{"id":4879,"date":"2015-01-26T07:42:37","date_gmt":"2015-01-26T12:42:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=4879"},"modified":"2015-01-26T07:42:37","modified_gmt":"2015-01-26T12:42:37","slug":"decades-of-suspicions-did-german-companies-aid-syrian-chemical-weapons-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=4879","title":{"rendered":"Decades of Suspicions: Did German Companies Aid Syrian Chemical Weapons Program?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"article-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.spiegel.de\/international\/germany\/german-companies-suspected-of-aiding-syrian-chemical-weapons-program-a-1014722.html\" target=\"_blank\"><span class=\"headline-intro\">Decades of Suspicions:<\/span>\u00a0<span class=\"headline\">Did German Companies Aid Syrian Chemical Weapons Program?<\/span><\/a><\/h3>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">When it comes to war crimes and crimes against humanity, the German government is unyielding &#8212; particularly when it comes to finding excuses for why it should do nothing when it comes to potential German perpetrators.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">For more than 16 months, Chancellor Angela Merkel&#8217;s government has been in possession of a list containing the names of German companies thought to have helped Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and his father Hafis build up Syria&#8217;s chemical weapons arsenal over the course of several decades. Ultimately, it became one of the largest such arsenals in the world.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The German government, a coalition between Merkel&#8217;s conservatives and Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel&#8217;s center-left Social Democrats (SPD), received the list from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The OPCW was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013 for its &#8220;extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons.&#8221; Together with experts from the United Nations, the OPCW organized and carried out the destruction of\u00a0<a class=\"text-link-int\" title=\"Syrian chemical weapons\" href=\"http:\/\/www.spiegel.de\/international\/world\/evidence-mounts-of-chlorine-gas-attacks-in-syria-a-968108.html\">Syrian chemical weapons<\/a>last year.<\/p>\n<p>Berlin immediately classified the list and has since kept it under lock and key. The government says that releasing the names would &#8220;significantly impair foreign policy interests and thus the welfare of the Federal Republic of Germany.&#8221; It also argues that doing so would be akin to releasing &#8220;trade secrets&#8221; and as such would violate the German constitution.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Decades of Suspicions:\u00a0Did German Companies Aid Syrian Chemical Weapons Program? When it comes to war crimes and crimes against humanity, the German government is unyielding &#8212; particularly when it comes to finding excuses for why it should do nothing when it comes to potential German perpetrators. For more than 16 months, Chancellor Angela Merkel&#8217;s government [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2929,2928,2931,359,776,2930],"class_list":["post-4879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-bashar-assad","tag-chemical-weapons","tag-german-government","tag-germany","tag-syria","tag-syrian-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4880,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4879\/revisions\/4880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}