to be dismayed that Cameron, Clegg and Hague are acting like Obama's lapdogs

[allhappyfamiliesarealike]

and are going to get the UK involved in another futile Middle East conflict which will cost British lives, millions of pounds (I thought we were broke?) and achieve nothing.

Why are we doing what Obama wants - we're part of Europe not the 51st state of the USA? What is it about power that makes British Prime Ministers desperate to become military leaders?

But bombing the country, will inevitably cost innocent lives, will be costly to Syria. It's not the answer

But who have used the chemical weapons? There is no clear indication either way, so its like flipping a coin and hoping for the best!

"it is irrelevant if you target the stocks of chemical weapons and weapons plants."

Snag: no-one knows where they are, and they're highly portable. Or are you suggesting that there is good and continuously updated intelligence on this?

We didn't bomb Saddam for using CW at Halabja btw, because USA insisted at the time it was self-inflicted by Iran for effect. That's a nasty resonance to be dealt with now.

And, though CW is illegal in a different way from just slaughtering your citizens by more 'conventional' means, there is probably some awareness of this event causing about 1,000 - 3,000 deaths, and getting a lot of publicity compared to a conflict total of around 100,000. That tends to reduce the impetus to 'do something now'. It's much more important to do the right thing. And sorting out a post conflict plan is more important than anything else.

If you support politicians ordering in the military,
a) what should the military be asked to achieve?
b) who has control of Syria afterwards?

We were kept awake most of the night by a lot of activity at a local USAF. Planes landing and taking off all night which almost never happens due to restrictions so I wonder if they are seriously tooling up.

PS- Same level of activity as Pre Gulf War.

I agree that there are no easy solutions, and probably no solutions at all. However, I for one do not want our government (or that of the French/Dutch/US etc) to sit by and watch innocent children getting gassed. Are we going to sit and wait for another Srebrenica? Because I think the point is that the use of chemical weapons signifies that you have the capacity to committ genocide.

Sadly I think bombing Syria will do nothing. I think it needs a UN backed peacekeeping mission - troops on the ground, not trying to support one side or another, just trying to prevent massacre.

Something has to be done so that the killing of innocent people will stop.
They are killing children with chemical weapons.

I agree with WhatWill, UN peacekeeping...not bombing and killing more.

There were 2 Syrian men talking on the news this morning. Both live and work in this country now, but have strong family ties back in Syria.

Neither of them see a benefit from bombing their country.

Both wondered why 'now'? Both observed there have been so many civilian lives lost through the use of every other sort of weapon by the government on their own people (such as scud) up to now with no intervention from other countries.

Both said they would rather have intervention come as a reaction to the situation as a whole rather than have American just chuck a couple of bombs on their country in a knee jerk reaction to a chemical attack- the origin of which is impossible to prove.

It really annoys me when people say that we should deal with our own problems first. When your children have been gassed to death in their beds, then you might be in a position to make comparisons between the situations of British and Syrian people. I for one am bloody grateful that I live in this country, even though I hate our current government, and thank my lucky stars every time I watch the news that I was not born in one of the many, many countries with far worse problems than ours. What you are saying is that no one should ever get involved in someone else's problems unless they already happen to live in Utopia.

Though I am still not sure what bombing Syria is going to achieve.

I think you don't know what genocide is, especially as you stated 'mass genocide'

Actually I do. It means killing people of a particular race/persuasion/religion/tribe etc. It doesn't mean using gas to kill them by the way. There have been 100,000+ Syrians of various persuasions killed to date, this 3000 hardly tips the scale, yet somehow "a line has been crossed".

The only line crossed here is that gas is emotive enough for warmongering politicians to be able to whip up enough of a national mob frenzy to be allowed to go and bomb people too.

All I can think of is the story of my DD's best friend whose family survived the gassing of their village by anti Kurdish government forces because they had gone out for the day. They walked to the Turkish border at one point having to crawl 27 miles through the sewers.

What they saw they will never forget. I just do not know what the answer is but my friends family said they felt forgotten by the World. That they could all be wiped out and nobody seemed at that point to care.

I don't like the idea that " we should sort our own problems out first" either.

I don't see how we in the West can sit back and watch what is happening in Syria and do nothing. However, whatever we do do should, IMO, be UN backed.

The UN and NOT the US and UK should be the body leading on any intervention. The idea that the Obama and Cameron should repeat the Iraq debacle is completely unacceptable.
More war rhetoric will NOT stop Syria using chemical weapons against civilians. The focus must be on bringing both sides into peace talks - we know what the consequences of armed intervention are (Iraq, Afghanistan) and yet these stupid men never learn.

In an ideal world the UN would be the obvious option, but the reality is that the UN does not have that kind of power, and cannot be effective because of it's structure.

So whose responsibility is it? Why not ours? Why shouldn't developed countries have a responsibility?

It doesn't mean using gas to kill them by the way.

I'm aware - it means exterminating a particular race/persuasion etc. in whole or in part - it is a concerted effort to wipe out a large group, not one at a time; "mass genocide" is a tautolgy.

There have been 100,000+ Syrians of various persuasions killed to date, this 3000 hardly tips the scale, yet somehow "a line has been crossed".

Yes, 100K after two years of conflict - approximately 5.7 people killed per hour. 3000 people killed (your figure) in one hour (my guess) represents killing at over 500 times the rate compared to the rest of the conflict; does this not make explain about the laws on using non-conventional weapons vs conventional?

The only line crossed here is that gas is emotive enough for warmongering politicians to be able to whip up enough of a national mob frenzy to be allowed to go and bomb people too.

No, it represents indiscriminate extermination on a whole new scale.

I really don't see it like that. If ever there were a case for intervention it's Syria.

It's unfortunate that the Iraq experience has tainted this and it is questionable whether bombing solves anything but thus is genocide.

How about we wait & find out who gassed these people - it's far from clear cut -

Washington Times

As I've said before, Assad has no need to do it as he's got the "rebels" on the back foot anyway....

UN Peacekeeping, whilst a good 'start' point, quickly degenerates into a waste of time and lives.

We saw it in FRY. At first all factions took note of the UN Military Forces, but they quickly realised that under a UN beret soldiers could do little to nothing to intervene when it was most needed. At a very basic level, UN soldiers cannot shoot until they are shot at first. We lost people that way. We also had numerous kidnappings and beatings. The killings didn't stop, the parties kept fighting and people kept dying.

Things did not improve in FRY until 1996 when the UN Beret was swapped with a NATO one. Leaders were falling over themselves then to speak to the NATO force commanders, falling over themselves to tell us the locations of mass graves, weapons caches etc.

The UN is a good idea, but in my experience, counts for very little.