S. 'senior military officers,' the NYT 'revealed' that in the 1980s, the administration of U.S. President Ronald Reagan covertly provided 'critical battle planning assistance at a time when American intelligence knew that Iraqi commanders would employ chemical weapons in waging the decisive battles of the Iran-Iraq war.' The story made a brief splash in the international media, then died.

While the August 18 NYT article added new details about the extent of U.S. military collaboration with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during Iraq’s 1980-88 war with Iran, it omitted the most outrageous aspect of the scandal: not only did Ronald Reagan’s Washington turn a blind-eye to the Hussein regime’s repeated use of chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers and Iraq’s Kurdish minority, but the U.S. helped Iraq develop its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs."

Both Ronald Reagan and George Bush senior aided Saddam in his war against Iraq, making his extensive use of weapons of mass destruction possible! Why? Well, he was using them against Iran — for one thing. Of course, he also used them on the Kurds, his own people — but, hey ... collateral damage right? As an aside I would like to know how many of you are proud that the U.S., under the leadership of Reagan and Bush Sr., sold Saddam Hussein the vital supplies and technology to make and use weapons of mass destruction against Iranians and Iraqis. Here is the thing ... When a U.S. president talks about chemical weapons or WMD in general " falling into the wrong hands," I find it disingenuous at the least.

Even with our reported 90 percent  reduction in chemical and biological weapons, we still have over three thousand TONS of declared material. And you know we have the delivery systems capable of putting them on anyone's doorstep. So, I would like to know ... who has the right hands for WMD? Not us for sure ... we couldn't resist selling them to help our good friend Saddam fight Iran. A war on Syria, is an act of insanity, of imperialism run out of control, or both. We should have responded long ago ... Assad has been on a roll for quite awhile. I don't know that sanctions would have worked ... But, I do know that trillions of dollars later, with thousands of brave Americans dead and over thirty thousand seriously wounded ... with at least one hundred and twenty thousand casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, mostly civilians ... we have a police state on the one hand and Afghanistan is still way out of control with no promise of democracy in sight.

Israel, by the way, has not ratified it's part in the convention to disarm chemical and biological weapons. I don't think they have used them but they certainly made them for some reason ... as did the U.S. The difference is we used them by proxy. Iran, of course, defends Syria verbally. So, is this all a presage for an all out Middle East War? I see the potential and I am no one ... People get edgy when a super power attacks their country. They tend to throw all they have into their defense. It will be WMD in Assad's case. As to the U.S. gain — we may bring down one more bad guy for the effort ... but, at what expense? WW3? Is this what we want? I don't know U.S. history in Assad's rise to power. We helped create Saddam ... that is historical fact. But it is clear that, from before the time the U.S. overthrew Iran's Mossadegh in the fifties, NOTHING we have done in the Middle East has been to bring democracy to people, to free them ... in a word ... for altruistic purposes. So, despite the murders conducted by Assad ... If we do attack Syria, it will be to control Syria and, as with Iraq and Afghanistan ... it's not likely to work. Additionally it just might set off WW3 ...