http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/britain-sold-nerve-gas-chemicals-2242520
- By Russell Findlay<http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/authors/russell-findlay/> Revealed: Britain sold nerve gas chemicals to Syria 10 months after war began 1 Sep 2013 07:21 <http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/by-date/01-09-2013> FURIOUS politicians have demanded Prime Minister David Cameron explain why chemical export licences were granted to firms last January 10 months after the Syrian uprising began. [image: Men search for survivors amid debris of collapsed buildings]Men search for survivors amid debris of collapsed buildings REUTERS/Nour Fourat BRITAIN allowed firms to sell chemicals to Syria capable of being used to make nerve gas, the Sunday Mail can reveal today. Export licences for potassium fluoride and sodium fluoride were granted months after the bloody civil war in the Middle East began. The chemical is capable of being used to make weapons such as sarin, thought to be the nerve gas used in the attack on a rebel-held Damascus suburb which killed nearly 1500 people, including 426 children, 10 days ago. President Bashar Assads forces have been blamed for the attack, leading to calls for an armed response from the West. British MPs voted against joining America in a strike. But last night, President Barack Obama said he will seek the approval of Congress to take military action. The chemical export licences were granted by Business Secretary Vince Cables Department for Business, Innovation and Skills last January 10 months after the Syrian uprising began. They were only revoked six months later, when the European Union imposed tough sanctions on Assads regime. Yesterday, politicians and anti-arms trade campaigners urged Prime Minister David Cameron to explain why the licences were granted. Dunfermline and West Fife Labour MP Thomas Docherty, who sits on the House of Commons Committees on Arms Export Controls, plans to lodge Parliamentary questions tomorrow and write to Cable. He said: At best it has been negligent and at worst reckless to export material that could have been used to create chemical weapons. MPs will be horrified and furious that the UK Government has been allowing the sale of these ingredients to Syria. What the hell were they doing granting a licence in the first place? I would like to know what investigations have been carried out to establish if any of this material exported to Syria was subsequently used in the attacks on its own people. The SNPs leader at Westminster, Angus Robertson MP, said: I will be raising this in Parliament as soon as possible to find out what examination the UK Government made of where these chemicals were going and what they were to be used for. Approving the sale of chemicals which can be converted into lethal weapons during a civil war is a very serious issue. We need to know who these chemicals were sold to, why they were sold, and whether the UK Government were aware that the chemicals could potentially be used for chemical weapons. The ongoing humanitarian crisis in Syria makes a full explanation around these shady deals even more important. [image: A man holds the body of a dead child]A man holds the body of a dead child Reuters Mark Bitel of the Campaign Against Arms Trade (Scotland) said: The UK Government claims to have an ethical policy on arms exports, but when it comes down to practice the reality is very different. The Government is hypocritical to talk about chemical weapons if its granting licences to companies to export to regimes such as Syria. We saw David Cameron, in the wake of the Arab Spring, rushing off to the Middle East with arms companies to promote business. Some details emerged in July of the UKs sale of the chemicals to Syria but the crucial dates of the exports were withheld. The Government have refused to identify the licence holders or say whether the licences were issued to one or two companies. The chemicals are in powder form and highly toxic. The licences specified that they should be used for making aluminium structures such as window frames. Professor Alastair Hay, an expert in environmental toxicology at Leeds University, said: They have a variety of industrial uses. But when youre making a nerve agent, you attach a fluoride element and thats what gives it its toxic properties. Fluoride is key to making these munitions. Whether these elements were used by Syria to make nerve agents is something only subsequent investigation will reveal. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said: The UK Government operates one of the most rigorous arms export control regimes in the world. An export licence would not be granted where we assess there is a clear risk the goods might be used for internal repression, provoke or prolong conflict within a country, be used aggressively against another country or risk our national security. When circumstances change or new information comes to light, we can and do revoke licences where the proposed export is no longer consistent with the criteria. Assads regime have denied blame for the nerve gas attack, saying the accusations are full of lies. They have pointed the finger at rebels. UN weapons inspectors investigating the atrocity left Damascus just before dawn yesterday and crossed into Lebanon after gathering evidence for four days. They are now travelling to the Dutch HQ of the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons. It could take up to two weeks for the results of tests on samples taken from victims of the attack, as well as from water, soil and shrapnel, to be revealed. On Thursday night, Cameron referred to a Joint Intelligence Committee report on Assads use of chemical weapons as he tried in vain to persuade MPs to back military action. The report said the regime had used chemical weapons at least 14 times since last year. Russian president Vladimir Putin yesterday attacked Americas stance and urged Obama to show evidence to the UN that Assads regime was guilty. Russia and Iran are Syrias staunchest allies. The Russians have given arms and military backing to Assad during the civil war which has claimed more than 100,000 lives. Putin said it would be utter nonsense for Syria to provoke opponents and spark military retaliation from the West by using chemical weapons. But the White House, backed by the French government, remain convinced of Assads guilt, and Obama proposes limited, narrow military action to punish the regime. He has the power to order a strike, but last night said he would seek approval from Congress. Obama called the chemical attack an assault on human dignity and said: We are prepared to strike whenever we choose. He added: Our capacity to execute this mission is not time-sensitive. It will be effective tomorrow, or next week, or one month from now. And Im prepared to give that order. Some fear an attack on Syria will spark retaliation against US allies in the region, such as Jordan, Turkey and Israel. General Lord Dannatt, the former head of the British Army, described the Commons vote as a victory for common sense and democracy. He added that the drumbeat for war had dwindled among the British public in recent days. uis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist <http://louisproyect.org/> September 1, 2013 Were Saudis and careless rebels responsible for the East Ghouta deaths? Filed under: journalism <http://louisproyect.org/category/journalism/>,Syria<http://louisproyect.org/category/syria/> louisproyect @ 6:37 pm Back in May 25, 2012, the village of Houla in Syria suffered a massacre in which 108 people were killed, including 34 women and 49 children. The initial reaction was to condemn the Shabiha, an Alawite militia fanatically committed to the Baathist cause. But three days later Rainer Hermann, the Middle East correspondent for *Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung*, wrote an article blaming the rebels. Within hours it seems, every anti-imperialist website began crossposting his article or citing it as proof that a false flag operation had been mounted to discredit the progressive and secular government under siege by jihadists. Eventually Hermanns article proved false, but not a single website issued a correction. All this was swept under the rug. History seems to be repeating itself with the publication of Dale Gavlak and Yahya Ababnehs article<http://www.mintpressnews.com/witnesses-of-gas-attack-say-saudis-supplied-rebels-with-chemical-weapons/168135/> in Mint Press News on August 29, 2013 that alleges something almost akin to involuntary manslaughter. It clears the Baathists of using chemical weapons against the rebel-controlled East Ghouta suburb of Damascus but does not quite amount to a finger-pointing false flag piece like Hermanns. They claim instead that some rebels were mucking about in a tunnel that was stockpiled with chemical weapons and accidentally knocked one (or more) over. I guess the best analogy would be drunk driving or firing a rifle into the sky on New Years Eve and hitting someone leaning out the window of a high-rise. Despite letting off the rebels with a light sentence, Gavlak and Ababneh do share one thing in common with Hermann. The entire report is based on what eyewitnesses told them. There might be future revelations that contradict what they have reported (leaving aside John Kerrys obviously vested interest account) but until that happens the least we can do is take a very close look at the article. Brown Moses has already taken a shot at that<http://brown-moses.blogspot.com/2013/09/chemical-weapons-specialists-on-claims.html>, drawing upon military experts who could look at the incident from the standpoint of his blog, namely to identify weapons being used by the rebels and the Baathists. The emphasis is obviously technical. I dont want to repeat any of the points made there and will be looking at the article from the angle of plausibility, even though some of what I will say will inevitably overlap with the analysis there. I want to start off by saying a word or two about the authors. Dale Gavlak is not an investigative reporter. Instead, he appears to be a well-traveled journeyman with no particular political agenda. He has written for the ultraright Washington Times but the articles betray no bias that one might expect given the venue. Mint Press describes Yahya Ababneh as a Jordanian freelance journalist currently working on a masters degree in journalism. Mint Press issued a clarification some time after the article appeared, identifying Ababneh as being the sole on-site interviewer in East Ghouta. The first interviewee was the father of one of the rebels who died in the accident: My son came to me two weeks ago asking what I thought the weapons were that he had been asked to carry, said Abu Abdel-Moneim, the father of a rebel fighting to unseat Assad, who lives in Ghouta. Abdel-Moneim said his son and 12 other rebels were killed inside of a tunnel used to store weapons provided by a Saudi militant, known as Abu Ayesha, who was leading a fighting battalion. The father described the weapons as having a tube-like structure while others were like a huge gas bottle. Now I would have expected a disclaimer at the end of the article stating that names had been changed to protect the innocent, as the old TV show Dragnet would put it. But there is none. In a town infested with the sort of people who have by all accounts killed a 14 year old boy for saying that he wouldnt even give Muhammad a free cup of coffee, what is the likelihood that Abdel-Moneim would identify himself as a snitch on the Saudi-backed jihadists? Hmmm. Now, it is evident that the authors do cloak the identity of another interviewee: A well-known rebel leader in Ghouta named J agreed. Jabhat al-Nusra militants do not cooperate with other rebels, except with fighting on the ground. They do not share secret information. They merely used some ordinary rebels to carry and operate this material, he said. We were very curious about these arms. And unfortunately, some of the fighters handled the weapons improperly and set off the explosions, J said. Now I hate to ask impertinent questions but since everybody died in the accident, how does J know that they handled the weapons improperly? I try to imagine the ordinary FSA rebels down in the tunnel getting into a sort of giddy state after drinking one too many strong cups of tea and then began playing catch with the missiles, like the Three Stooges. Hey, Hassan, go out for a slant pass *Hut Hut*. Is this an accurate portrait of people fighting for their lives? Gavlak and Ababneh write: Doctors who treated the chemical weapons attack victims cautioned interviewers to be careful about asking questions regarding who, exactly, was responsible for the deadly assault. Is that so? Which doctors? What is the likelihood that doctors taking their lives into their hands by working in East Ghouta, particularly in a situation where they could fall ill from exposure to sarin in the clothing of the people they were treating, would warn against identifying the source of the attacks? It does not make any sense. Except for the four paragraphs cited above, there is nothing in the article that can be described as on-the-spot investigative reporting. In fact, the second half of the article is boilerplate reporting cobbled together from other sources about the Saudis riling up an otherwise serene population, making it worth their while to go fight the government for pay. As the authors put it: More than a dozen rebels interviewed reported that their salaries came from the Saudi government. Much of it reads like a script for the next James Bond movie, with Prince Bandar the arch-villain. They refer to a Daily Telegraph article about secret Russian-Saudi talks with Bandar offering Putin cheap oil in exchange for dumping Assad. If he didnt play ball, hed sic Chechen jihadists on the Sochi Olympics. The article was written by one Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (with a name like that, hes gotta be British) who is best-known for writing conspiracy tales about Bill Clinton, including one that the Oklahoma City bombing was a secret government plot in which Timothy McVeigh was just a fall guy, like Lee Harvey Oswald. He claims that ATF agents were warned not to go to work that day. The fact that a reporter for the Daily Oklahoman interviewed two ATF agents as they emerged from the rubble does not enter the equation. Now I have no idea what the Mint Press reporters consider leading edge investigative reporting but I wouldnt go near Evans-Pritchard with a ten-foot pole, something I consider more risky than playing catch with a sarin-laden missile. Of course, our intrepid reporters give a nod to Carla del Ponte, who I have already identified<http://louisproyect.org/2013/08/31/carla-del-ponte-and-the-anti-imperialist-left-an-unprincipled-combination/> as about as trustworthy as Donald Rumsfeld. That they can end their article with a reference to her allegation that the rebels are using chemical weapons rather than the Baathists tells me that they dont really give a hoot about journalistic integrity. Why they wrote such a load of crap is something for other people to figure out. I just want to conclude with some comments on the role of FAIR, the liberal media watchdog I once supported strongly, donating hundreds of dollars in years past. On their blog, Jim Naureckas recommends a look at the Mint Press article<http://www.fair.org/blog/2013/09/01/which-syrian-chemical-attack-account-is-more-credible/>. And immediately after the Houla massacre, FAIR staffer Steve Rendall took the FAZ false flag article seriously<http://www.fair.org/blog/2012/06/14/was-houla-massacre-a-manufactured-atrocity/>. Now they do issue pretty useful articles from time to time, but my recommendation to these comrades is to leave their Islamophobia at home unless they want to tarnish the reputation of a nonprofit that relies on the good will of its donors. Sunday, September 1, 2013 The Courtship Continues: Obama's New Gift to Assad <http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fclaysbeach.blogspot.com%2F2013%2F09%2Fthe-courtship-continues-obamas-new-gift.html&media=&guid=UUpTsXFrPsLn&description=> <http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/> I wrote *Barack Obama's Courtship of Bashar al-Assad*<http://claysbeach.blogspot.com/2012/09/barack-obama-courtship-of-bashar-al_4519.html> almost a year ago. In it I detailed a relationship that began even before Obama was elected president. A week ago today I was out on Venice Beach with this display and all the talk was about Bashar al-Assad's brutal murder of so many children with chemical weapons. <http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vHLcupnEuL8/UiNjo7qUjcI/AAAAAAAAA4o/ye8CUragUJA/s1600/cwpix-vb.jpg> Everybody assumed Assad was behind the chemical attacks. After all, he had been attacking the CW target, East Ghouta for months before with his conventional artillery and aircraft, and he resumed these attacks directly after the CW attack so as to destroy the evidence. He is known to possess large stockpiles of nerve gas and other chemical weapons and has military units trained and equip to use them whereas al-Qaeda like groups have never used nerve gas anywhere in the world. Defectors from some of these units have testified to his earlier use of chemical weapons in this conflict. He had been unsuccessful in a desperate, months long, campaign to reduce this opposition enclave in Damascus and the poison gas missiles came from areas he controls. This was before Assad's Left apologists, like Amy Goodman and Phyllis Bennis took to the air waves<http://www.democracynow.org/2013/8/28/as_strikes_on_syria_loom_is> to offer Assad *"plausible denial"*, accuse the opposition of gassing itself, and argue that there was no *"confirmed proof"*, whatever that is, that Assad was guilty of *this particular* war crime. [*"I shot the sheriff..."* You know how it goes.] In spite of their *"doubts,"* it was clear to rational people that the Assad Regime was responsible for the deaths of over 1400 people including more than 400 children. Bashar al-Assad was at a political low point both within Syria, the Arab nation and the larger world. A week later, Bashar al-Assad's political standing is at a high point as the image of Bashar al-Assad, the blood soaked butcher of East Ghouta has largely been replaced by the illusion of Bashar al-Assad, the *"resistance"*fighter who stared down a US president, and this turn around in political fortunes has been the results of the efforts of one man - United States President Barack Obama. "Good Cops" always betray you in the end First, by announcing his intentions to immediately move on Assad because of the chemical murders, and moving a few ships around to make his point, he immediately shifted the focus from Assad's atrocities to *"NATO's War on Syria."* It really didn't matter that the Obama administration was promising that what the Left was calling the*"US War on Syria"* would be nothing more than a shot across Assad's bow, the US Peace and Just Us* movement <http://claysbeach.blogspot.com/2013/08/some-exceptions-apply.html> was out in droves, not to protest Assad, the mass murderer, but to defend Assad, the *"anti-imperialist"* hero. <http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vI8kd-7xA0c/UiDPVvtqJ4I/AAAAAAAAA3g/GAXRbLEJQVs/s1600/pro-Assad-us-protest.jpg> Will Obama now seek congressional approval for his drone strikes? Second, with his uses of the congressional gambit to delay any action, he has handed Assad a big victory. Assad can gloat at having stared down the imperial beast because that beast isn't fundamentally opposed to the use of poison gas to suppress populations and just needs to sound opposed for PR reasons. It is actually grateful to Assad for spearheading the reintroduction and happy the peace movement has been tricked into not opposing it. In this case it really is a paper tiger. Since this proposed *"shot across the bow"* has only been postponed, not canceled, Assad can now continue to reap all the political benefits to be derived from his having so far prevailed in the "NATO War on Syria" without suffering a single casualty. He can continue to use the threat of US bombs to unite his people and while the opposition sees no military benefit from a US strike, Assad's claim that they are tools of US imperialism is greatly enhanced. Most importantly, there is really nothing in the past week's events that should deter the Assad regime from continuing with and even enlarging upon its poison gas attacks on the areas it is ethnically cleansing. All and all, it has been a very good week for Bashar al-Assad. Not bad, considering he just committed the worst crime against humanity since Rwanda, and while the US Left has done what little it could to revive his standing, first prize has to go to Barack Obama, and it should be clear to all that the courtship continues. <http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-STaFOT7N_Jk/UiNyKcFLiSI/AAAAAAAAA44/jKgt495Wl7U/s1600/CW-kids-display.jpg> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Published on openDemocracy (http://www.opendemocracy.net) Welcoming the vote of the British Parliament while supporting the Syrian uprising Gilbert Achcar [1] 31 August 2013 The best way to punish the Syrian regime is to enable the popular uprising to break it, not to bomb the country. In a rare instance of the executive in a Western imperial state taking parliamentary democracy in earnest, the UK government consulted Parliament about military action against the Syrian regime without being certain in advance that it would win the vote, and decided to respect the outcome that repudiated its plan. As a staunch opponent of the Syrian Baathist regime from a radical democratic perspective, I have several reasons to welcome this outcome. The first reason is that any limitation on the powers of the imperial executive that has become the usual pattern in most major Western states is undoubtedly positive from a democratic point of view and should be greeted unreservedly. Even though, on the face of it, the decision in this instance spared one of the most ruthless and murderous dictatorships, the fact that the British government asked Parliament for authorisation to engage in a military action purported to be limited sets a standard that it will be more difficult from now on for the British government and its peers in electoral democracies to ignore. Although a repetition of the British scenario in Washington is most unlikely, the pressure [13] on the US administration itself is mounting[14] as a result of the British vote. This is in spite of the post-Vietnam War Powers Resolution [15] that limited the US executives power to wage war to 60 days without an authorisation from Congress, a resolution that the White House has nevertheless repeatedly violated. Not that I have the slightest illusion about the reasons for which many hawkish MPs voted against military action this time. They did so not out of pacifism for sure, let alone anti-imperialism, but for the same reason that made Western opinion makers in their vast majority display a patent lack of sympathy for the cause of the Syrian popular uprising. This reason is above all the lack of confidence in the Syrian uprising, as US Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey openly confessed [16] most recently. A consideration that is all the more compelling in that the most recent experience in Libya was a total fiasco in that regard: NATOs intervention only helped turn Libya less West-friendly than it had been under Gaddafi during the last years of his reign. And, of course, Libya offered the major enticement of being a major oil exporter, which Syria is not. The second reason to welcome the vote by the British Parliament is that it was clearly related to the requirement of a UN legitimation which prompted the UK government to submit a draft resolution to the UN Security Council in its attempt to convince a majority of MPs. Despite the obvious limitations of the UN and of existing international law, it is better that international relations be institutionalised under some form of the rule of law, however deficient that law is, than be dominated by the law of the jungle whereby powerful states, the US above all, feel free to decide unilaterally against whom and when to use force. The idea that the rule of law is a straightjacket by which Russia and China can prevent truly humanitarian actions from taking place is predicated on the view that Western military interventions are generally motivated by noble intentions. They are definitely not. Suffice it to note that the two Western military interventions since the end of the Cold War that most blatantly violated international law Kosovo [17] 1999 and Iraq 2003 both used humanitarian pretexts as covers for imperial designs and led to catastrophic humanitarian results. The third reason to welcome the parliamentary vote is the one most directly predicated on my resolute support to the Syrian popular uprising. The military action that is being contemplated by Washington is about dealing the murderous Syrian regime a few military blows in order to punish it for the use of chemical weapons against civilians. I have hardly any doubt that the Syrian regime did resort to such weapons in its barbaric onslaught on the Syrian people. True, it will be hard for the UN inspection team, which was allowed to reach the scene of the crime only several days after it was perpetrated, to find any smoking gun. But the fact that the Syrian regime possesses chemical weapons and the means to strike with them (to mount a large scale rocket and artillery attack, as did happen) is beyond doubt, as is its cold-blooded-serial-killer aptitude to use them on civilians. Witness this recorded use of an incendiary bomb [18]dropped by a fighter jet on a civilian target (a school playground): in this case at least, no one can reasonably dispute the fact that the regime has the monopoly of air power in the Syrian civil war. But this begs the question: is killing up to fifteen hundred people with chemical weapons more serious a crime than killing over a hundred thousand with conventional weapons? Why then does Washington want to strike now suddenly after placidly watching the Syrian people being slaughtered, its country devastated, and survivors in the millions turned into refugees and displaced persons? The truth is that the forthcoming strikes are only intended as a means to restore the credibility of the US and its allies in the face of an alliance of the Syrian, Iranian, and Russian governments that has taken full liberty in escalating the war on the Syrian people despite all US calls for compromise. The strikes are necessary in order to reinstate a US imperial standing that has been much humiliated over the last few years in Iraq, in Afghanistan, by Iran, and even by Israels Netanyahu. These strikes will not help the Syrian people: they will increase the destruction and death toll without enabling the Syrians to get rid of their tyrant. They are not intended for this latter goal. In fact, Washington does not want the Syrian people to topple the dictatorship: it wants to force on the Syrian opposition a deal with the bulk of the regime, minus Assad. This is the so-called Yemen solution [19] that President Barack Obama has been actively pursuing since last year, and that Secretary of State John Kerry has been trying to promote by cozying up to his Russian counterpart. However, by denying the mainstream of the Syrian opposition the defensive anti-aircraft and antitank weapons that they have been requesting for almost two years, while Russia and Iran were abundantly purveying the Syrian regime with weapons (and recently with combatants from Iran and its regional allies), the US administration only managed to achieve two results: on the one hand, it has allowed the Syrian regime to keep the upper hand militarily and thus to believe that it can win; hence, the regime has had no incentive whatsoever to make any concessions. On the other hand, benefitting from generous funding from Wahhabi sources and after an initial push from the Syrian regime itself (including the release of Jihadists from Syrian jails in the early phase of the uprising by a regime eager to portray the popular revolt as Sunni fundamentalist), Jihadist networks that were already present in neighbouring Iraq (where the Syrian regime itself contributed to their development) were able to impose themselves as an important component of the Syrian uprising. That is why the Syrian people dont trust Washington in the least. Witness this reportage in the Washington Post [20]: Syrians would prefer to overthrow Assad without foreign help, but if the West does carry out strikes, the Free Syrian Army intends to take advantage of any disarray in the ranks of regime forces to advance its own positions, said Louay al-Mokdad, political and media coordinator for the FSA. We are going, for sure, to make the most of this operation to increase our situation on the ground, to try and control and liberate more areas, he said. This is our right. Our fighters on the ground should use anything, even a change in the weather if it will help them, and if your enemy faces another side, we should use this. However, those who support intervention expressed concerns about how the strikes would unfold and what effect they would have if any on the raging war that has killed more than 100,000 people. People here are very worried the strikes will be intended to help the regime, said Abu Hamza, an activist in the Damascus suburb of Darayya, where some of the fiercest battles of the war have left a town of nearly 500,000 a ravaged, emptied ruin. Of course I support it if it means ending the bloodshed, but there has been killing for 2.5 years, so why should we believe the United States is serious now? People lost trust in the U.S. government, he added. They think the U.S. will only act for its own benefit. Had Western powers really cared for the Syrian people or even had Washington been more clever in creating the conditions for the compromise it has been seeking it would have been easy for them to equip the Syrian opposition with defensive weapons, thus enabling the uprising to turn the tide of the war in such a way as to precipitate a break-up of the regime. Short of a decisive shift in the Syrian civil war to the disadvantage of the regime, the latter will remain intransigent and united around the Assad clan, and the war will drag on with its terrible consequences. It is this reality that refutes the argument of many well-meaning people that arms should be denied to the Syrian opposition because the death toll will be increased. On the contrary, it is precisely the regimes advantage in weaponry that keeps the war going and the death toll increasing. Let me here repeat the words of the French revolutionary Gracchus Babeuf (1795) that I quoted in my latest book: But what civil war is more revolting than the one that puts all the murderers on one side and all the defenceless victims on the other? Can you accuse someone who wants to arm the victims against the murderers of committing a crime? In the face of the horrible crimes being perpetrated by the Assad regime with the support of Russia, Iran and Irans allies, it is the duty of all those who claim to support the right of peoples to self-determination to help the Syrian people get the means of defending themselves. 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