Gaither Campaign for Rural America

This is the centennial anniversary of the armistice ending World War I, where chemical weapons were first used on a large scale.

And, 100 years later, the Syrian people have become victims of another chemical weapons attack.

The Assad regime has done this too many times.

When Assad did this during the Obama administration, I thought military action was justified. Congress flinched as did the President. When this happened last year, the Trump administration waited too long, allowing Assad to move his air force units elsewhere, making the strikes less effective.

As someone with a degree in Chemistry, I can attest to the destructive power of chemical weapons. I’ve seen firsthand what can happen when a bromine vapor cloud is unleashed in a laboratory. Chlorine gas is far more deadly.

There is a reason the use of chemical weapons is prohibited under the Chemical Weapons Convention. These weapons are designed to injure, kill, and terrorize people.

In the lab, the bromine cloud came right out of a flask. I’ll never forget it. Someone screamed, we all ran, and they had to go back in wearing suits to disarm it. It was intense.

Chemical weapons are far worse. These are designed to kill. You can’t breathe, you begin to choke, foaming at the mouth. If you’re lucky, the gas will penetrate your blood brain barrier. Why would this be lucky? Because then you enter a coma and might just survive.

It’s deeply disturbing to know this has been allowed to take place again on our planet to civilian populations.

By allowing these regimes to use these weapons without exacting an extremely high cost, we’re sending a message to other hostile regimes that we will look the other way while their innocent civilians are tortured and slaughtered.

This is not about politics. This is about safety and security. 

We don’t have to decapitate a regime. We don’t have to further entrench ourselves into Syria. We can unleash our Air Force and Navy on Syrian Air Force targets, decimating them, eliminating the threat to the civilian population. 

Image Courtesy Reuters