The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has accepted a Russian invitation to visit the Syrian town of Douma, where an alleged chemical attack took place at the weekend and is expected to do so within a few days.
The OPCW is the same organisation that visited the UK last month to take samples of the toxin used in Salisbury and is expected to report imminently on its findings.
The UK and France have agreed to ‘respond’ with the US to the Douma incident ‘to uphold the global ban on the use of chemical weapons’, but have not made clear what such a ‘response’ might entail.
It must not entail military action until at least the OPCW has reported on the results of its visit – and should not even then. But few expect the US to observe such niceties when President Trump is eager for distractions from the investigation into his and his team’s alleged collaboration with the Russians.
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Yes and breaking news in US Trump ex-lawyer raided by FBI.
Mueller investigation may be closing in and apparently US media shots of Mr T showed the body language of a worried man?
Worry is the Not Very Nice Human Being Mr T in my opinion (who has just cancelled a trip to Latin America to focus on Syria?) may need a distraction?
Keep Calm, Keep Rational, Make Considered Decisions based on evidence or as human beings we are nothing. Yours in peace.
A bit off topic but I hope Trump doesn’t get impeached. President Pence would be just as bad.
If Trump stays but is mired in scandal and incompetence even a shitty Democrat could hopefully beat him. No doubt the Dem leadership will try hard to shoehorn in the shittiest Dem they can find to be the candidate. If we get decent Mid Term results then the Dems might get control and bang goes Trumps budget control and the Dems can get the key committees like Ways and Means etc. Just have to hope he doesnt blow up the world before Jan 2021.
Yes and US needs a Bernie Sanders!
The OPCW is to investigate if was a chemical attack but apparently will not say by whom but THE JURY IS STILL OUT.
The worry is we have 3 desperate Right Wing politicians: Trump (Meuller closing in) May (in Brexit mess with a divided Cabinet and MPs plus in a mess over policing etc. and facing possible large losses in local polls) and Macron (facing massive strikes against his Neo-Liberal policies) and REVENGE IS GOOD for this Gang of three Right Wing Neo-Liberals; their hope is that REVENGE IS POPULAR and makes citizens feel WE NEED THEM?
(It wouldn’t matter if they bombed an empty field populated by crates as long as it made them LOOK STRONG AND GOOD!).
But remember, all 3 are bourgeois politicians, they have made it where they are by climbing the greasy pole, wheeling and dealing, saying what they think people want to hear rather than standing for what they believe in.
Then step forward Jeremy Corbyn who actually stands for and says what he believes in.
SO KEEP CALM AND RATIONAL.
KEEP MAKING CONSIDERED DECISIONS BASED ON FACTS AND EVIDENCE.
Charging in like 3 Little Bulls (Against the Little Bulls of Syria and Russia) may not help in a complex war zone.
Yours for working people in every country and for peace!
I do not see how the use of chemical weapons makes military sense. I think the brutal Assad regime can achieve its objectives without the resort to such weapons.
I very much doubt that they are the ones using them.
The use of chemical weapons does not make sense, but neither does falling into the PR trap of calling the Syrian government a ‘brutal régime’. Before anybody had heard of Bashar al Asad he ruled over the most moderate secular egalitarian regime in the Middle East. Elements of the opposition, mainly Sunni extremists, were repressed, and, yes, brutally. But that is the nature of the ME beast. The vast majority of the population, of all religious and ethnic groups, did, and do support him.
Let us all hope, the HAWKS halt their threats of war and the DOVES keep pushing diplomacy, until it’s exhausted!
We then, can only hope, common sense prevails.
OPCW, need to get their finger out, get their arses to Syria, before WORLD III BREAKS OUT!
“PRONTO”!
Maybe we should explain to them and their supporters that if they start a global war, thermonuclear or not, whatever survivors remain will hunt them down and hang them.
I’m a pacifist and vehemently opposed to the death penalty by the way.
The most unstable place on earth is the Middle east,and you have Trump tearing up an international agreement unilaterally.
Richard Dennis