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Harrowing chain of chemical attacks

Feb 06,2018 - Last updated at Feb 06,2018

How many times must Syria deploy chemical weapons against its own people and kill men, women and children by the hundreds before the international community acts and acts effectively. 

It was on August 13, 2013, when Damascus started the chain of chemical attacks against civilians, killing around 1,400, many of whom were children with bombs laden with chemical weapons. 

The entire world was shocked as images of suffocating and dying children emerged. Former US president Barack Obama was among the mourners issuing his infamous red line warning to Damascus to halt such attacks or face the vengeance of his own country. 

Obama, naively, backed down when Russian President Vladimir Putin intervened and offered the US president a deal that the Syrian government would destroy all its chemical weapons if only Obama would back down on his threat to use force against Damascus. 

Of course, the whole world knew, except perhaps Obama, that neither Damascus nor Moscow were serious about destroying all the Syrian chemical weapons whether the sulfur mustard kind or the vintage chlorine and sarin. Sure enough, Damascus, unimpressed by the US threats, continued to develop and use chemical weapons. 

On April 4, 2017, the Syrian regime once again unperturbed and unimpeded by the US bluff used sarin gas against residents of Khan Sheikhoun in Syria, killing 89 innocent people, many of them children. 

Moscow continued to defend Damascus and supported the Syrian regime's claim that it was innocent of the charges and that all the evidence against it was fabricated. Russia even vetoed all UN Security Council actions against Damascus. 

Most recently, the rebel-held enclave in East Ghouta of the capital city Damascus was attacked yet again by chemical weapons. 

When is this charade going to end? It is worrying that Damascus remains defiant of the international community including US President Donald Trump who ordered a reprisal attack on Syria in the wake of the chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun and pledged to do the same if Damascus does not relent. 

To what extent will Moscow continue to defend  the Syrian regime and block all UN resolutions against it under one pretext or another. 

 

The credibility of Russia is at stake and the country owes it to itself to cease and desist from defending the use of chemical weapons by its ally Damascus.

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