I don't think there are any "good guys" to support. Both sides have committed atrocities. I just hate having us even in this position.
The best pro-bombing argument I've heard is that these nerve agents, that can be produced in any insecticide plant, are the poor nation's "nuclear bomb". We don't want terrorists getting them and using them HERE, at some future time, so we want to punish anyone who produces and uses them.
A cult attempted to use them on Japanese subways a while back. Pretty scary stuff.
en.wikipedia.org
1995 Tokyo sarin gas attacks and related incidents[ edit source | editbeta]
Main article: Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway
On the morning of 20 March 1995, Aum members released sarin in a coordinated attack on five trains in the Tokyo subway system, killing 13 commuters, seriously injuring 54 and affecting 980 more. Some estimates claim as many as 5,000 people were injured by the sarin. It is difficult to obtain exact numbers since many victims are reluctant to come forward. [17] Prosecutors allege that Asahara was tipped off about planned police raids on cult facilities by an insider, and ordered an attack in central Tokyo to divert attention away from the group. The plan evidently backfired, and the police conducted huge simultaneous raids on cult compounds across the country. [18]
Over the next week, the full scale of Aum's activities was revealed for the first time. At the cult's headquarters in Kamikuishiki on the foot of Mount Fuji, police found explosives, chemical weapons and biological warfare agents, such as anthrax and Ebola cultures, and a Russian Mil Mi-17 military helicopter. The Ebola virus had been delivered from Zaire in 1994. [19] There were stockpiles of chemicals that could be used for producing enough sarin to kill four million people. [20] Police also found laboratories to manufacture drugs such as LSD, methamphetamine, and a crude form of truth serum, a safe containing millions of dollars in cash and gold, and cells, many still containing prisoners. During the raids, Aum issued statements claiming that the chemicals were for fertilizers. Over the next six weeks, over 150 cult members were arrested for a variety of offenses. The media were stationed outside their Tokyo headquarters on Komazawa Dori in Aoyamafor months after the attack and arrests waiting for action and to get images of the cult's other members.
On 30 March 1995, Takaji Kunimatsu, chief of the National Police Agency, was shot four times near his house in Tokyo and was seriously wounded. While many suspected Aum involvement in the shooting, the Sankei Shimbun reported that Hiroshi Nakamura is suspected of the crime, but nobody has been charged. [21]
On 23 April, Murai Hideo, the head of Aum's Ministry of Science, was stabbed to death outside the cult's Tokyo headquarters amidst a crowd of about 100 reporters, in front of cameras. The man responsible, a Korean member of Yamaguchi-gumi, was arrested and eventually convicted of the murder. His motive remains unknown.
On the evening of 5 May, a burning paper bag was discovered in a toilet in Shinjuku station in Tokyo, the busiest station in the world. Upon examination it was revealed that it was a hydrogen cyanide device which, had it not been extinguished in time, would have released enough gas into the ventilation system to potentially kill 20,000 commuters.[ citation needed] Several undetonated cyanide devices were found at other locations in the Tokyo subway.[ citation needed]
During this time, numerous cult members were arrested for various offenses, but arrests of the most senior members on the charge of the subway gassing had not yet taken place.
Shoko Asahara was finally found hiding within a wall of a cult building known as "The 6th Satian" in the Kamikuishiki complex on 16 May and was arrested. On the same day, the cult mailed a parcel bomb to the office of Yukio Aoshima, the governor of Tokyo, blowing off the fingers of his secretary's hand. Asahara was initially charged with 23 counts of murder as well as 16 other offenses. The trial, dubbed "the trial of the century" by the press, ruled Asahara guilty of masterminding the attack and sentenced him to death. The indictment was appealed unsuccessfully. A number of senior members accused of participation, such as Masami Tsuchiya, also received death sentences.
The reasons why a small circle of mostly senior Aum members committed atrocities and the extent of personal involvement by Asahara remain unclear to this day, although several theories have attempted to explain these events. In response to the prosecution's charge that Asahara ordered the subway attacks to distract the authorities' away from Aum, the defense maintained that Asahara was not aware of events, pointing to his deteriorating health condition. Shortly after his arrest, Asahara abandoned his post as the organization's leader, and since then has maintained silence, refusing to communicate even with lawyers and family members. |
