Nerve Gas and Tomahawk Missiles

In August 2012 President Obama said “a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around …that’s a red line for us.” This was in reference to an admission by the Assad regime in Syria that they had chemical weapons but they would “never, never be used against the Syrian people or civilians during this crisis, under any circumstances.” Within a year, there was evidence that suggested that the nerve gas Sarin had been used on a civilian population.

In the U.S, polling showed that the public had tired of war and was on record as opposing more involvement by our military in the area. Obama sought a joint resolution for an “Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against the Government of Syria to Respond to Use of Chemical Weapons.” The resolution failed. With neither public nor congressional support for military action, Obama sought an agreement with Assad to remove the chemical weapons.

After the recent use of Sarin, the current administration acted without congressional approval and launched an attack with 60 Tomahawk missiles on an air base in Syria. It is thought that this was the base from which the most recent chemical attack was launched.

Sarin is a very toxic nerve agent. It actually isn’t a gas but rather a liquid designed to be aerosolized, meaning sprayed as a fine mist. Contact with bare skin or especially inhalation causes a number of symptoms ranging from heavy salivation, profuse sweating, muscle cramps, convulsions and death resulting from respiratory paralysis. Not pretty, huh?

Sarin is a member of a class of poisons known as Acetyl Choline Esterase Inhibitors. Other substances that have the same effect, but lower toxicity are a number of insecticides. Even the relatively safe house and garden type insecticides kill insects by the same mechanism. So how do they work?

Imagine you want to wiggle your big toe. A message travels from your brain via several nerves “talking” to each other to get the signal all the way to your toe. For the signal to get from one nerve to the next requires the opening and then closing of a “gate.” The gate opening allows the signal and the closing stops the signal. If the gate doesn’t close your toe would continue to wiggle. That is the way Sarin and other Acetyl Choline Esterase Inhibitors work. They keep the gate open. A small stimulation of a nerve can’t be turned off. The affected tissue is overstimulated.

Back to the deaths from Sarin in Syria and our military response. By bombing the airfield a message was sent but is seems to be a fairly ineffective one. Within days the base was back in operation and launching conventional bombing attacks on the same town that had been attacked with Sarin. Now we are left with what’s next?

A recent Galllup poll found that a scant 51% supported our missile attack on the airbase, and 54 % oppose any further strikes. Finally, 69% are not confident that the the one strike will dissuade Assad from again using chemical weapons.

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