"In 1997, the United States agreed to decommission the 31,000 tonnes of sarin, VX, mustard gas and other agents it possessed within 10 years. In 2007 it requested the maximum extension of the deadline permitted by the Chemical Weapons Convention: five years. Again it failed to keep its promise(9), and in 2012 it claimed they would be gone by 2021(10). Was the world’s richest nation unable to complete this task on time? Or just unwilling? Russia has now urged Syria to place its chemical weapons under international control(11). Perhaps it should press the US to do the same.

The US used millions of gallons of chemical weapons in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. It also used them during its destruction of Falluja in 2004, then lied about it(15,16). The Reagan government helped Saddam Hussein to wage war with Iran in the 1980s, while aware that he was using nerve and mustard gas(17). (The Bush administration then cited this deployment as an excuse to attack Iraq, 15 years later).

As for the norms of international law, let’s remind ourselves where the US stands. It remains outside the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, after declaring its citizens immune from prosecution. The crime of aggression it committed in Iraq – defined by the Nuremberg tribunal as “the supreme international crime”(26) – goes not just unpunished but also unmentioned by anyone in government. The same applies to most of the subsidiary war crimes US troops committed during the invasion and occupation. Guantanamo Bay raises a finger to any notions of justice between nations.

Obama’s failure to be honest about his nation’s record of destroying international norms and undermining international law, his myth-making about the role of the United States in world affairs and his one-sided interventions in the Middle East all render the crisis in Syria even harder to resolve. Until there is some some candour about past crimes and current injustices, until there is an effort to address the inequalities over which the United States presides, everything the US attempts, even if it doesn’t involve guns and bombs, will stoke the cynicism and anger the president says he wants to quench.

During his first inauguration speech, Barack Obama promised to “to set aside childish things”(27). We all knew what he meant. He hasn’t done it."

to read George Monbiot's article published in the Guardian September 9, 2013, click on

http://www.monbiot.com/2013/09/09/obamas-rogue-state/

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"(T)he diplomatic opening could provide Obama with a way out of a messy political and foreign policy bind. It followed a remarkable chain of events that started with a suggestion from Secretary of State John Kerry, followed by a proposal from Russia and immediate endorsement by the U.N. secretary-general.

Obama told NBC News in an interview Monday that he's taking a statement from Damascus welcoming the idea "with a grain of salt initially." But he said he would "absolutely" halt a U.S. military strike if Syria's stockpiles were successfully secured.

"My objective here has always been to deal with a very specific problem," Obama said in an interview with ABC News. "If we can do that without a military strike, that is overwhelmingly my preference."

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/says+will+consider+proposal+Syria+surrender+chemical+weapons/8889763/story.html#ixzz2eV2Tkki7



to read the article published in The Vancouver Sun September 10, 2013, click on