A tragic image from last week's horrific gas attack in Syria showed a Syrian father clinging to the corpses of his infant children. The Associated Press reported that Abdel Hameed Alyouse lost 22 family members after warplanes dropped toxic gas over his town in rebel-held Idlib. Abdel said in an interview that he was on his way to see his family when he saw people falling down on the road. Some had started to foam at the mouth.

There were observers tracking the skies that morning to warn residents and rescuers of possible airstrikes. One of them, who saw how the plane was circling, believed that the planes might be carrying a chemical payload and warned, "Tell people to wear masks."When victims were brought to Turkey for treatment, it suggested they were exposed to sarin, an odorless paralyzing agent that is 26 times more deadly than cyanide gas. Just a pinprick-sized droplet can kill a human. The strike, one of the deadliest of its kind since the Syrian war began six years ago, killed at least 80 people, including children.The use of chemical warfare was first used on a massive scale came a century ago in World War I. With the deaths of more than 100,000 people from chemical weapons such as mustard gas, it was outlawed internationally at the Geneva Protocol in 1925.The Germans developed the nerve gas sarin in 1938 - just before World War II - for use as a pesticide.Over the past century, six dictators have used chemical warfare on a mass scale: Benito Mussolini, Italy's fascist dictator, dropped mustard bombs on Ethiopian civilians in 1934, killing tens of thousands; Japanese Emperor Hirohito regularly dropped mustard gas on Chinese cities in 1937-39; Egyptian President Gama Abdul Nasser ordered the use of chemical weapons during the North Yemen civil war and between 1963-1967, about 1,500 died; and Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons to gain territory in Iran during the Iraq-Iran War and again against the Kurds and Shiite Muslims in northern Iraq, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands between 1978-91.Adolf Hitler never used chemical weapons on the battlefield during World War II. His Nazi regime killed millions of Jews in concentration camps through the use of a poisonous gas known as Zyklon B in the gas chambers.The latest mass murderer to resort to chemical warfare is Syria's Bashar Assad. In December 2012 there were reports of Assad using sarin nerve gas against rebel and civilian populations, and the next year, the U.S. confirmed that Assad had launched a chemical weapon attack that caused the deaths of nearly 1,500. What makes Assad's attacks especially insidious is that he gasses his own people. After the recent gas attack, his warplanes then bombed the medical clinics where medical workers were desperately trying to save the lives of those suffering and dying from the earlier chemical strike.Over the past six years, Assad's war has killed nearly 500,000 people and driven 6 million from their homes and villages. During their short lifetimes, those Syrian children who became victims of his latest atrocity have known nothing but death and the horror of war.The American response was swift, decisive and proportionate.Nikki Haley, ambassador to the United Nations, stated that the "attack was a new low even from the barbaric Assad regime."President Donald Trump called the attack on innocent civilians an "affront to humanity" and that "these heinous actions by the Assad regime cannot be tolerated."Trump's swift action to use airstrikes against a Syrian air field made despots like Assad and North Korea's Kim Jong Un realize that there is a new sheriff in town. They are no longer dealing with Barack Obama, who failed to enforce his self-declared "red line" after Assad's chemical attack in 2013 killed 1,000 people near Damascus.By Jim Zbick |

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