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Chemical Experts Begin Destroying Syria's Chemical Arsenal

Posted by timothy on from the time-to-go dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The joint team of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the UN said here that the process of destroying Syria's chemical weapons programme began on Sunday." Of note, this linked article on how to destroy the chemical agents safely.

7 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. Re:excellent! by macson_g · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Using drones seems to be the only acceptable way of killing civilians these days.

  2. Re:excellent! by NoKaOi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    4. ??

    4. Get campaign contributions from stakeholders of large defense contractors in exchange for awarding them bloated contracts for weapons we don't need.
    4a. Blow shit up using weapons we paid way too much for.
    4b. Get campaign contributions from stakeholder of large contracting companies in exchange for awarding them bloated contracts to rebuild the country that we blew up.

    5. Profit!

  3. as an american, im glad we didnt go to war. by nimbius · · Score: 2, Insightful

    this is despite the many cynical posts ive seen so far excellent progress. the civil war in Syria is complex, with numerous parties standing to profit from the downfall of the government (including the United States.)

    not going to war was good. Once again America had no credible, publically audited evidence to support its war. that the government used chemical weapons at all was suspicious at best, and unresearched in the UN report.
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24130181
    the analysis includes relevant information about rebel captured syrian weapons depots as well, which would in fact arm rebels with nerve agent.

    Instead of putting the brakes on the war machine, the california senator Barbara Boxer simply insisted she'd seen the evidence and declared it very very bad. Russia presented its evidence to the UN.
    but perhaps the most damning hypocrisy is that the united states routinely uses chemical weapons in its warfare. in vietnam, and both iraq wars, white phosphorous was used liberally and without regard for the Hague conventions.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
    1. Re:as an american, im glad we didnt go to war. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Look I'm all for the solution we've now reached but the evidence was pretty solid that the Syrian government committed the atrocity.

      As for "Russia presented its evidence to the UN.", no it really didn't. It said it was going to present it's evidence to the UN which turned out to be nothing more than a bunch of opinions. Compare and contrast that to evidence from western nations and independent researchers alike who have released information openly and it's pretty damning.

      I don't know how one can really side with Russia's closed accusations, the demonstrably doctored videos and so forth that supposedly showed the launch, the delay in letting the inspectors out there and so forth. It's pathetic. Russia could tell you anything and you'd believe it.

      Not striking seems to be a reasonable option, but if your reasons for supporting it are "Russia said!" and "But America has used them in the past too!" then you're supporting it for the wrong reasons.

      You may want to read the very article you linked all over again, because you seem to have pulled out a very small section of it and come to a conclusion based on that without reading the entire article and accompanying links.

      You talk about publicly auditable and then you ignore the plethora of evidence from a variety of sources including from even extremely objective nations on the issue like some of those in South America and India that explains exactly why it's almost certain Assad was responsible and then you take the closed evidence from Russia which no one's sure even exists because we've never actually seen it and only heard them talk about it. We've just seen bullshit statements like in this news article which no evidence actually seemed to surface from:

      http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/18/russia-syrian-rebels-chemical-weapons

      Don't pretend you like to base your understanding on facts and evidence when you're ignoring the facts and evidence and feeding straight into bullshit with no evidence to back it up.

  4. Re:Jolly Good. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Dude, getting sent to the Hague is for losers. As best I can tell, Mr. Assad is still in the 'doing a pretty good job hanging on to his office, thanks' camp, which enjoys near-impunity by virtue of an international consensus of, um, all the people who are doing a pretty good job hanging on to their offices, thanks...

  5. Re:So when are they going after the Israeli WMD's? by cold+fjord · · Score: 3, Insightful

    just thought I'd like to toss that out there... those tosspots have got some 400 plus nukes at hand...

    Among the causes of action against Saddam in Iraq was that he was a ruthless dictator that used chemical weapons to attack his own people.

    Among the causes of action against Assad in Syria is that he is a ruthless dictator that used chemical weapons to attack his own people.

    Israel is a parliamentary democracy that isn't nuking their own people.

    Maybe I'll just toss this out there. If the shoe fits ...

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  6. Re:excellent! by i+kan+reed · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Anyone who supports the death penalty supports governments killing their own citizens. I'm not saying that's you, I'm just saying there are some mighty fragile glass houses around in the U.S.