Sarin gas was used in the Syrian civil war. As our own civil war will attest, civil wars are the most vicious. In ours, 2% of the entire nation died, or nearly 7 million in today’s population. Misinformation is a hallmark of civil war and truth is hard to find on any side. In Syria, we have more than a dozen factions or militias involved; toss religion, politics and tribal fervor into the mix and the truth is even harder to find.

The Syrian government and the Russian Federation maintain that gas attacks on Kahn Sheikhoun Syria April 6 were pre-emptive conventional aerial bombs, being used against terrorists and insurgents who were making poison gas. The rationale for the deaths of noncombatants was that they were the unintended victims of the terrorist chemical plant’s destruction. The story is feasible, but highly unlikely.

Sarin gas was produced first in 1930s Germany, and later adopted by the NATO and the Warsaw Pact nations as the war gas of choice. Sarin is an odorless, tasteless and invisible gas that kills in seconds or up to days, depending on exposure. Sarin can be transferred from person to person through contact with skin or clothing.  To put it mildly it is terrifying, nasty stuff.

Outside Syria, the most infamous use of Sarin was in the Tokyo subway in 1995. The attack was made by a Japanese cult, the Aum Shinrikyo; they were well funded and very sophisticated, their production facility was modern and staffed with highly educated technically competent scientists.

The production process of Sarin is difficult, specialized and dangerous; waste products of production are lethal and unstable. Of the four German scientists who developed Sarin, one was exposed during the process and he was a disabled for the rest of his short life. Sarin is not a weapon that can be cooked up in your kitchen. The precursors of Sarin are dangerous to handle, expensive and hard to get. It is extremely doubtful that the non-government forces in the Syrian civil war are capable of producing Sarin gas.

President Barack Obama made a deal with the Russians and Syrian government that they would destroy their poison gas arsenal under the supervision of the United Nations; what could possibly go wrong with this plan? The United States was on the verge of punishing Syria for the use of internationally banned weapons when Syrians offered to voluntarily relinquish their arsenal of poison gas if we would not attack their delivery systems. The Russians offered to guarantee compliance and Secretary of State John Kerry was convinced the plan was solid. The Syrians and Russians played us for the fools we were.

It makes you wonder how good the Iranian nuclear treaty is; it is much of the same type of an agreement as the Syrian poison gas deal was.