FAIR Compares Chemical Attack Reports

Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting has a nice piece up comparing the John Kerry version of the Syrian chemical attacks to the Mint Press report. Some of the comments to the story are a good read, too. I'll go ahead and copy and paste "Isobel's" comment below:

"Re the other versions, Obama said 'delivery system' of chemical weapons to civilian victims was rockets. If that had been the case then surely they would have had physical wounds not just neurotoxic, both footage and interviews shown with medics confirmed they did not have physical injuries.
Chem weapons experts are stating that as medics etc were able to be near victims, the chemicals used can't have been 'weapons grade' otherwise they would have affected anyone in contact with the victims not wearing protective clothing, and they weren't. That sounds consistent with rebel story, Syrian Gov is hardly likely to use weapons not weapons grade I would think.
The US stated that they had sarin samples; they didn't state how they acquired them but as the UN is acquiring them direct from site, this seems redundant and no way of verifying who/where the US samples were taken from. Finding samples with sarin does not prove it was the Syrian Gov.
The US also stated they intercepted a 'panicked' phone call from the Syrian Gov Defece office to their chemical weapons dept, in hours after the incident, asking what happened. This is supposed to indicate Syrian Government culpability; the fact they apparently had to ask what had happened does not appear to indicate they were responsible for the attack, otherwise they would have known what happened.
A Syrian government statement, which of course is somewhat subjective, made the valid enough point that sarin used in those quantities would diffuse across a wide area of Damascus. It didn't, therefore they don't think it was Sarin used. I don't know anything much about chem weapons but that does sound entirely valid.
The idea the Syrian Gov would attack in their own backyard particularly at a time when the inspectors were looking at alleged chem weapon use sites, is bizarre frankly. What on earth would be the motive for that?
They were clearly aiming at rebels, the rebels have situated themselves in civilian areas which means when the Gov fires on them, civilians get caught in crossfire. That is something that has not been criticised by US/UK, although it has been known about for well over a year, and was referred to in the UN report a few weeks ago, criticising rebels for 'militarising civilian areas '.
Of course it's emotive because if Assad's forces fire on rebels and hit civilians, it's then presented as attack on civilians. The lack of civilian physical wound casualties in this attack indicates the Syrian gov were aiming at rebels with some precision.
I noticed in the infowars article which I first saw on Friday evening, a rebel had referred to an accident with the chemicals in a tunnel This was consistent with the Syrian Gov saying their soldiers had found remnants of chemical weapons in a tunnel, which was ignored of course by Western Govs who immediately assume the Syrian Gov is always lying, whereas it would be better to keep an open mind on any info until verified.
There is no reason at all to disbelieve the rebel account, it's fairly detailed and 'fits' with details of physical evidence from the area. Keeping an open mind is important however that is not what UK or US Govs (or France) did, they just immediately assume 'it's Assad', believing only one side despite knowing that the rebel forces primary fighters are al Qaeda linked, and al Qaeda are quite happy to plan use of biological/chemical weapons."