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#Post#: 1064--------------------------------------------------
Mission Impossible in Syria!
By: I-Luv-Rashi Date: September 19, 2013, 3:31 am
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Mission Impossible in Syria
HTML http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/sites/default/files/styles/full_view/public/Umatilla%20Chemical%20Weapons%20Disposal.jpg
I live near an enormous former stockpile of weapons of mass
destruction. It isn’t walking distance from my house, but I can
drive there between breakfast and lunch without exceeding the
speed limit.
From 1962 to 2011, the US Army stored nearly four thousand tons
of VX, Sarin, and HD blister agent (commonly known as mustard
gas) at the Umatilla Chemical Depot along the Columbia River two
and a half hours east of Portland, Oregon.
In 1993 the US signed a treaty forbidding the production,
stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons, and eleven years
later, in 2004, the Army was finally ready to begin destroying
Oregon’s stockpile.
They did it by incinerating the chemical agents in a 2,700
degree furnace. And they did it in a thinly populated part of
the peaceful Pacific Northwest under the complete control of the
United States Army.
It still took them eight years. Toxic munitions must be
destroyed very slowly and very carefully. A single drop of this
stuff will kill you, and the facility is located right on the
Columbia River which runs through Portland, Oregon and
Vancouver, Washington. And though Umatilla County is fairly
remote, the Los Angeles Times reported that “disaster scenarios
suggested that a major earthquake at the facility, followed by
fire, could send a plume of poisonous residue as far as
Portland, Seattle or Spokane.”
If you live in the Midwest, you may be used to hearing the
blaring sound of air raid sirens when the local authorities test
the tornado warning systems. We have a similar setup on the
Oregon coast to warn residents and tourists of an incoming
tsunami if a Hawaiian volcano falls into the Pacific or if the
Cascadian Subduction Zone ruptures. And in three counties in
Eastern Oregon, yet another one of those systems was set up in
case something at the Umatilla death trap exploded.
So people who live in that area felt a sense of relief when the
Army finally finished destroying the stockpiles on October 25,
2011.
The Chemical Weapons Convention was drafted in New York and
Paris. The United States signed it in 1993.
Syria agreed to sign it three days ago. A plan is now being put
together to rid Syria of its chemical weapons
Considering all of the above, which I’ve been all too familiar
with for many years now, you can color me more than a little bit
skeptical.
The whole thing was Vladimir Putin’s idea. Not because he cares
a whit about chemical weapons or how many people are horribly
killed by them, but because he needs to stick up for his one
Arab ally and he needs to stick his thumb in America’s eye.
Barack Obama likes the idea, though, because it means he doesn’t
have to do anything about Syria even though Bashar al-Assad
crossed the “red line” and used poison gas against humans. Assad
likewise likes the idea because, now that the international
pressure is off, he can kill another 100,000 humans with
conventional weapons and the only people who will say boo about
it are human rights organizations and journalists.
Disposing of VX and mustard gas was slow and dangerous work in
Oregon. I can only imagine how much more difficult the job will
be in a Middle Eastern country that’s ripping its own guts out
while Al Qaeda and Hezbollah are loose and running wild.
For those reasons alone, I imagine it is impossible. As Jeffrey
Goldberg added, “Assad is a lying, murdering terrorist, and
lying, murdering terrorists aren’t, generally speaking, reliable
partners, except for other lying, murdering terrorists.”
Let’s say, though, just for the sake of discussion, that the
process goes just as smoothly in Syria as it did in Oregon, that
it will take precisely the same amount of time to destroy
Assad’s arsenal, and that they (whoever they are) can get
started tomorrow.
They won’t finish until 2021. Because that’s how long it took
down the road from my house.
But there’s no chance destroying this stuff will happen as
swiftly and smoothly in Syria as it did in Oregon. That wouldn’t
be good enough anyway. It would need to happen more swiftly and
smoothly. And the only thing that happens more swiftly and
smoothly in Syria than in Oregon is the deployment of car bombs.
I suppose Syria’s thousand tons of chemical weapons could be
driven to the airport (!) and flown out, but the only country I
can think of that would want guardianship of Assad’s weapons of
mass destruction is Iran (unless Lebanon’s Hezbollahland counts
as a country), and I doubt many would allow flights containing
Assad’s arsenal over their air space.
Furthermore, I doubt a single high-level person involved in this
international performance will ever even try to make it work.
Because it’s damn near impossible and everyone knows it. It
doesn’t matter, though, because this is about face-saving status
quo maintenance.
Everybody at the top wins. Putin doesn’t want to lose his one
Arab ally, and now he doesn’t have to. Obama never did want to
bomb Syria, and now he doesn’t have to. Assad does not want to
stop bombing Syria, and now he doesn’t have to.
Michael J. Totten's blog.
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