"Bashar al-Assad now joins the list of Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein who have used these weapons in time of war," Kerry said.(multiple news stories)
It is unclear from the stories whether Kerry's reference was specifically to Sarin gas, which is what Assad's forces apparently used, or to poison gas more generally. If the latter, his list ought to have included Woodrow Wilson, Lloyd George, and Kaiser Wilhelm, since mustard gas was used by both sides in World War I. It was not, however, used by either side in WWII.
If Kerry was referring to Sarin gas in particular, there is a different problem. As best I can tell, Hitler's government manufactured Sarin gas during WWII but never used it. After the end of the war it was also manufactured (but not used) by both the U.S. and the USSR. It is possible that Kerry is aware of some use of Sarin by the Nazis that my web search on the subject missed. But my guess is that he simply did not bother to check his historical facts before giving in to the temptation to link Assad to Hitler.
P.S. Some commenters point out that Kerry might have been referring, not to the use of poison gas in warfare, but to the use of poison gas to kill people while a war was going on, something of which Hitler was guilty. One problem with that interpretation, aside from the use of gas in warfare in WWI, is that the U.S. has used gas for executions since the 1920's. So if that was his point, his list should have included FDR, Truman and Eisenhower, as well as the heads of state of a considerable number of other countries.
What I find disturbing about this incident is not that Kerry was demonstrating either historical ignorance or deliberate dishonesty but that practically nobody seems to have noticed.
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