Poisonous gas

By now the story of the U.S. firing 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian airbase in response to the Syrian use of nerve agents (gas) against civilians on April 4 is well known. The Washington Post reported that the gas attack killed 86, including men, women and children. The U.S. missiles did little damage to the airbase, and Syrian aircraft were taking off and landing the next day. The attack appears to be simply a warning of possible future U.S. actions.

After World War I an international convention in Geneva met to discuss the use of gas as a weapon and develop rules for its use. The agreement reached in 1925 was titled "Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare", and nations would sign on individually over many years. The United States signed on April 10, 1975.

The first prohibition on the use of poisonous weapons was signed in 1675 and prohibited the use of poison bullets. There have been 10 additional treaties signed since the Protocol in 1925 and there have also been occasional violations. The last treaty was signed in 1998, at the International Criminal Court in Rome and it made the use of poison gases a war crime and a provision was made in 2010 extending the prohibition to include the use of poison gases a war crime in internal conflicts.

The issue right now is what will the Syrians and their allies the Russians do next? One possibility is that the air strikes worked and there will be no further use of poisonous gas. Since, the aircraft that took off from the targeted Syrian airbase dropped conventional bombs on the same buildings hit by the gas in the last attack. How will we respond if civilians continue to be targeted? A great consideration should be how we avoid the slow increase in U.S. military involvement with no plan on how to win that has been so typical of past U.S. military actions. Congress and the White House must not squander our troops and equipment in another war with no goal of winning.

Jack Dragoni attended Boston College and served in the U.S. Army in Berlin and Vietnam. He lives in Chaffee, Missouri.