Why are the UK establishment class waging ideological war on the OPCW?

Anyone who has been paying attention for the last few weeks must have noticed that the Tory government has launched a sustained ideological attack on the Organisation of the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

This UK establishment attack on the Nobel Peace Prize winning organisation seemed to begin as a means of having a dig at Jeremy Corbyn over his insistence that the rules of the Chemical Weapons Convention should be followed in relation to the Salisbury poisoning.

Seeing Tories and the yapping dogs of the mainstream press attacking and ridiculing the OPCW seemed like the latest absurd manifestation of the anti-Corbyn agenda. It seemed that people were so unhinged in their desperation to criticise Corbyn that they'd actually resort to demeaning and ridiculing an organisation that is dedicated to ridding the world of chemical and biological weapons in order to score points against him.

But then the Syria airstrikes made it absolutely clear that this is way bigger than the myopic anti-Corbyn agenda of the British establishment class, these people have undeniably declared some kind of crazed ideological war on the OPCW.

The first thing that a lot of people noticed was that Theresa May rushed the decision to carry out airstrikes to jump the gun on the OPCW inspectors who were making their way to Douma in order to investigate the alleged chemical weapons attack.

But it doesn't stop there, not only did Theresa May deliberately undermine the OPCW by attacking before their inspectors could establish the facts about her stated justification for the attack, the targets of the attack were Syrian government facilities that had been given the all clear by the OPCW just weeks before.

Claiming that OPCW approved facilities are actually chemical weapons factories and then destroying them is about the most blatant way of undermining the authority of the OPCW you could imagine, especially if it turns out that the UK had intelligence that the site was a chemical weapons plant and they refused to share their information with the OPCW so they could investigate.

And then the UK envoy to the OPCW Peter Wilson has come out swinging to attack the institution with claims that "the time has come for all members of this executive council to take a stand. Too many duck the responsibility that comes with being a member of this council".

What can he possibly mean by this? That the OPCW should come out in support of airstrikes against facilities they green-lighted just weeks beforehand based on an alleged chemical weapons attack they weren't even allowed to investigate before the attacks were launched?

It's as if the UK establishment are desperate to attack and undermine the OPCW because they want to appoint themselves the ultimate moral arbiters on chemical weapons.

They want to be able to launch military attacks against one regime for the alleged use of chemical weapons without presenting their evidence, and without consulting parliament, yet  turn a total blind eye when their allies (Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the United States) use chemical weapons on civilians.

And perhaps the most ridiculous facet of this British establishment drive to undermine the OPCW and anoint themselves the ultimate moral arbiters of chemical weapons use, is that as recently as 2012 the UK government granted export licences for the sale of Sarin precursor chemicals to Syria!

Of course the UK establishment will try to use misdirection tactics to dress this up as an "us vs them" "good vs evil" conflict between Britain and the baddies ("if you scrutinise us you're siding with Putin/Assad" type nonsense). But it's obvious to anyone who is not a fool that the real debates should be raging over whether the Prime Minister gets to cynically bypass parliament to launch military attacks because she fears she'd lose the vote, and why the UK establishment suddenly seem so hellbent on attacking, sidelining, obstructing, and undermining the work of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

It really is quite simple: If our political establishment class are waging an ideological war against a Nobel Peace Prize winning organisation which is dedicated to the eradication of chemical and biological weapons, maybe, just maybe, they might not be quite the good guys they're trying to portray themselves as?

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Theresa May has sidelined and undermined the OPCW

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?

 Another Angry Voice  is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.

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