Al-Sharq al-Awsat, London, April 11
What is more concerning than the April 7 chemical attack committed by the Assad regime in Duma is the lack of Western response to it. Thousands of men, women and children are being slaughtered in Syria and the Western, so-called “democratic,” world remains indifferent to these crimes. The recent attack in Duma is the most recent non-conventional chemical attack in a long series of such crimes carried out against civilian populations in Syria during the past four years: the first occurred on March 2013, the second a month later, in April, and the third later that year, in August. Although all three of these attacks unfolded within the span of less than six months, no one was held accountable to them. Not a single Western army took action, even if symbolic, against the Assad regime. What message is the lack of response, this utter indifference, sending to the world? This silence paves the way to the normalization of chemical weapons and their use in other arenas around the world. It sets a dangerous precedent that could, one day, come back to haunt the very governments who are ignoring the massacres unfolding in Syria right now. We all know that the problem at hand isn’t lacking evidence. By now, mounting evidence showing Assad’s unequivocal use of Sarin gas against this people has been collected and documented by the United Nations. Bodies of Syrian victims have even been taken out of the country for postmortem examinations that have proven the cause of death to be chemical agents. Still and video footage have been collected from Syria, often showing the canisters of gas found in the rubble, on the ground. The real problem is our complacency and apathy. The real problem is our indifference to human suffering. What a shame to Western democracies! Compare the world’s reaction to the recent nerve-agent attack in Britain against an ex-Russian spy and his daughter to the world’s reaction to the death of hundreds of Syrian kids. Some lives, it seems, are worth more than others. – Abd al-Rahman al-Rashed