North Korean leader Kim Jong-un should pay attention to America’s shock attack on Syria’s chemical weapons depots and its related Damascus Scientific Research Center.
All of them were allegedly knocked out on Saturday by cruise missiles fired by the United States, United Kingdom and France from ships, submarines and aircraft, including the B-1 bomber that allows for strikes outside of Syrian air space.
And despite what the Russians are saying, not a single cruise missile was shot down and all but one of the 105 missiles fired at targets in Syria hit their mark.
Moreover, there were no civilian or military casualties caused by the cruise missile strikes, according to initial reports.
According to the US Defense Department, the Syrians were firing air defense missiles blindly into the air and launched some 40 missiles well after the raid had ended. The Russians claimed that more than 70 cruise missiles were shot down.
Moscow’s is a nonsense claim because even if there was some truth in it there was no way the Russians could document shoot downs without photographic, radar and other evidence.
And the Russians were upended even by Syrian TV, which broadcast video of the total destruction of the chemical weapons research center in the national capital that was flattened by the strikes.
It is important to point out that the research center has been involved since the early 1970’s in chemical and biological weapons research and development, and has received some 40 or more shipments of specialized supplies from North Korea, according to reports.
It has also licensed the nerve agent Tabun from the Iranians, the same reports said. Overall, the center’s links to North Korea and Iran are not just related to research and development. It was also a hub for the unconventional mass destruction technology all are using or plan to use.
Yet it is surprising that some Western news media offered up the Russian version of events as truthful, without confirming anything and without checking with authorities in the US, the UK or France.
In fact, the US waited until daylight to confirm that its missile strikes had destroyed all the targeted depots and research facilities.
The raid was especially successful not only because it destroyed a good deal of Syria’s chemical weapons capability but also because the allies showed that they were carrying out their stated objective, no more and no less.
In other words, the Russians had to clearly understand that the attack was not aimed at them, nor at the Iranians, although US President Donald Trump made it abundantly clear that they were both complicit in aiding and abetting Syria’s retention and use of chemical weapons.
Trump also made it clear that the use of chemical weapons was in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
The American president’s claim that Syria had used both chlorine and the nerve agent Sarin was backed by intelligence provided by the White House, that also contained in clear language the assessments made by the US intelligence community.
The Syrians were mixing nerve agents into their chlorine barrel bombs and even filling chemical hand grenades with Sarin, and they were doing so without respite since 2013, two years into the country’s civil war.
This is what happened in Douma on April 7, and it was enough to kill 70 people –many of them women and children– and facilitate the takeover of the area by Syrian troops.
Since the start of Syria’s civil war, government forces have used chemical weapons at least 50 times, according to Nikki Haley, America’s ambassador to the United Nations.
Given what is known about Russia’s continuing nerve agent program and the semi-exotic new generation of nerve agents known as Novichok, it is probably a fair assessment that Russia’s military plans to use nerve gas when needed, either to flush out the enemy or destroy civilian populations that give support and cover for groups it deems as terrorists.
In the past, when Russia used excessive force to destroy the Chechen rebellion, it seems chemical weapons were not used.
It is quite possible, although more research is needed for confirmation, that the Russians reactivated their nerve gas and other chemical munitions programs primarily to use alternative means of ending internal terrorism, especially from Chechens and other Islamists.
Thus while Russia is a signatory to the UN’s Chemical Weapons Convention, Moscow made sure it did not cover certain types of organophosphates and their precursors, enabling the manufacture of a new generation of nerve agents.
The new Novichok agents have apparently not been transferred to Syria, which is relying on sarin and chlorine. (The Syrian government denies it uses chemical weapons.) Chlorine is not banned by the Convention — a big omission — but sarin and its precursors are.
The US was well within its rights to take action where it saw clear violations of the Convention, because the Convention itself relies on its signatories for enforcement.
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un should pay attention to recent events for two key reasons. First, he is known to have a chemical weapons program which is a threat to security in the entire region, but especially to South Korea.
He has already used a lethal nerve agent to kill his half brother Kim Jong-nam in Malaysia. The US could target his chemical weapons in a similar limited strike missile attack.
The second reason for Kim Jong-un to take notice is that the US and its allies just demonstrated that they don’t miss their set targets.
With negotiations soon to take place between North and South Korea, followed by bilateral talks between the North and the US, Pyongyang can expect explicit demands for denuclearization.
Now, given Trump’s decision to strike Syria over its chemical weapons, the North Koreans may also expect to hear demands from the US to surrender their chemical weapons and end their production.
Kim Jong-un should consider receiving a Pentagon briefing on Syria before he meets with Trump. It will be sobering for him.
The Corporate Capitalist West has had no victories since WWII, and that one too was obtained with over 25 million Russian lives.
Then Korea stalemate, Viet-Nam rout, 9/11 carnage, Iraq quagmire, Af-Pak debacle – a history of bloody noses. A nation that fabricates WMD ultimately ends up with Trumps in WH.
Just as the CCW was able to stop Iran from making Nukes they never intended to, it has now destroyed Syria’s Chemical weapons that never existed. No wonder China steams ahead as CCW self-destructs.
Lament for a moribund system.
You want to send a message using Syria as an example? It also mean the gas incident was planted by you. LOL.
Think you should update yourself about North East Asia and the power dynamic involved. US might have all that it needs to do the ‘job’, but at what cost? Perhaps you can find that out from Pentagon. US can’t even defeat the rag tag Afghans. LOL.
US claimed to have destroyed three " chemical weapons facilities ". If this is true then the whole of Damascus would have been poisoned and there would be no Chinese reporter and workers standing in the Barzeh " chemical weapons " facility after the strike. There are videos showing the reporter and workers at the same location. So US, UK and France are just liars.
Never mind the lying, but their lying is destroying the world !! The liars include the propagandist writing this article above.
Are there reporters from mainstream US, UK and France on the ground like the Chinese ?? Nyet. So, the US relies on social media and the so-called " humanitarian " White Helmets ( truly, an oxymoron here ) for evidence to bomb Syria. This is worse than Hitler.
Bryan, is nothing more then a cia tool. They care nothing about history or reality. They just want to drop bombs sell big guns and arms for the Mic. I would love to see all these dirt bags brought up on war crimes.
Bryen spewing Zionist propaganda as per usual. But we are all here to disabuse him of his b/s.
One site was a research facility, the other manufacturing. The third was a command post. Explain to us again how that guarantees there were any weapons stored there at all?
The message that North Korea received from the illegal missiles strike on Syria is that North Korea must never give up its nuclear arsenal and its ICBMs. If anything, North Korea must keep increasing and improving its nuclear bombs and its ICBMs.
First, no knowledgeable person can believe that Syria’s antiquated air defense system could achieve a kill ratio of 70% against the US cruise missiles. The technological gap is just too wide.
But that is not important. What the US is crowing about are the two chemical weapons facilities, implying that Assad was attempting a clandestine operation, but the OPCW states in its report from last September that:
"Progress by the Syrian Arab Republic is as follows:(a) The Secretariat has verified the destruction of 25 of the 27 chemical weapons production facilities (CWPFs) declared by the Syrian Arab Republic. During the period under review, the Secretariat has continued the preparatory work to carry out an initial inspection to confirm the current condition of the last two stationary above-ground facilities."
In other words, Syria had publicly acknowledged the existence of these sites, so everyone knew about them, and were presumably closely monitoring them, but the OPCW had not yet gotten around to dismantling the sites. Since it appears that the US , to its credit, took care not to actually kill anyone with this raid, it is probably safe to assume it knew that the sites contained nothing lethal which would be released in a bombing. There was no need to bomb them, except as theater.
https://www.opcw.org/
Yes, N Korea must maintain its nuclear forces. The US can never be trusted ever since the first Korean War it nuclearised the Korean Peninsular breaking the Armistice Agreement and has been using lies and false flags, outright bullying and hypocrisy to justify its other wars.
Cheating and breaking agreements is in the DNA of the US even during its creation in the US mainland by reneging its agreements with the native Indians. The breaking of agreements has now extended to the commercial sphere.
With this history of violent and insincerity, who can trust the US except the Anglos and French who willingly sacrifice their energy security to the US.
Tell the US to strike DPRK…the DongFeng 16 and 21 will blow US aircraft carriers to nails
he thinks that by repeating the lie continuously, it would magically become the truth!.. hahaha! the guy is such a fool! the videos of their new and smart missiles being shot down is all over the internet. do they want to tell us that those were fire crackers exploding in the air? these guys are so embarrassing it would have been funny if it were not so tragically stupid.
Between the official statement that all missiles hit their target and the ground report from Syria that out of 105 missiles fired 70 did not reach it’s target. Between the official statement that Russia was behind the poisoning of the Skripal according to May and Boris, and the Laboratory findings that there is no way to determine Russia is behind the poisoning, I believe in the latter.
North Korea is quite different from Syria,North Korea has tested intercontinental cruise missile,short and long range missiles whereas Syria depends on Russia.. So Trump will meet Kim jong Un as man to man but its a different story for Trump and Assad
Disinformation campaign is they are famous that style are taken since Spain,Japanese, American what is true about the story of these three and who are famous in killing Pilipinos without hesitation who is the true friend among them and why is it hate campaign is being charge to China wherein there is harm tbey did nor killing brought by them to Pilipinos who push for this that China will always retaliate with us for being a puppet of USA now it change we have a president that knows who is bad and good by opening foreign policy to China
Coward article, Coward US, UK, and France Striking a Government army on a false flag and what if it was the bastard terrorist that which I’m sure they did it if it happened. US have never been to war single handedly and they are failure. Time shall come they regret their stupidity.