Allegations and Facts

"It is clear that chemical weapons were used. It is clear that in Syria, only the Assad administration is in possession of this weapon. The whole world knows who has what amount of weapons, where these weapons are and where they go to. This is clear as day. Everyone knows who used the chemical weapons."
Turkish deputy prime minister Bekir Bozdag, Ankara

It is clear, but it is an awkward admission. Requiring a diplomatic degree of obfuscation, circumlocution, mild denial, objections, puzzlement. Proof, there must be undeniable proof. And that is precisely what the Syrian regime is eager to present; it has testified its discovery of vats containing chemical agents, left behind when Syrian rebels vacated the area in which they were found.

"This all smacks of an attempt, at any cost, to establish grounds for forwarding the demands of the enemies of the regime. This crime near Damascus" represents the hallmarks of "premeditated provocation" on the part of the terrorist rebels who have ruthlessly set out to embark on a course of action that would be attributed to the regime. For the larger purpose of persuading the Security Council to support the opposition. That's the theory of Alexander Lukashevich, a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry.

"There would have to be reaction with force in Syria from the international community. There is no question of sending troops on the ground", however, stated Laurent Fabius the French foreign minister. Of course all the uncertainty could be put to a swift halt and the matter settled; whether it was the regime or the rebels who were responsible for the heinous night-time attack with deadly nerve agents on a sleeping public, killing an estimated one thousand, injuring many thousands more.

Through the simple expedient of allowing the United Nations weapons inspectors, chemical agent experts, access to the two sites involved where traces of the chemicals would still be present. It would be a fairly quick access point from the central Damascus luxury hotel where they have been installed by the government to the twenty-minute drive over to those areas hit by sarin, slaughtering children in their sleep.

"According to our intelligence assessments there was use of chemical weapons -- and this, of course, was not for the first time", said Yuval Steinitz, Israeli minister of strategic and intelligence affairs and international relations, helpfully. He is supported by the informed opinion of countless experts in the use of chemical agents who have assiduously studied the many photographs and damning videos that have appeared on the Internet.

Predictably, and fairly uselessly, the Security Council held an emergency session. That august body called for a swift investigation of the 'allegations', and a ceasefire. And, folks, that's it.

Oh, and there's a fascinating entry by DebkaFile that goes something like this: 

Here are some facts: The sarin nerve gas atrocity of Wednesday, Aug. 21, alleged to have claimed more than 1,000 lives, was the work of the 155th Brigade of the Syrian army’s 4th Division, headed by President Bashar Asad’s younger brother Gen. Maher Assad. 

The poison gas shells were fired from the big Mount Kalmun army base south of Damascus, one of the three repositories of Syria’s chemical weapons. In response to a demand from Moscow last December, Assad collected his chemical assets in three depots. The other two are Dummar, a suburb 5 kilometers outside Damascus, and the Al-Safira air base, west of Aleppo.

Not a single shell or gram of poison gas is loaded for use at any of the three sites without an explicit directive from the president or his brother.