Could These Vile Reactionaries Have Used Chemical Weapons On Their Own People? Yes!

The case for war against Syria, for an act of war is what any military strike would be, is being premised on the claim that only the Assad Government could have done it, and that there is no reason the jihadists would have carried out such an attack on their own people.  Really?  These are the same jihadists that have no compunction about sending brainwashed, young kids to their deaths as suicide bombers.  These are the same vile reactionaries who promise their young men that if they die in battle they will go straight to their version of heaven, where they will be feted by young virgins.  What fate awaits dead young virgins they seem thereby to have already decided - a continuation of the same treatment they receive on Earth!

These are the same vile reactionaries that were prepared to fly aeroplanes, carrying hundreds of innocent passengers, into the World Trade Centre, so as to kill thousands more innocent people, including Muslims.  Are these vile reactionaries capable of killing their own people using chemical weapons?  Absolutely.  In fact, throughout the whole period of the civil war in Syria, they have been shown time and again to have been prepared to commit atrocities, in order to present them as being atrocities committed by the regime, just as in Libya, they followed a similar strategy in order to provoke and provide the justification for an attack by imperialism to do the job they themselves were incapable of doing.

That doesn't mean they did do it, any more than the claims by the US and UK Governments mean that the vile reactionary government of Assad was responsible.  The fact is, we don't know.  As I set out the other day, with Assad's forces having the upper hand, and knowing that any large scale use of chemical weapons use would be likely to provoke an intervention, there seems little reason why they would, but there is every reason why the jihadists would.  The claim that the jihadists did not have access to these weapons is weak.  They have over past months over run a  number of government facilities in different areas.

But, in addition, their arms suppliers in the CIA, in the reactionary Gulf States, in Turkey, do have access to such materials.  Israel has masses of chemical weapons, and who knows what advantage Israel might have in provoking an attack.  Personally, I believe that in the end Israel is safer with Assad, than they ever would be with an Al Qaeda backed regime in Syria.  But, no one can fathom what the calculation of such powers might be.

In the end, the question of who fired first is always irrelevant.  For socialists the principal remains that we oppose the intervention of Imperialism in solving the tasks of history that the working class itself must resolve.  As part of that process, and as the question has been raised, we should ask Cameron and Obama the obvious question.  You have cited time and again that use of such weapons has been illegal for 100 years, so why do you still have so many of them yourself?  When will you scrap your own stocks of chemical and biological weapons?