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US, Russia Agree On Plan To Dispose of Syria's Chemical Weapons
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has announced an agreement between the U.S. and Russia on a plan for removing and destroying Syria's chemical weapons.
"Damascus will be given one week from now to give an inventory of its chemical arsenal and will have to allow international inspectors into Syria 'no later than November,' Kerry said after a third day of intense negotiations with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva." The weapons must all be eliminated by mid-2014. "If Syrian President Bashar Assad fails to meet the demands, then a resolution to enforce compliance would be sought at the U.N. Security Council, Kerry said. The action could include sanctions, and Kerry said that the U.S. would reserve the right to use military force, but Russia remains opposed to any armed intervention." President Obama said, "The use of chemical weapons anywhere in the world is an affront to human dignity and a threat to the security of people everywhere. We have a duty to preserve a world free from the fear of chemical weapons for our children."
Bombs left over from WWII are still killing people.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1283273/WW2-bomb-kills-G-ttingen-experts-attempt-defuse-it.html
Jeffrey Lewis over at Arms Control Wonk give some thoughts about the nuts and bolts of eliminating Syria's chemical weapons, the link is a few days old but I expect us still valid http://lewis.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/6807/syria-cw-elimination-modalities
There is a huge difference between an overconfident bomb disposal technician making a mistake when handling decades old abandoned munitions and active use of chemical weapons.
For starters, when you are actively screwing around with something the fact that it was assembled decades before is irrelevant to it's current threat. Current attempts to thwart a triggering mechanism generates risk of detonation whether said explosive was assembled days before or decades before. Both can explode in an instant killing whomever happens to be within the blast radius.
In the case of chemical weapons, months after an attack someone a few villages away can drink the water from their local well, contract a horrible disease and die.
Thirty four characters live here.
I think you're talking about bio weapons.
Most chemical weapons degrade quickly. Even the "persistent" ones.
The difference is that chemical weapons are by nature indiscriminate. With a bullet you aim at a particular person, with gas who dies depends literally on which way the wind blows.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
If napalm burns half the skin on your body, you'll die one of the most agonizing deaths known to medicine over the next week.
(A lot of explosives produce burns and have the same results.)