Your Opinion on WMD in Syria?

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What would you suggest our reaction should be if we found evidence WMD weapons in Syria, and Syria denied to cooporate in any way? Would the UN be willing to take another 9 years of diplomacy where nothing happens? Can the middleeast take another war without exploding.

Give your suggestions to how a poll might look on the topic and any ideas you might have.

PS: this is theoretical and isn't intended to be linked (only inspired) with the current accusations that some WMD were shipped into Syria shortly before the invasion of Iraq.

[ January 28, 2004, 16:08: Message edited by: Nobleman ]

 

*winces* Well, I have looked through my tealeaves and they explicitly tell me that real "WMD" will be found in Syria, if one cares to search.

Whereby "WMD" is a misleading term, what'll be dicovered will be likely chemical weapons - which are not really weapons of destruction but of killing. To declare chemical weapons as "WMD" is only to increase the scare effect and to prop up Syria as a dangerous country, which it isn't.

With the right equipment on the side of the attacked, chemical weapons will be, bad enough, a dangerous harassment causing delay in enemy movement - seriously complicating casualty treatment (danger of secondary poisoning of the medical personnel), resupply, protective garments make soldiers cumbersome and moving exausting, and exposition to enemy fire (or even thorny bushes) that would destroy their protective garments has to be avoided at any price. The slower movement also adds to expose them to airstrikes and artillery fire.
The necessary decontamination also takes time - it's basically a big carwash with special "soap" and under heavy protective gear - and very exausting work too: Personnel has to be changed every 30 min (and even then you stand ankle-deep in your sweat, which feels pretty disgusting), in hot climates even in shorter intervalls.
Do that for an armored brigade with a few hundred vehicles and some 5 min per vehicle and you'll get a clue.

A reminder: The Aum sect's attack in Matsumoto City used Sarin gas - and yet, even though it was in the rush hour with thousands of people around, they killed seven people, injuring 144 others. Chemical weapons are hard to disperse properly.

A surprise artillery strike with chemical weapons will cause losses on unprotected soldiers - but so will one using high explosives. Against military formations you use chemical weapons like mines - you poison terrain, or depots, or supply points to achieve the same thing you'd achieve by mining them: The enemy has to take serious precautions to pass this terrain or to access the equipment, that slows him down. Chemical weapons nowadays are basically barrier weapons. And as with all barriers in the military they will be observed, and an enemy slowing down to carefully sneak through the barrier will be easier to hit.

Chemical weapons are only effective against unprotected people, civilians especially. But they have very serious drawbacks for an attacker: Poison clouds drift, so it is difficult to determine the exact location of poisoned terrain. Their persistence is dependent on meteorological conditions. That makes their effect unpredictable and unreliable. Worse, the terrain is poisonous for the attacker too - so chemical weapons complicate the attacker's movement too - he has to take the same precautions as his enemies - suffering from the same limitations. In a military conflict they are of questionable effectiveness, which might be the explanation why they have only be used by Iraq against the unequipped Iranians in their conflict.

Syria has chemical weapons. That is well known and not news at all. It has not signed the chemical weapons convention which bans these weapons. Therefor they are allowed to have them by international law, just as the US is allowed to have nukes.
The chemical weapons are Syria's only counterweight to Israels chemical weapons and nukes because otherwise they are absolutely inferior to Israel.

Insofar the question doesn't really make sense after all. And as for Syria having taken Saddam's WMD ... we have crushed that fairytale so often already ... the least thing we 'need' is a poll about it, even though it might be quite illuminating, just as the polls asking Americans wether they believed there was a 911 - Saddam connection.

[ January 28, 2004, 15:36: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

If chemical weapons constitute WMD, Syria has them and has had them for a while. And if I were Syria, and were still technically at war with a nuclear power, I'd want them too.

 

yeah with WMD I meant weapons that can truly cause mass destruction.

The whole issue is also complicated further by Syria, no longer beeing in the UN security agency. A twist is that they still pushed forward to their last day in the agency, to get a ban on nukes and the likes. Of course to play someone up against Israel. Heh. The more we dig in it the more complex it all gets.

 

Not at all. Syria, as a non-permanent member, simply rotated out of the UN security council after the usual two years to be replaced by another country, that is. The only thing that gets complicated is that Syria, out of the council is less well informed now. It isn't so, as you seemed to have understood it, that they left the UN or did something similar.

And the notion that Israel as a not declared nuclear power refuses inspections on it's nuclear program and chemical arsenal isn't ... helpful in shattering the image of the US of having a dual standard for arabs and itself and Israel.

Besides, chemical weapons are unlikely to cause mass destruction, as I tried to line out. They are cumbersome and complicated - and of questionable effectiveness. The *threat* posed by them, to the US anyway, is exaggerated.

 

Thank you for clearing it all out. I got all worried from the news saying that Syria now had recieved part of Iraq's weapons.

 

*winces some more* They didn't. Condi said so:

In the meanwhile - trying to undermine the "realists" (Condi/ Powell/ Baker) - some GOP people and the neocon camp paint Syria as a threat by reiterating these unfounded claims - in an attempt to keep alive the option of war with Syria - to pre-empt Syria's use of WMD of course.

The tale of "Iraqi WMD went to Syria" is Washington's equivalent to throwing sh*t.

 

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "what our reaction should be". The US? The UN? The world? SP members? Anyway, nobody can be certain of what weapons Syria has in it's arsenal, and what weapons (if any) were shipped into Syria from Iraq. But like Ragusa pointed out, Syria can legally develop and own chemical,biological and nuclear weapons if it has the means of doing so. The results of Syria owning such weapons may vary, concernnig what other countries see Syria as. Like a person doing something completely legal but upsetting other people with his not illegal actions. But Ragusa, saying that Syria isn't dangerous is very subjective (as is your argument that chemical weapons are not WMD). What would you call a neigbouring country that has invaded yours 3 times in the past in order to destroy you?
As for double standards - Israel, unlike Syria, can not be one of the rotated temporary memebrs of the UN security council. Yes, Israel has not complied with UN resolutions in the past, like other nations in the former decade. Having the US and other countries as an ally and a supporting lobby is part of world politics, as is the lobby of muslim countries and their supporters.
And concernig Israel's WMD. A nation of six million has the right to better it's odds against potential (and past) aggressors surrounding it, numbering in tens of millions.

 

Syria would risk instant annihilation of his military in case it starts hostilities with Israel. You might say then as that is so they can completely disarm, but that hardly adresses Syria's concerns. Israels deterrence to all their neighbour countries works well. Today the risk of another all arab war against Israel is next to zero.

And weapons of mass destruction are weapons that cause destruction on a massive scale. Originally nuclear, biological and chemical weapons were wryly referred to as NBC weapons - but that wasn't just fancy enough, "WMD" is a term very similar to "Axis of evil".

The phrase weapons of mass destruction is the source of various semantic disputes. The phrase originated in 1937 to describe the use of strategic bombers by the German Luftwaffe during the Spanish Civil War. During the Cold War, WMD exclusively meant nuclear weapons. Indeed, modern nuclear weapons are vastly more destructive than either biological or chemical weapons. Chemical weapons expert Gert Harigel believes that, as a result, only nuclear weapons should be called weapons of mass destruction. (definition taken from Wikipedia)

It is indeed very hard to compare a 25 Megaton whopper capable to whipe out the north of Israel (plus parts of Syria and Lebanon) with a scud sarin warhead in terms of destructive potential.
And putting it all in the pot of "WMD" is misleading. It doesn't really make sense to use the "mushroom cloud" label for a chemical shell or warhead as well - a beast that, while dangerous, is in a completely different class than a nuclear weapon.

 

Syria should be tought a lesson regardless. For more than 30 years this country has been harbouring and financially supporting terrorist factions worldwide. It's a piratesnest and could use a good cleansweeping.

 

I found something most certainly more something convincing than a semantic discussion of the term "Weapons of Mass Destruction", a USMC 'lessons learned' analysis of the use of chemical weapons by Iraq in the conflict with Iran.

When I got my NBC defense training it took me a while to understand that - as I had learned about their incredible toxicity before. But that's mainly on paper. "Evil chemistry", as Ashcroft recently pretty uningeniously put it, has a great scare factor, especially among the uninformed. I'm very much with Charley Reese: "Everything is Hyped"

PS: Silly typos ...

[ January 29, 2004, 22:49: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

Well i can say safely that there is a huge number of people that have the same feelings and ideas regarding Israel too. Over there things are way too twisted and perplexed for anyone pointing fingers with clear conscience.