Having learned that the Syrian Government has utilised chemical weapons against its own people, the United States is issuing a stern warning to President Bashar al-Assad today, saying that he should go back to killing his citizens in “more civilized, acceptable ways,” such as blowing their bodies to pieces with tank shells and spilling their vital organs with machine gun fire.

The White House says that the regime’s use of deadly sarin gas means they have crossed the “red line” that separates their previous, entirely acceptable actions from their new, unacceptably murderous ones.

“It saddens the President, myself, and I’m sure everyone here, to see a benevolent leader such as Assad suddenly transform into a ruthless monster,” said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, adding that they didn’t see this coming “at all.”

“Up until now, Assad has murdered countless tens of thousands, and every one of those politically motivated murders was done in an ethical, humane fashion, with guns, tanks and cluster bombs,” said Carney. “It was an impeccable record, and to see him sully it by using these other means is just sickening to us.”

He said that President Barack Obama would be writing a letter to Assad in the coming days to tell him that the use of chemical weapons was “unnecessary,” because he was “doing so well without them.”

Carney says that the U.S. will now consider sending arms shipments of “normal weapons” to the Syrian regime, to encourage them to use those instead.