Syrian gas attack marks serious escalation
Jesus warns in this Sunday’s gospel that “there will be wailing and grinding of teeth” among those left outside the gates to salvation. Despite warnings from President Barack Obama and other Western leaders to the Syrian regime . . .
Jesus warns in this Sunday’s gospel that “there will be wailing and grinding of teeth” among those left outside the gates to salvation. Despite warnings from President Barack Obama and other Western leaders to the Syrian regime not to use chemical weapons in their struggle with opponents, a deadly gas attack hit opposition strongholds in the suburbs east of Damascus Tuesday overnight, killing hundreds of men, women, and children as they slept and leaving thousands of loved ones wailing in horror.
What would be the world's most lethal chemical weapons attack since the 1980s prompted an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was shocked, but the divisions among major powers that have crippled international efforts to quell two and a half years of civil war were still evident, with Russia hastening to back up denials from the administration of President Bashar al-Assad by saying it looked like a rebel "provocation" to discredit him.
While Western governments called for an immediate onsite investigation by U.N. chemical weapons inspectors who arrived in the Syrian capital only this week, Moscow said the very presence of that team suggested government forces were not to blame.
Images showed scores of bodies—some of them small children—laid on the floor of a clinic with no visible signs of injuries and other indications that they had died from suffocation. Opposition sources cited death tolls ranging from 500 to 1,300 after shells and rockets carrying deadly gas fell around 3 a.m.
Homily hint: Even in something as horrific as war, there are certain acts which simply go beyond any acceptable norm. Chemical and poison gas attacks are among those actions. Twenty years ago the Chemical Weapons Convention came into existence, and nearly all countries in the world have joined it. Syria is one of a very few holdouts. Pray for all those who suffer in conflicted areas of the world that the torn fabric of humanity be mended and made whole.
What would be the world's most lethal chemical weapons attack since the 1980s prompted an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was shocked, but the divisions among major powers that have crippled international efforts to quell two and a half years of civil war were still evident, with Russia hastening to back up denials from the administration of President Bashar al-Assad by saying it looked like a rebel "provocation" to discredit him.
While Western governments called for an immediate onsite investigation by U.N. chemical weapons inspectors who arrived in the Syrian capital only this week, Moscow said the very presence of that team suggested government forces were not to blame.
Images showed scores of bodies—some of them small children—laid on the floor of a clinic with no visible signs of injuries and other indications that they had died from suffocation. Opposition sources cited death tolls ranging from 500 to 1,300 after shells and rockets carrying deadly gas fell around 3 a.m.
Homily hint: Even in something as horrific as war, there are certain acts which simply go beyond any acceptable norm. Chemical and poison gas attacks are among those actions. Twenty years ago the Chemical Weapons Convention came into existence, and nearly all countries in the world have joined it. Syria is one of a very few holdouts. Pray for all those who suffer in conflicted areas of the world that the torn fabric of humanity be mended and made whole.
Sources: Articles by Dominic Evans and Khaled Yacoub Oweis
for Reuters and Stephen Rex Brown for the New York Daily News