On April 14th 2018 Theresa May cynically bypassed parliament and ignored public opinion in order to join forces with the most unpopular and unstable US President in history and launch air strikes in Syria. And she did this in the full knowledge that she was jumping the gun by attacking before the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) inspectors could get to Douma and carry out their work.
In doing this she tore up the longstanding convention that British leaders seek democratic approval for military action (unless the UK is under immediate threat) and totally abandoned the principle that it's important for our political leaders to present the evidence to justify our nation's actions.
If the alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma was carried out by Assad's forces, then what would have been the harm in allowing the OPCW inspectors to do their work to prove it before the airstrikes were launched?
Surely carefully targeted airstrikes carried out on the basis of a democratic vote, and justified by independent OPCW evidence would have carried vastly more moral authority than rushed airstrikes against inexplicable targets?
When I say inexplicable targets, I'm talking about the destruction of the Barzah Scientific Research Centre near Damascus. Just three weeks before the site was destroyed by airstrikes, the OPCW announced that there was no chemical or biological weapons production at the site. Yet the Tory propaganda machine is trying to pass off this attack as the "targeting of a chemical weapons site".
So not only did Theresa May jump the gun on OPCW inspections on the alleged chemical weapons attack at Douma that she used as justification for these airstrikes, she also authorised attacks against a site that had been given a clean bill of health by the same OPCW organisation just three weeks ago.
By claiming that the Barzah site was a chemical weapons facility Theresa May and the Tory propaganda machine have clearly and undeniably undermined the work of the OPCW by making out that they're too incompetent to do their jobs properly.
After the OPCW-undermining attack on Barzah, Theresa May had the absolute cheek to state that "when the global rules and standards that keep us safe come under threat, we must take a stand to defend them".
It's pretty difficult to imagine a more threatening attack on the rules and standards that keep us safe than these Tory and UK establishment attacks on the work and findings of the OPCW and the principles of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Our government is systematically undermining the work of the Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and what's even more shocking than that is that they're using Orwellian reality-reversal tactics to pretend that their airstrikes are actually part of the fight against chemical weapons!
The Tories are trying to make the case that in order to fight against chemical weapons it's necessary to sideline and undermine the Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and to ignore the principles of the Chemical Weapons Convention!
And what's probably most incredible of all is that in 2012 the Tories granted export licences for the sale of Sarin precursor chemicals to Syria.
So they actually sold Assad chemical weapons ingredients, and now just a few years later they're sidelining and undermining the OPCW in order to pretend that they're the great moral authority of chemical weapons!
Surely it's time to take a stand, say enough of your bullshit, and defend the internationally agreed body of chemical weapons experts against this absolute rabble of evidence-denying, democracy-defying, war-mongering Tories?
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