Oops, US still has 500 tons of deadly sarin gas stockpiles which won't be gone until 12/31/2023. Jan. 2020 is first time in a decade US has destroyed any of its stockpile of nerve agents. Why isn’t US kicked out of OPCW?

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Oops, US still has 500+ tons of deadly sarin gas which it’s trying to remove by Dec. 31, 2023. ...'It is the first time a nerve agent has been destroyed in the United States in about a decade [since 2010], officials said.”...No one complains that US ignores OPCW rules because they know US will simply close down OPCW by cutting off funding…."In 1997, the United States ratified the United Nations International Chemical Weapons Convention treaty. By participating in the treaty, the United States agreed to destroy its stockpile of aging chemical weapons–principally mustard agent and nerve agents–by April 29, 2007. However, the final destruction deadline was extended to April 29, 2012.”


1/22/2020, “Destruction of Deadly Chemical Agent Sarin Begins at Army Depot in Kentucky," Lexington Herald Leader via Military.com, Lexington, Kentucky  

“Full-scale destruction of the deadly chemical agent sarin began last week [Jan. 2020] at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Madison County, officials said Tuesday. 

“This is another major milestone toward eliminating the total chemical weapons stockpile in Kentucky," said Candace Coyle, Blue Grass Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant site project manager. “With each munition destroyed, we are making Madison and surrounding counties a safer place to live.” 

The chemical weapons stockpile at Blue Grass Army Depot originally consisted of approximately 523 tons of chemical agent configured in 155mm projectiles containing H mustard and VX nerve agent, 8-inch projectiles containing sarin, and M55 rockets containing sarin and VX nerve agent. In June 2019, an explosive destruction technology began destroying the mustard stockpile. As of Jan. 10 [2020], more than 15 tons of chemical agent [of a total of 523 tons] have been destroyed in Kentucky, a news release said. 

The plant will destroy munitions containing sarin through a two-step process called neutralization followed by a method called supercritical water oxidation. Automated equipment takes the munitions apart and drains the chemical agent. The agent is mixed with water and caustic to produce hydrolysate. 

The hydrolysate is then pumped from tanks to reactors where it is subjected to high temperature and pressure. The resulting products are water, carbon dioxide and a salt solution. Remaining metal parts from the munitions are thermally heated to more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit and can be safely recycled, according to a news release. 

“Our highly skilled team is dedicated to the task of safely destroying the chemical munitions,” said Ron Hink, a Bechtel Parsons Blue Grass project manager. “We’ve trained extensively for this stage of the project and we’re confident we can safely complete the mission.” 

It is the first time a nerve agent has been destroyed in the United States in about a decade [since 2010], officials said. 

Stockpile sites in Colorado and Kentucky account for the last 10% of what was originally a national stockpile of more than 30,000 tons of chemical weapons. Both sites are scheduled to complete destruction of chemical weapons by Dec. 31, 2023, officials said.” 

“This article is written by Valarie Honeycutt Spears from The Lexington Herald-Leader and was legally licensed via the Tribune Content Agency through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@newscred.com.”
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Added: 

“By missing its [OPCW] deadlines, the US and other countries have arguably breached a founding principle of the same treaty cited as a reason to justify an attack on Syria." 

9/11/2013, “US struggles show hazards of chemical weapons destruction,” UK Guardian, Paul Lewis, Washington 

“The US vowed to destroy its cache of chemical weapons by 2012. But tons of nerve agents remain in Colorado and Kentucky – reflecting how complicated the process could prove in Syria.” 

“Technological and political challenges have resulted in lengthy delays. By missing its deadlines, the US and other countries have arguably breached a founding principle of the same treaty cited as a reason to justify an attack on Syria. 

When the convention came into force in 1997, participating countries agreed to destroy their stockpiles within 10 years, with an option to apply for a five-year extension. Five countries – the US, Russia, South Korea, India and Albania – all missed the main 2007 deadline.”… 

[Only one of the five has violated both domestic and international law by invading and dismembering Syria, continues to criminally occupy one third of Syria, land that is indisputably Syria’s, has financed headslicer terrorists with billions of US tax dollars to help US overthrow the Syrian government, that US-made TOW anti-tank missiles  were key in creating an Al Qaeda safe haven in Idlib, knows that  “al-Qaeda is in effective control of Idlib and retains the capacity to conduct external attacks”–yet warns against a Syrian attack on this enclave," threatened a “massive attack” on Syria’s government if its elected president merely tried to rescue innocent Syrians held hostage in the US backed Sunni terrorist Idlib enclave, has “warned” countries that anyone who tries to help Syria rebuild from years of US bombings will be subject to punishment by US sanctions, and US led the largest illegal gun racket in history smuggling billions in weapons to jihadist fighters that flooded into Syria. Further, US refuses to provide humanitarian aid for starving Syrian children unless they reside in terrorist held areas, such as areas governed by Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra]. 

(continuing): “Two years ago [2011], the United States, Russia and Libya were granted further extensions to a previously agreed final deadline for destroying their weapons.”…
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Added: OPCW knows it will have to close down unless it lies for the US genocide industry. When OPCW won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013, it was already an accessory to US mass murder, lying about chemical weapons to give US an “excuse” to continue bombing and regime changes. Media silence is complicity in US taxpayer funded war crimes against Syria. 

12/20/19, “Why Western Media Ignore OPCW Scandal," Strategic Culture Editorial  

“The credibility of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is on the line after a series of devastating leaks from whistleblowers has shown that the UN [backed] body distorted an alleged CW [chemical weapons] incident in Syria in 2018. The distortion by the OPCW of the incident suggests that senior directors at the organization were pressured into doing so by Western [US] governments.  

This has grave implications because the United States, Britain and France launched over 100 air strikes against Syria following the CW incident [in Douma] near Damascus in April 2018. The Western [Trump] powers rushed to blame the Syrian government forces, alleging the use of banned weapons against civilians. This was in spite of objections by Russia at the time and in spite of evidence from independent investigators that the CW incident was a provocation staged by [Islamic terrorist] anti-government militants. 

Subsequent reports by the OPCW later in 2018 and 2019 distort the incident in such a way as to indict the Syrian government and retrospectively exculpate the Western powers over their “retaliatory” strikes [bombing].  

However, the whistleblower site Wikileaks has released more internal communications provided by 20 OPCW experts who protest that senior officials at the organization’s headquarters in The Hague engaged in “doctoring” their field reports from Syria. Copies of the doctored OPCW reports are seen to have suppressed important evidence casting doubt on the official [Trump] Western narrative claiming that the Syrian government was to blame. That indicates the OPCW was engaged in a cover-up to retrospectively “justify” the air strikes [bombings] by [Trump] Western powers.This is a colossal scandal which implies the US, Britain and France wrongly attacked Syria and are therefore guilty of aggression. Yet, despite the gravity of the scandal, Western media have, by and large, ignored it. Indicating that these media are subordinated by their governments’ agenda on Syria, rather than exposing the truth as independent journalistic services. 

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An honorable exception is Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson who has given prominence to the scandal on US national TV. So too has veteran British journalist Peter Hitchens who has helped expose the debacle in the Mail on Sunday newspaper. 

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Apart from those sources, the mainstream Western media have looked away. This is an astounding dereliction of journalistic duty to serve the public interest and to hold governments to account for abusing power. 
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Major American news outlets have been engrossed in the Trump impeachment case over his alleged abuse of power. But these same media have ignored an arguably far more serious abuse of power with regard to launching missiles on Syria over a falsehood. That says a lot about the warped priorities of such media.  ......  

However, their indifference to the OPCW scandal also reflects their culpability in fomenting the narrative blaming the Assad government, and thereby setting up the country for military strikes in In short, the corporate media are complicit in a deception and potentially a war crime against Syria. Therefore they ignore the OPCW scandal. 
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That illustrates how Western news media are not “independent” as they pompously claim but rather serve as propaganda channels to facilitate their governments’ agenda. An enlightening case study was published by Tareq Haddad who quit from Newsweek recently because the editors censored his reports on the unfolding OPCW scandal. Haddad explained that he had important details to further expose the OPCW cover-up, but despite careful deliberation on the story he was inexplicably knocked back by senior editors at Newsweek who told him to drop it. There is more than a hint in Haddad’s insider-telling that senior staff at the publication are working as assets for Western intelligence agencies, and thus able to spike stories that make trouble for their governments.  .......  

Given the eerie silence among US, British and European media towards the OPCW scandal it is reasonable to posit that there is a systematic control over editorial policies about which stories to cover or not to. What else explains the blanket silence?  

The scandal comes as [Trump] Western powers are attempting to widen the powers of the OPCW for attributing blame in such incidents. Russia has objected to this move, saying it undermines the authority of the UN Security Council. Given the scandal over Syria, Russia is correct to challenge the credibility of the OPCW. 

The organization has become a tool for [US] Western powers. Russian envoy to the OPCW and ambassador to the Netherlands Alexander Shulgin says that Moscow categorically objects to expanding the OPCW’s functions and its powers of attributing blame [which is often impossible]. The extension of powers is being recommended by [Trump] the US, Britain and France – the three countries implicated in abusing the OPCW in Syria to justify air strikes against that country. 
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The Russian envoy added: “The OPCW’s attribution mechanism is a mandate imposed by the [Trump] US and its allies, which has nothing to do with international law and the Chemical Weapons Convention’s provisions. Any steps in this direction are nothing more than meddling in the UN Security Council’s exclusive domain. We cannot accept this flagrant violation of international law.”  .......... 

Thus, the OPCW–a UN body--is being turned into a rubber-stamp mechanism by [Trump] Western powers to legalize their acts of aggression. [OPCW 1999 documents say OPCW operates under UN guidelines and protections]. And yet despite the mounting evidence of corruption and malfeasance, Western corporate media studiously ignore the matter. Is it any wonder these media are losing credibility? And, ironically, they have the gall to disdain other countries’ media as “controlled” or “influence operations”.”





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