Reply #38: and having been there

[frogcycle]

you know every detail of what is or is not being done?

I support your contention that we do not officially endorse use of chemical weapons as a matter of course. I cannot cite any specific evidence that there have been overt violations of the policy. I also suspect that there have been arguable encroachments. But quibbling over whether a given instance of use of something is/is not "chemical weapons" and determining based on the hair-splitting that therefore everything is either black or white is what the hell is wrong with the public discourse in this country.

It that vein, I tend to side with your position that efforts to find a way to slam the US by combing through data and selective semantics are just propagandistic crap.

Your comment about having been there, though, annoys me. That, in and of itself, does not make you any more a bearer of the truth, the whole truth, than any other opinionated so-and-so. It demeans the argument.