The Syrian Crisis as an Opening to Global Disarmament

Let’s Up the Ante by Demanding that the World’s Most Powerful Polities Hand Over Their Arsenals of Chemical Weapons Too

by Anthony J. Hall

If little Syria is going to be made to hand over its government’s chemical weapons, why should not the aroused superpower of global public opinion demand the same of USA, Israel, Russia, France, UK, China, etc.?

As polities that have made ample use of chemical weapons, including Agent Orange, white phosphorous and depleted uranium, the US and Israeli governments are in especially duplicitous positions in making demands that the Assad regime rise to standards that the world’s most militarized polities do not themselves meet.

What international agency is in a position these days to be trusted when it comes to accepting the turnover of chemical weapons? Why should we have any confidence that disarmament agencies dominated by countries with huge repositories of chemical weapons and other weapons of mass destruction should be trusted as honest brokers accountable to humanity’s best interests?

While we are in the process of gathering up chemical weapons, but especially from those countries that have deployed them, why not demand that the client states of the big military companies and the banks that finance them hand over biological and nuclear weapons too.

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