The purpose of that international system is to enforce life-crushing, environment-destroying imperialist exploitation around the globe, backed by and perpetuated by extreme violence--including the use of chemical or nuclear weapons where that is deemed necessary. This is why NOTHING is said about the fact that the U.S.'s number-one ally and client, Israel, never signed the prohibition on chemical weapons and also possesses them.
This is why the U.S. use of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki--and constant threats to use nuclear weapons by both Israel and the U.S., including most recently against Iran--is treated as a perfectly normal part of U.S. "diplomacy." This is why the U.S. has backed one tyrant after another across the Mideast region, tyrants who with U.S. backing have viciously suppressed their own populations (as the Egyptian military is now doing before our eyes) in order to maintain U.S. regional dominance.
Obama asked, "What message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price?"
The U.S. used napalm in Vietnam--a chemical weapon that stuck to humans, including children, and set them on fire.
U.S. allies supplied Saddam Hussein's regime with the chemicals and technology needed to make chemical weapons, which were then used on the battlefield against Iran--directed in part by U.S.-supplied intelligence--in order to prevent an Iranian victory in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. The U.S. also turned a blind eye to Hussein's gassing of the Kurds, particularly at Hallabja in 1988--in which indisputable proof exists that at least 5,000 Kurds were massacred--because Hussein was still considered a potential U.S. ally and nothing should be done to disrupt that relationship.
And as for caring about children: between 1990 and 1996, the U.S. was responsible for the deaths of over 500,000 Iraqi children by denying them clean water and medicines--as well as adequate food--through sanctions. The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations at the time said, "we think the price [of U.S. sanctions against Iraq that resulted in the deaths of 500,000 children] is worth it." Talk about an "unspeakable outrage" that makes Syrian president Assad's very real crimes pale in comparison.
International Rules Are What the U.S. Says They Are--And Don't Apply to the U.S.
Obama said, "If we won't enforce accountability in the face of this heinous act, what does it say about our resolve to stand up to others who flout fundamental international rules?"
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