Turkey’s Involvement in Syria’s Chemical Affair, a War Crime
Ali Oubani
It all happened on August 21, 2013. The world has risen in ire and sudden interest, Accusation fingers were already pointed. It was conclusive. It was irrefutably Assad and his regime who were behind the chemical attack on eastern Ghouta in Damascus. No other fact is accepted!
Statements scolding Assad as "war criminal" started to surge. The world ventured into calling for string international retaliation. Investigation committees were formed and experts drawn their reports. Some even waved international tribunals. The US, for its part, started to brace for a coming war, and the world followed suit, because "Syria's regime has crossed the red lines," and there must be direct military intervention for having dared use sarin gas against innocent civilians.
But, only a few months later, the tables were seen turned, when American investigative journalist and author, Seymour Hersh, disclosed an intelligence report showing the involvement of Erdogan's government in the sarin gas attack in Ghouta, in addition to a document revealing that al-Nusra Front has the capacities to produce the gas.
Undoubtedly, such a report would have shaken the throne of any world leader; but not this time. The fishy international silence over facts the entire world would have been after if in its advantage, was pretty much surprising.
The list of war criminals extends, from Ruanda to Sierra Léon, Germany, Iraq and others... However, three names are in crosshairs; they are names who assumed the interior and war minister post in the Ottoman era (Kamal Basha, Talaat Basha, and Anwar Basha).
What Hersh exposed was more of a scandal that had stripped the current international system and shown the double standards used towards such critical matters in addition to how easy it is for the world to stage wars building on misleading claims and fabrications. All this only proves that the scenario that was made to invade Iraq was being equally concocted for Syria.
The international judiciary must have taken action towards the "notification" that was diffused, instead of ignoring it. If proven guilty, the Turkish government and the person of the prime minister would have to face charges of war crimes as determined by the international law, with no impunity whatsoever.
Within this frame, international law professor Khalil Hussein has told al-Ahed news site that the usage of untraditional arms by a state is considered a war crime, confirming that based on Hersh's publication, a lawsuit may be lodged before the concerned international organizations against Turkish officials, especially that another crime, namely genocide, derives from this war crime.
But Dr. Hussein rules out such a legal action against Turkey, noting that the organizations concerned with fighting the usage of untraditional arms are controlled by the super powers and hence, prosecuting any state for using untraditional weapons is a political matter par excellence, just like what happened in Iraq in 2003. Hussein recalls that the US used untraditional arms after WWI without being held accountable.
For his part, Syrian political analyst Bassam Abu Abdallah said that what Hersh published showed that the international community was more of a group of powers who got used to controlling and perpetrating all crimes without being interrogated.
He indicated that there was a change on the regional and international scene, embodied by the victory of Syria and the resistance, saying that this has contributed to unearthing the crimes of those.
He also considered that there is a big question mark on the identity of he who had leaked the information from inside the US administration, especially following the Turkish polls! Hersh has already published what meant that information on the Syrian regime's using chemical weapons were not accurate but instead misleading to President Barack Obama. Anadolu agency had previously issued in May 2013 info on al-Nusra Front possessing 2 kg of sarin gas before it deleted the news some time later, not to mention the recent recordings at Ahmet Davutoglu's office on conspiring against Kassab in Latakia.
Apparently, magnates inside the Turkish government enjoy the mafia way of thinking, Abu Abdallah added. He maintained that today an action on the level of the UN Security Council and the international organizations was required through energizing the political, diplomatic, and media fronts in order that the truth of those people should be brought to light.
As highlighting the necessity that the OPCW reopens the dossier of chemical weapon use in Syria after Hersh's findings, Abu Abdallah said that the American writer's publication is also tantamount to an accusation of the US administration per se, with all the questions that come along: who is manipulating the information just like what happened in Iraq where US hostilities were staged under the pretense of chemical weapons' usage-information that turned out to be later on all misleading and fabricated.
Source: al-Ahed news
