Syria's Gas Attack

We'll never know who really pulled the trigger.

Gas missiles 'were not sold to Syria' - Comment - Voices - The Independent:

Russia says the missiles were not sold to Syria.

Russia's new "evidence" about the attack includes the dates of export of the specific rockets used and – more importantly – the countries to which they were originally sold. They were apparently manufactured in the Soviet Union in 1967 and sold by Moscow to three Arab countries, Yemen, Egypt and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's Libya. 

And everyone should be thinking about this.

Why, for example, would Syria wait until the UN inspectors were ensconced in Damascus on 18 August before using sarin gas little more than two days later – and only four miles from the hotel in which the UN had just checked in? Having thus presented the UN with evidence of the use of sarin – which the inspectors quickly acquired at the scene – the Assad regime, if guilty, would surely have realised that a military attack would be staged by Western nations. 

As it is, Syria is now due to lose its entire strategic long-term chemical defences against a nuclear-armed Israel – because, if Western leaders are to be believed, it wanted to fire just seven missiles almost a half century old at a rebel suburb in which only 300 of the 1,400 victims (if the rebels themselves are to be believed) were fighters. As one Western NGO put it yesterday: "if Assad really wanted to use sarin gas, why for God's sake, did he wait for two years and then when the UN was actually on the ground to investigate?"

Again, we'll never know who was responsible but I'm betting against it being ordered by Assad's regime. It may have been a loose-cannon commander in the Syrian force but I'd bet it was fired by the rebels or someone associated with the rebels.

I think we have to ask, who had the most to lose or gain? Assad surely had the most to lose since chemical weapons would undoubtedly put the international community against him. Everyone knew of Obama's red line and chemical weapons are universally frowned-upon. Crossing the chemical weapons line was a sure losing move for Assad. No leader could be that stupid. On the other hand, the rebels, or those backing them, had the most to gain since, with Obama's foot-in-mouth red-line established, a gas attack would surely put the US, and probably the international community, in the fight on the side of the rebels. Also,  as the quote above shows, the timing was just too convenient. UN inspectors on the ground, in the vicinity, no real reason for the government forces to use them at that time. It just doesn't add up.

Until there is more evidence, that's my take.

I did like this line

"In a country – indeed a world – where propaganda is more influential than truth,...."

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