At least 30 schoolgirls were poisoned on Tuesday in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz, the third such attack on a girls; school in the city in less than a month, officials said. It is unclear who was behind the attacks.
“A masked man, dressed in black, came into the classroom and threw a small box at us. When we saw the box, we tried to run away, but I passed out. When I regained consciousness, I was in hospital,” said 13-year-old Nafeesa, quoted by Pajhwork Afghan News.
The girls who fell ill on Tuesday were taken to a local hospital. Some of them were unconscious and in a critical condition, head of the city hospital, Homayoon Khamosh, told Pajhwok.
He said the cause of their sickness was a poisonous gas, similar to the one that had been used at Khodeja-ul-Kubra and Fatima-tu-Zahara girls' schools in Kunduz last month.
Pajhwok quoted provincial police chief, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Razaq Yaqubi blaming the attacks on reactionaries who opposed education for girls.
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So why would Obama say ,”If you use poison gas,..we will not ‘retaliate’.”
Traditionally, US defense policy has been to retaliate against chemical or biological warfare attacks with the only remaining special weapon in our stocks; nuclear weapons. So far, fear of nuclear response to chemical and biological attack has been a key deterrent to such attacks by nation-state actors (and the massive support the Taliban enjoys from Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence agency and segments of the Pakistani Armed Forces very strongly suggests they are active in Pakistan’s force projection in Afghanistan in actuality if not in word).
The Obama administration, in drawing down stocks of existing tactical nuclear weapons and abolishing funding for new tactical nuclear weapons which can be used while creating a lower fallout burden on surrounding civilian areas, is tying the Defense Department’s hands – and destroying our ability to deter poison gas attacks.