VOA常速英语:World Must Stop the Use of Chemical Weapons

“The day we prayed would never come has come again,” said U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.“Chemical weapons have once again been used on Syrian men, women, and children.”

“Only a monster targets civilians and then ensures that there are no ambulances to transfer the wounded,” declared Ambassador Haley. “No hospitals to save their lives. No doctors or medicine to ease their pain.”

The Russian regime's “hands are all covered in the blood of Syrian children,” said Ambassador Haley. She added that the international community “must not overlook Russia and Iran's roles in enabling the Assad regime's murderous destruction. Russia and Iran have military advisers at Assad's airfields and operations centers. Russian officials are on the ground helping direct the regime's ‘starve and surrender' campaign, and Iranian allied forces do much of the dirty work.”

Since the Assad regime used chemical weapons at Khan Sheikhun one year ago, chemical weapons have been reportedly used dozens of times.

Ambassador Haley urged fellow Security Council members to take action. “This is about the inhumane use of chemical agents on innocent civilians,” something each member of the Security Council is on record as opposing.“There can be no more rationalizations for our failure to act,” declared Ambassador Haley.

The United States has introduced a resolution demanding unrestricted humanitarian access to the people of Douma. The priority must be to help the starving, the sick, and the injured who have been left behind. “We also call on this Council to immediately re-establish a truly professional and impartial mechanism to attribute responsibility for chemical weapons attacks in Syria.”

“The United States is determined to see that the monster who dropped chemical weapons on the Syrian people is held to account,” said Ambassador Haley.

“We are on the edge of a dangerous precipice,” she warned.“The great evil of chemical weapons use that once unified the world in opposition, is on the verge of becoming the new normal. The international community must not let this happen.”

History will record this as the moment when the Security Council either discharged its duty or demonstrated its failure to protect the people of Syria.

“Either way,” said Ambassador Haley, “the United States will respond.”