[POLCAFE #7096] Friek_ in de Dark Side

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Sean Spicer makes bizarre claim that Hitler never used chemical weapons

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer made the bizarre claim on Monday that Adolf Hitler never stooped to the level of using chemical weapons, as Syria's Bashar al-Assad has.

When asked if Spicer thought there was any reason to think that Russia would pull back from supporting their decades-long ally, Syria, Spicer seemed to muddle some facts regarding World War II history.

"We didn't use chemical weapons in World War II. You had someone as despicable as Hitler didn't even sink to using chemical weapons. If you're Russia, you have to ask yourself if this is a country and regime that you want to align yourself with," said Spicer.

However, the World War II-era German dictator famously did use chemical weapons in gas chambers to exterminate millions of Jewish people, LGBTQ people, and Romanians.

"They are now getting on the wrong side of history in a really bad way," Spicer said of Russia.

Moments later, Spicer was asked to clarify his comments on Hitler. "When it comes to sarin gas, he was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Assad is doing," said Spicer.

"In the way that Assad used them where he went into towns and dropped him down on innocents in the middle of town was not the same. I appreciate the clarification, that was not the intent," said Spicer presumably about his implication that Hitler did not use chemical weapons.

But Spicer's clarification still remains murky. Hitler gassed his own people, many of whom were German Jews or others found undesirable to the Nazi movement, though it's true that Hitler did not order air strikes with chemical weapons on civilian populations.

The Trump administration has previously found itself in hot water after omitting any reference to the plight of the Jewish people during World War II in an official statement on Holocaust Remembrance day.