Putin's Propaganda Blunder

I am a known Putin admirer, and on the discussion boards I have been accused of being his bot and/or his bootlicker. Well, let them say what they will. I like Vladimir Vladimirovch when he is smart and down-to-brass-tacks which is most of the time. I don't like the stupid, manipulative banter in politics which is what is currently being served in the West twenty-four seven. Putin is a welcome relief from that.  He talks common sense and that is why he comes across loud and clear - across languages (though I still have some Russian). On the other hand, while I admire the Russian president,  I don't idolize him. He is human and makes mistakes like all of us.  I hope he will not make another mistake of the sort he made last month. 

         Masha Gessen is one of the Moscow journalists who was not killed or maimed for being critical of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, even though she was a lesbian activist in and spread the most ridiculous tale about his corruption, an alleged selfie called Putin Black Sea Palace.  But a miracle happened. When she was sacked by a popular  magazine for ignoring one of  Putin's public relations stunts, she received a personal call from him with an invitation to visit him in the Kremlin. What transpired during her interview with the Russian president is certainly worth the read. That Masha has a hostile animus toward Vladimir Vladimovich I think comes out loud and clear. Other than the late Zbig Brzezinski, I can't think of anyone who would describe Putin as shallow, self-involved, not terribly perceptive, and apparently very poorly informed.  Strangely, or perhaps not, from what I have seen, this would be how I would describe Masha Gessen, who has since moved to the U.S. and milks her Putin envy and Kremlin twenty-minute expertise for all it is worth. Do not get me wrong; I am not saying that Masha is not bright - she is - but like some women on the public scene she suffers from the Hillary Complex, that is, a hopelessly exaggerated view of her own importance and abilities. If she really knew Putin's habits she would have known he always comes prepared for interviews and so he certainly knew everything that mattered about her (especially her book on himself published in the West) and the effect the encounter would have on the perception of him when the word gets out about her Kremlin visit. So, dear Masha, you were played.

        I never thought I would agree with anything that Masha Gessen had to say about Vladimir Putin. But, we live in a strange world where strange things happen. So I do agree with her that the president wants to wage a rhetorical war with the U.S. without too many coffins. Naturally, I don't mean it as an exercise laced in Schadenfreude, and I certainly would not use the word coffin in the punchline.  It's a way too morbid way to make the point even if you are Alexei Balabanov and you have a scary tale to tell about a Russian soul warped by murderous Soviet authoritarianism. (His 2007 horror movie used a Soviet-era euphemism for a military coffin - "Cargo 200").  Nor do I see Putin as someone who wants to engage in war propaganda to collect brownie points on the nasty Russian right, to wit, among the village butchers and pub brawlers, where, Gessen apparently believes, lie Putin's natural political affinities. All that aside, her bottom point is valid. Putin has unadvisedly engaged in goading the West as a way to compensate perhaps for what Russia can deliver on the battlefield at the present time. I am speaking above all about the annual address to the Federal Assembly, he delivered on March 1st of this year.  This must be the strangest speech Vladimir Putin has ever delivered, or the strangest one I ever heard, at any rate. 

       I was aghast: I could not for the world of me understand why a leader of a nuclear superpower but a second-tier economy harassed for years by barrages of sanctions from the West would want to parade in public an array of new super-sophisticated offensive weapons. Who really needs to know this - if it is real ?  And, pardon me for being Captain Obvious here, would not this be feeding into a known Putin stereotype ? Or say, give credence to the view that Russia is an "existential threat to the U.S."?  Hello?  And Putin would not just talk about the weapons systems but actually show clips of how these monstrous killers "against which there the West has no defense" work in animated simulation on a giant screen behind his rostrum.  The show had a distinct air of unreality. The introduction of each of the new weapons (and the ICBM known in the West as "Satan") was greeted by a loud applause in the audience. There was a cluster of nuclear vehicles descending on Florida (hmmm....) and cruise missiles deftly zigzagging around the U.S. defense system. Even Putin's closing punch line: "they did not want to listen to us before, but they will have to listen to us now" was a truly foolhardy optimism. All it did is recall the naïve Soviet propaganda faithfully tracking the progress of time to the inevitable final victory of communism in the world. These weapons are not a bluff, assured Putin his mesmerized audience, as though his saying he was not bluffing, assured also everyone  he was not misleading his audience about the state of readiness of these systems in the aggregate.   

      The most disconcerting aspect of Putin's speech was that, he, the former high-ranking intelligence officer and experienced statesman evidently did not take into account the most likely response in the West to his message. He should have known that the speech would be dismissed as, one, a way to bolster his domestic support among the pessimistic sort of patriots and the wilder, too-soft-on-the-West yahoos on the eve of election to get them to show up to vote, two, an unrealistic appraisal of the new weapons' system readiness, and three, and most importantly, as "threats" to the security of the West. I simply refuse to believe that the Russian president believed his low-budget large-screen demo would bring the West to the negotiating table.  And indeed, NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu immediately denounced the speech as "bellicose" and "unprovoked", and repeated the ridiculous lie that the Polish and Rumanian ABM batteries are designed to protect against "ballistic missiles from outside of the Euro-Atlantic area", meaning Iran. The Russians have long known that these so-called defensive systems are in fact easily convertible to an offensive platform and their target is Russia and no-one else. 

     Worse still, within few days of the speech Britain cooked up the Skripal sorry saga in Salisbury and another chemical attack false flag in Douma. Russia's intelligence got wind of the latter, and threatened a vigorous response through the Chief of General Staff general Gerasimov in case a fake chemical assault should prompt a military response from the West. It is hard to run away from the impression that the missile attack on Syria, and pretty much everything else that has followed in Russia's relations with the West in the weeks since the address of the Russian president to the Duma, directly relates to the speech, and its implied threat that frankly resembled more a drunken sailor's bragging than the smart and indomitable Putin we have come to know and rely on.

     In several of my discussions on the Web I have been challenged for my perception that Putin meant to "threaten" the West. Naturally, it is in the eye of the beholder, and there though I consider myself Russia's friend, I am a Westerner. I grew up in Prague and have my own perception of the Russians lack of insight in grasping their own aggressive impulses. It was registered by professor T.G.Masaryk (later the first president of Czechoslovakia) who went to Yasnaya Polyana and reported later that Leo Tolstoy, the great apostle of peace and non-violence, regularly slapped around his servants silly. On the same subject, we even had a joke about a Soviet advisor in Africa who "solved" a problem in deciding whether a prisoner of his client army was a dangerous spy. He asked the prisoner to slap his face. The prisoner did and the advisor shot him dead. When the clients asked him why he shot the prisoner he said: 'bezopasnostj prezhde vsevo' (security above all!). They were perplexed: 'no, what we meant to ask is why you asked him to slap your face before shooting him?'  He replied: 'tovarishchi, my nikogda agressory'. (Comrades, we are never the aggressors!)  I recalled the old chestnut when I read about Nikki Haley's recent posturing: Russia will never be our friend. We'll slap them when we need to. Of course that speaks of a different problem, but by all means, let us stay away these slap fests. They do not add any value.

Staging propaganda events is perhaps necessary but they should be done intelligently. The March 1 speech was far from smart propaganda, unlike, say, inviting Masha Gessen to Kremlin for a tea and a friendly tête-à-tête. Putin was threatening and the sooner he realizes he made a mistake and paid for it by being taken down a peg or two in his international stature, and having Russia's economy further damaged, the better for all of us.

Why Does Putin Kill Kittens ?

    Because of the way MMOs (major media outlets) report on certain realities in the world these days, the question in the headline needs to be grasped first on the merits of its utility. It does not really matter if Vladimir Vladimirovich destroys cuddly domestic pets, or whether such accusation is stupid beyond belief. We have the means to validate whatever beliefs by the wonders of communications technology.  The thing to grasp here is whether it is useful to believe that Putin kills kittens. And the finding would be - I guess - yes it is useful.  It is useful to believe that because it makes available certain options which the US foreign policy would not normally enjoy.

 Now here again I need to pause and digress.  I realize that to say anything about anything in terms of norms in our time is felt by the intellectually destitute squatters occupying main street to be deeply abnormal, as they would no doubt describe efforts to be normal as being patriarchal or heterosexist or dinosaural. So, it is really hard to imagine what normal options in US foreign policy would be to begin with in this particular bubble of here-and-now. Especially, since the women who run (which at this juncture means animate) US foreign policy from Michelle Obama down to Mary Harf are not exactly the blushing types.  But let us just say that in the olden days, say before Reagan's amiable senility set the policy tone, one would not badmouth foreign dignitaries unless one meant business, that is to say, one really meant to kill the sons-of-bitches. But not even then. Churchill omitted Hitler's titles (even the sarcastic Herr) when referring to him only after the war started.  

     Not so in our times. For Hillary Clinton whose demeanor epitomizes the contemporary lack of personal culture, not to say norms of diplomatic protocol, Putin is KGB psycho or Hitler or whatever the brainwave washes up on the spikes of her tongue. She does not mean to kill the son-of-a-bitch when she accuses him (a soulful Russian) of lacking a soul. She just does her politico version of twerking for the evening news. He is smart; he'll figure out it isn't for real - it's only for the masses hungering for some exciting news from a woman who cannot be wrong.  If she says that Putin (Warning : a graphic description ahead may be disturbing to some readers !) skins the poor critters alive it must be so. And if it rings true in the feeble American grasp of the world that,  as Jen Psaki said that the population of Crimea was 'forced to go to the polls facing a false choice' in a 2014, then the claim that the Russian president has vivisectionist tendencies offers tantalizing possibilities in extending NATO to the gates that obsessed the Russian chauvinists since the time immemorial.

So, yes, Putin kills kittens. And we have a proof that ! Well actually, like with the proof of columns of Russian military hardware entering Ukraine, it is more or less in the eye of the beholder. But that does not matter. Let the RT and one of the Rands blow into the wind all they want. The US Senate had a proof of Russian tanks invading Ukraine. We have a proof of Putin killing kittens. It may not be available quite in a consumable packaging but we are all adults and we are sophisticated about the world we live in. And since women rule and the Duchess of Cambridge is into killing kittens as well, the real question is, WTF am I talking about?  Ah, yes, the world where women rule !

And In Kiev We Have an Uncle !

     I don't believe Winston Churchill's confession about Russia appearing to him a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.  It was play-acting, putting on he did not understand that Stalin was a Bolshevik, who signed a pact with Hitler to postpone an ideological war against Russia which both he and Churchill knew was coming. Winston showed he had firm grasp of the historical strategic interests of Russia in the next few sentences of that broadcast on the day Hitler invaded Poland:

......but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest. It cannot be in accordance with the interest of the safety of Russia that Germany should plant itself upon the shores of the Black Sea, or that it should overrun the Balkan States and subjugate the Slavonic peoples of south eastern Europe,  That would be contrary to the historic life-interests of Russia.
Thus, my friends, at some risk of being proved wrong by events, I will proclaim tonight my conviction that the second great fact of the first month of the war is that Hitler, and all that Hitler stands for, have been and are being warned off the east and the southeast of Europe.

    Winston Churchill knew his geopolitics; the gynocracy that rules the latter US State Department does not. They say things to Russians for which the Moskali have a clever old saying that goes like: "In the garden we have edelberry; and in Kiev an uncle".  The adage does not lend itself to an easy translation. It is a mocking paraphrase of someone who is full of herself, puts on airs, talks nonsense, gets lost in her own fantastic schemes.  It seems tailor-made for the US/EU posturing on Ukraine.
     

 

 

      Most Americans, in their arrogance and ignorance do not quite appreciate how lucky they are to have someone like Putin calling the shots in the Kremlin and not, some swell-head driven by an ideology, politically or religiously in a fundamental conflict of values with the West, and seeing himself the chosen figure to bring in a messianic kingdom, the Mahdi's rule in the end of days or a historically inevitable workers' paradise.  Of course, this appears to be talking edelberry to the likes of Susan, Samantha,Victoria or for that matter, to the martyred first lady and feminist presidential redeemer to come, Hillary Rodham-Clinton.  Ergo they, and their drone John Kerry,  will reply by pledge of support to their uncle in Kiev.

          The Ukraine narrative of the State Department and the MSM did not make any sense to begin with. The few wise old owls in the States and in Europe said so from the start in February and never wavered. Kissinger pointed out that this foreign policy adventure (like some others recently) lacks a clear objective, a clear-headed end strategy. Klaus (yes, him again) thinks this the unfolding of events in Ukraine are the greatest political tragedy of post-WWII Europe.  The former Czech president and the anti-EU conservative maverick calls the late  western lying about Russia monstrous.  If one may put it more politely, they are stupid. 

         Not always stupid, mind you. The reports of mass graves with hundreds of bodies of Russian-speaking civilians that Churkin and Lavrov claimed last week seem greatly exaggerated and one of the war tales that take on life of their own. There were dozens of civilians reported shot by the Ukrainian paramilitaries in Maiuopol last May.  It turned out to be less than a dozen.  But the fact remains that Donetsk and part of Lugansk have been shelled by the Ukrainian military and the Kiev paramilitaries since the ceasefire in what appears to be deliberate targeting of civilians.  That part cannot be denied or obscured by obnoxious formulas that makes the two sides equally guilty of violations. There is also the shameful silence on the hugely disproportionate number of Russian-speaking civilians among the victims. This omission looks like a sly suggestion that the innocent dead are victims of the pro-Russian "terrorists" who are in reality militias protecting the Russian speakers against the politics of ethnic cleansing (whether by intimidating them to leave for Russia, or by anti-Russian legislation that would deprive of political rights and their ethnic identity). That this is not some Moscow brewed propaganda kasha would be apparent to anyone who listens to debates in the Ukrainian parliament for one hour or less. 

       In no country which is a member of the European Union, or aspires to be one, a brutal suppression of an ethnic minority would be tolerated.  Unless of course it happens to be one which is Serbian or Russian. To those two, different sets of rules apply. Before the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 there were approximately two hundred thousand Serbs in Kosovo. There are twenty five thousand left today. The tragic fate of the Kosovan Serbs prompted even an deep-in-the-wool Serb hater like the ITCY prosecutor Carla del Ponte to revise her view, and speak out against the NATO sponsored Atrocity-aspiring-to-be-a-European-State that is Kosovo.

    Or Ukraine.  Russia is that country's small problem. The much bigger problem is essentially a lack of a vision that could make it a functioning, prosperous modern state. What continually destabilizes Ukraine is not Russia but its internal identity crisis, a series of obsessive campaigns to redefine itself as a monolithic national whole. The only sustained theme of this struggle is a desire to be "not Russia", which is of course what all countries once dominated by Russia want to be. In the family of the Slavic nations perhaps only the Southern Slavs, namely the Serbs, Macedonians, and Bulgarians do not have a built-in defense reflex against Russia's quest of Euro-Asian hegemony.  There are two problems however which make Ukraine's version of it more prominent. One, the cultural and historical bond with Russia is much longer lasting than other nations', with the Russian state actually originating in the Kievan Rus and pushing eastward. Second, there is a large Russian speaking minority in Ukraine, and beyond that another, much larger segment of people who are ethnic Ukrainians who speak both languages but prefer using Russian for business and convenience. It is estimated that around 50% of the country stills speaks Russian or both languages at home.  Culturally also, Ukraine appears to be joined to Russia at the hip, with a number of Ukrainian writers and playwrights still preferring Russian. In the Galician (western Ukrainian) version of national identity, people who do not write in Ukrainian would not be considered Ukrainians, but that is not the view of most other compatriots. There are ongoing squabbles about Nikolai Gogol's nationality, even though all of his celebrated work was in Russian. The Bard of Ukraine, Taras Shevchenko composed in both languages, though his diaries and most of his personal correspondence was in Russian. 

          So, to begin with, the project of some ethnically pure laine Ukrainian nationality is a dubious undertaking which will be resisted by vast segments of the population, whether it be enshrining Russian as a second official language of Ukraine (Yanukovich's project which he abandoned) or, conversely, drastically curtailing the toleration for the use of the Russian language.  However, the language question is only scratching the surface.  In an able brief on the major political challenges the country faces Vaclav Klaus pointed to the artificiality of the state, stitched together as it were from different ethnographic regions, with varied historical loyalties and religious affiliations.  This goes beyond different dialects of the Ukrainian language. There does not seem to be a uniting motive other that essentially the negative theme of not wanting to be Russian, or to be dominated by Russia, or to be dismembered by Russia, in short of seeing Russia as the source of all of Ukraine's current misery. In a telling little incident in the Ukraine parliament not too long ago the current mechanics of destabilization have been beautifully illustrated.   They have nothing to do with Russia. The two actors are both anti-Russian: the one punched in the face a well-known political provocateur hurling insults at the bigger guy telling him to go and fight terrorists in Donbas. The puncher is affiliated with the supporters of the most prominent of the anti-Russian oligarchs, Ihor Kolomoiskij. 

       Which brings us to the biggest problem of Ukraine since it emerged as an independent state in the post-Soviet era.  It is a country dominated by oligarchs and political operators. In many ways it resembles Russia under Yeltsin, dragged into interminable fights for dominance by the top dogs, out to get as much of the piece of action as possible. The MSM in the West have no inkling of the behind-the-scenes manoeuvering of the political blocks around the huge concentration of money in the country. Or perhaps the do but they are not telling. At any rate, the system is well-known to people who follow events in that part of the world.

      How do the Russians see all of this ?  In absorbing several discussions on Rossiya 1 TV channel from the last month, I was surprised to find out that there is a general consensus around key issues. The Russian hyper-nationalists (who want "re-unification" with the cradle of Great Russia) were generally held in check. Most participants (well known figures in Russian political debates, academics and writers), seem resolutely against any kind of  "pan-Slavic brotherhood" of the sort that is falsely imputed to Putin by the western politicos and their media butlers. They are nearly unanimous in supporting the idea of a federated Ukraine, as they are against the continuation of the war in the East.  Surprisingly, one of the loudest "hawks" in Russia, the vice-chairman of the State Duma, Vladimir Zhirinovsky showed up consistently as a peace-maker and made a really uncharacteristic statement that "the worst peace (!) with Kiev is better than war".  (I think this was posturing but all the same !)  In the exchanges with the Ukrainian guests, there were some heated debates. The rep of Putin's party was attacked for the alleged use of Russian troops and for supplying the rebels with heavy weaponry. The response was predictable: "prove it !"  The argument that I did not hear before was that much of the heavy weapons which the militants flashed late in July, in the offensive in the South, was supposedly bought on the Ukrainian black market (where, the story goes, anything is available). But it was greeted with derision by the Ukrainians, and funny faces by the Russian guests. Everyone with any brains in Eastern Europe would not waste any time on arguing about this. In the unspoken rules of the Cold War, the opposing sides fight through proxies. Putin cannot agree politically to the hare-brained scheme of Nuland and Powers to restructure the country with the Galician hyper-nationalists and integrists calling the shots through violence and political repression. The scheme would turn Ukraine against Russia and destroy its influence in the region permanently. Such ideas can only breed in the heads of people who have no sense of reality.    

Pants on Fire

       Rush Limbaugh finally asked the question which is not a question to the Russian president. Did al-Qaeda frame Assad ? Putin said bluntly John Kerry lied to Congress about the role and extent of al-Qaeda participation in the rebel Free Syrian Army. Putin was referring to the Secretary’s answer to Wisconsin’s Senator Ron Johnson who was concerned about the infiltration of the FSA by offshoots of the notorious terrorist organization.

 Kerry answered: “The opposition has increasingly become more defined by its moderation, more defined by the breadth of its membership and more defined by its adherence to some, you know [sic], democratic process and to an all-inclusive, minority-protecting constitution, which will be broad-based and secular with respect to the future of Syria. And that's very critical.”

This comes barely a month after  a massacre in the North in which some 450 civilians were reported killed including 120 children. In this horrrific assault on humanity Assad was not suspected. It was brigades that Secretary Kerry denies play prominent role in the conflict or falsely labels as "moderates" pledged to a post-war democratic process in Syria. The western media have largely ignored the mounting evidence of large-scale atrocities committed by the al-Qaeda affiliates such as the one in Tal Abyad just mentioned or at Khan al-Assal.  In John Kerry’s narrative such incidents simply don’t exist. Or if there is not a decisive proof that al-Qaeda was involved, they are blamed on Assad.  In John McCain’s almanac, the jihadi cri-de-guerre Allahu Akhbar heard on the rebels’ videos showing the decapitations of priests or mass shootings of prisoners, is an equivalent of a church-going Christian’s Thank God!   Do these guys think we are total idiots ? 

 If one goes by facts and not oaths there is little evidence that Bashar al-Assad ordered a large-scale sarin attack against the suburbs of his capital which his forces were bombarding and from which his troops were clearing the rebel fighters.  Of course it is possible he did it,  or someone on his side took matters in his own hands, but on the surface it looks about as probable as that Nidal Hasan was thanking God for the gift of life when executing his unarmed fellow soldiers at Fort Hood.   

  There is obviously something terribly wrong with Kerry’s Syria narrative. It falls apart the moment you start reading something else than Washington Post or the Guardian and watching something else than the Wolf-Blitzer-Christian-Amanpour babble fests.  Kerry's estimate of "15%-25% of extremists among the rebels" would be laughed off by most people on the ground in Syria, that is if they would not laugh off the notion of  FSA as a disciplined, civilized military force before that.   

We of course do not have reliable sources that tell us the chemical attack near Damascus was perpetrated by the rebels. Yes, I am aware of the Gavlak’s report in MintPress News that has jihadist fighters admitting to releasing the gas in Ghouta, but I am not buying that either.  It just does not figure that the chief of Saudi intelligence would have been so personally involved in the incident to have blown his cover. It does not help either that the chief editor of the electronic outlet that employs the former AP reporter is a hijab-clad Palestinian-bred Shia.  We should not be anyone’s fools !  And as a cynic who grew up in communist Eastern Europe during the History’s inexorable march to the final victory of communism, I can tell stupid propaganda when I see it. 

Last Tuesday (9/3/2013), The Guardian ran a staged query on Syria and allowed  the “taboo” question to be asked again: Did the rebels have sarin gas ?  It answered in this fashion:

"It is not the media that is assuming that Assad is responsible. The Guardian and other media have reported claims and assessments by the US, UK, France and the Syrian rebels, and of course official Syrian denials. Only western governments have provided any evidence at all, however adequate or convincing it is judged. All three governments also state categorically that the rebels did not have the capacity to mount a CW attack on the scale of what occurred on 21 August. All have stated they are relying on classified sources as well as the precedent of earlier, smaller attacks. More detail is clearly needed to convince sceptics, given the experience of the Iraq WMD dossier.It has previously been reported that members of the al-Nusra front were caught with sarin nerve gas in Turkey – and this has been echoed by Syrian state media. Dale Gavlak, an independent journalist, has reported a belief that nerve agents used in Ghouta were supplied by Saudi Arabia. So far, however, neither the Syrian government nor Russia have publicly provided any evidence that the rebels were responsible for the incident. Delay in allowing the UN inspectors access to the scene of the attacks, and heavy shelling before they were able to get there, appeared designed to destroy evidence.”

I am sorry but I always assumed that we in the West believe that a crime has to be committed beyond reasonable doubt for one to be in a position to apply sanctions legally.  It cannot be just “any evidence at all”.  Note also, that the Syrian rebels are named among the ones who “concluded” Assad was responsible.  Gee whiz, should not a party that may well be guilty of the atrocity be excluded from passing opinions on it ?   And what about the weaseling around the al-Nusra rebels caught with a sarin canister in Turkey in June ?  Pardon me for asking a stupid question, but why would they try to smuggle sarin into Syria if they did not have the intent, the know-how, and the means to use it ?  Does that make any sense ?     But the real shocker and one that exposes the mendacious nature of the so-called “intelligence data” is the categorical denial that the rebels have “the capacity” to deliver a large scale attack such as undeniably took place east of Damascus in August. 

This is a bold-faced lie that has been repeated by everyone who wants the US military to get involved in the Syrian pandemonium. They say the rebels do not have sophisticated delivery systems for chemical weapons. They do not have an air force, missiles, specialized artillery to deliver the munitions whose payload is mixed in flight. Hmmm, really ? I don't think so.

The fact of the matter is you do not have to have any of the above to launch a horrific assault on humanity by chemical weapons. A president who professes to be outraged by mass killings of civilians has no excuse for not knowing that !  If the jihadists in Syria have access to sarin (which btw is not denied by The Guardian) it means they could very well have used it on the scale and with the effects observed in the terrible incident.  They do not need sophisticated delivery systems. All they need is a few bags of liquid sarin, and a way to puncture them as the terrorists of the death cult Au Shinrikyo did in the Tokyo subway system in 1995 killing twelve and injuring close to a thousand people. This is not a fantasy. This happened and it cannot be denied.  The agreement of the experts is that the toll could have been much worse if the attack had not been botched.  The Syrian jihadis could have very well done something similar during a conventional bombardment by Assad’s army of the areas where they had their fighters and make it look like a chemical attack by him.    

We do not know whether the rebels actually did it or not. But we definitely know it is a self-serving and damnable lie to say that they did not have the capacity to do it.