by Raymond Ibrahim // RaymondIbrahim.com
Russian President Vladimir Putin has a strange way of speaking 
straightforwardly, without all the artificial and “morally superior” airs one expects from Western politicians.
Earlier, for example, he wondered why Western leaders were supporting cannibals in Syria:
You will not deny that one does not really need to support the people who not only kill their enemies, but open up their bodies, eat their intestines in front of the public and cameras. Are these the people you want to support? Is it them who you want to supply with weapons? Then this probably has little relation to humanitarian values that have been preached in Europe for hundreds of years.
Putin was referring to the notorious video of a jihadi leader biting into the organs of a Syrian soldier while screaming Islamic slogans.
Now, the straightforward Russian has asked another equally important and straightforward question — the sort of question so full of common sense that most Western politicians never expect to hear a fellow politician asking (and, as usual, one the Western media have failed to report on, though Arabic media is abuzz with it).
In a videotaped interview published today concerning U.S. attempts to go to war in Syria, not only did Putin criticize Secretary of State John Kerry’s dissembling concerning the nature of the Syrian opposition, but he also said:
There is another question: if it turns out that the armed rebels are the ones who used weapons of mass destruction, what will the United States do with the armed rebels? And what will it do with those sponsoring the rebels? Will they stop supplying them with arms? Will they start fighting against them?
Indeed. Considering that invading Syria is almost entirely being rationalized in the context of Assad violating the human rights of others, what will the U.S. — Obama, Kerry, McCain, et. al. — do if it turns out that the al-Qaeda led rebels are, in fact, the ones using such weapons, as significant evidence already indicates?
Probably what they are doing now: continue misleading Americans and go to war anyway, since — and once again — this has nothing to do with chemical weapons.
Update: RT posted the video and translation of Putin’s questions regarding what the U.S. would do if it turns out the rebels used chemical weapons (here, around the four-minute mark).