Barrel bombs of chlorine gas were dropped on a residential neighborhood in Aleppo, causing at least 80 people – many of them children – to suffer from breathing difficulties.

CNN:

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported the attack, saying that medical sources accused regime warplanes of pounding the Sukkari neighborhood with barrel bombs "laden with poison gas."

Harrowing footage distributed by the Syrian Civil Defense -- also known as the White Helmets -- shows small children and other victims being rushed to the makeshift Basel Aslan hospital in the arms of rescuers, gasping desperately for air as they are given oxygen masks.

Such scenes are becoming all too familiar in Aleppo, part of which has been held by rebels since July 2015. Government forces in July encircled the rebel-held part of the city in a siege that cut residents off from basic supplies of food, water, fuel and medicine, spawning a humanitarian crisis.

Rebel-held Aleppo has been pounded by the forces of President Bashar al-Assad's regime, backed by Russian air power. Several cases of chlorine gas bomb attacks also have been reported there.

Why isn't the U.N. imposing sanctions on Russia and Syria for using WMD on civilians?  The White House says chlorine gas is not "historically" a chemical weapon.  I'm sure the ghosts of tens of thousands of soldiers from World War I would violently disagree.

Chlorine gas is not banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention because of the hundreds of industrial uses for the product.  But how the substance is employed should be the determining factor.  The Syrians deliberately constructed a weapon that could deliver the gas and then dropped it on a civilian neighborhood.  If there is any clearer violation of the chemical weapons treaty, I haven't seen it.

Syria's supply of chemical weapons was supposedly taken away by Russia.  The fact that mustard and sarin gas were used in attacks on civilians gives the lie to that notion and implicates Russia in enabling these horrific attacks.

Gone and forgotten – Obama's disappearing "red line" regarding Syria's use of chemical weapons.  Recall that Obama announced this red line without consulting the military or the State Department – incredible if you give it any thought.  Putin stepped in to save him by getting Assad to agree to the transfer of his stockpiles to Russia, which also signaled Assad that there would be no interference from the U.S. if he chose to gas his enemies.

All lives lost as a result of Assad's flouting of international law and human decency are directly on the head of the U.S. president.  His feckless, incompetent administration enables the bloodshed in Syria and the civilian deaths the world seems unable to stop.