When it comes to the deep hole of lies and inconsistencies that US foreign policy is vis-a-vis Syria, it has two options: stop digging or double down. Following the earlier report [5]by the UN that outright rejected the full blown White House propaganda push to make it seem that it was Assad's regime that was using chemical weapons as a front to stage a military incursion against a very unappealing despot, that it was the Al-Qaeda assisted and potentially US-armed rebels who had in fact been using toxic sarin gas, there was some hope that the digging would stop. Instead, the doubling down began.
From AP [6]:
The White House says it's highly likely that Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime, not the rebel opposition, was behind any chemical weapons use in Syria.
White House spokesman Jay Carney says there is certainly evidence that chemical weapons have been used. But Carney says the U.S. is highly skeptical of claims that rebels put them in play.
Indeed, when presented with fact, Carney gets highly skeptical. Recall from earlier [5]:
Carla Del Ponte, a member of the UN independent commission of inquiry on Syria, said that testimony gathered from casualties and medical staff indicated that the nerve agent sarin gas was used by rebel fighters.
"Our investigators have been in neighbouring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated," Ms Del Ponte said in an interview with Swiss-Italian television, broadcast on Sunday.
"This was used on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities," she added, speaking in Italian.
Ms Del Ponte added that the inquiry has yet to see any direct evidence suggesting that government forces have used chemical weapons, but said further investigation was required before this possibility could be ruled out.
The above is trivial: who needs facts when you still have the world's reserve currency, and the "moral high ground"?