Does this nearly kill you? WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT

[Wellwobbly]

To think that the West is helping arm these people!

I am horrified by this picture. This little girl has to live this trauma.

freepatriot.org/2013/09/20/toddler-chained-fence-syrian-rebels-forced-watch-parents-executed/

There are always horrors on both sides. YABU.

I am horrified by war, violence and cruelty no matter who is responsible. They are all as bad as each other

oh a link to a website with no agenda ...opps no my bad.

war is horrendous for all the innocent people caught up in it

Yes, maybe my horrified reaction at seeing a toddler chained up, and the clear trauma on her face - makes me a really BAD person Gordy. One with a political agenda, no less!.

I don't know how you can look at that picture and feel nothing.

The ability of people to be relativistic will never cease to amaze me.

Can't look at that picture as thankfully the link didn't work.

Anyway its a s likely to be Al-qieda or Russian guns with both sides playing against the middle as they are.

War is horrific and people do horrific things in time of war.

you must be reading posts i can't see

War is terrible with innocent people tortured and executed on both sides.

I suppose the difference is that I have lived through a civil war, and you have all lived in safe, calm as the result of 100s of years of revolution and civil war, which has given you the institutions THAT NONE OF YOU SEEM TO VALUE Britain.

That awful picture (of a toddler, a little girl of about 3, tightly chained spread eagled to a fence and clearly looking at something that is terrifying her and screaming for her mother) has affected me hugely. More than I imagined. I suppose there is still a lot of trauma to be processed.

None of you are prepared to look at the political implications of the picture and are brushing it off with 'horrible things happen in war'. Well, in this particular struggle, which side is better to prevail? This is the essential argument Churchill made.

I really need to warn you all, not that any of you will listen, that the Good Intentions liberal 'wetness' you all ascribe to, will be your downfall. Not this generation, or maybe the next, but in the next 100 years.

You need to start truly understanding what Britain means, and resist mightily any attempts to undermine: freedom of speech. People DO need to hear things that make them uncomfortable, as opposed to 'thought policing'. The checks and balances of parliament. Institutions being paramount over individuals, or groups. The separation of church (that means ALL religion) and state. Responsibilities over 'rights' etc.

But you don't, and you won't.

Wellwobbly - I don't think mumsnet truly reflects what most people in the UK are thinking.

No one I know is as liberal as many of the posters on mumsnet. Some of my friends have come from wartorn countries, and they fear for what is happening to the UK.

I don't know the ins and outs of the Syrian situation, but I know many people here who feel silenced by the government and media.

Syria is so hard. I come from the UK but as a young child moved abroad to my parents' home country, which soon entered a civil war.

The problem with Syria is supporting them leads to death, and almost certainly a deeply fundamental regime which will be bad for the lives of the Syrians. But the government are killing people to. There's no good side and innocent people are dying because there's no black and white in this I remember being confused about why we were sssntially assigned a group by people- either on THIS side or THAT side, when we didn't support either side, we just wanted peace and no more deaths, but neither group (in the country at least) were doing that.

What exactly is your aim here wellwobbly? What is it that you want?

Erm, not for such a tiny child's suffering to be airily dismissed, that would be a start. I was very upset about that.

She wasn't shot because that would have been kind in this situation, she was chained and made to watch something. How can you be blase about that? In 'my' war, babies and small children were burned over fires whilst their mothers were forced to sing and dance to accompany their shrieks. Please do not mock my distress on this.

Secondly, for some discussion about what would be the lesser of two evils? This is a concept that seems to have been forgotten.

Good Intentions count for 'not a lot' outside the very cosy first world. You can dismiss me because it is outside your experience, but you have no idea how truly horrible society can get when it breaks down and the wrong people get weapons!

It just seems to me that the West has learned absolutely nothing from its many debacles from 1980s Afghanistan onwards and is backing the wrong side. Again.

The picture is horrifying and not something I would wish on anyone. I feel terrible for that poor little girl, and for all the other people suffering through the atrocities that carry on in many countries the world over.

But, where there is religion there will always be war! Religion is a massive pile of bollocks that men use for their own gain and to have power over other people, that's all it is. One person's interpretation of a book (whichever book that may be) written thousands of years ago by another person's apparent interpretation of another book based on another person's interpretation of certain events. It's Chinese whispers, that's all it is. Yet people base their whole lives and belief systems on these fairy stories and use them as an excuse to kill, maim, rape and pillage. Unless man (and I use man meaning males as they rule the world, not women) can actually get a grip on his testosterone and ego and actually his fellow human beings (no matter creed nor colour) as his equals regardless of their belief system then there will always be war, and there will always be pictures like that one of this little girl.

What is going on Syria is horrific and I don't know how we can help solve it and stop the killing. But I do know that I don't agree with war, unless as a complete last resort and I'm glad that Britain is not going in there all guns a blazing.

What is happening in Syria is heartbreakingly sad. I don't know what the answer is and I have been trying to learn as much as I can and educate myself on the issues there. As far as I can see military intervention would be a disaster.

Both sides have behaved appallingly. The government AND the rebels

OP, what you say is awful. I am so sorry anyone has to go through anything like this, but children?
I hope you are ok, this is all probably stirring up awful feelings for you.
I have no answers.
I wish I did.

Can you relink please

it is horrid. hope humankind somewhere can help

That picture is horrible but who says what is happening in it or who the people responsible are? Clearly a little girl is being traumatised but we cant see by what. A website that has a clear political agenda claims it's the Free Syrian Army - but we don't know that and there's no evidence.

Meanwhile the Syrian regime has been committing appalling, documented atrocities for two sodding years - torturing and murdering thousands of people, using chemical weapons, forcing millions of people to flee as refugees. And that's since the crisis - they were torturing and murdering innocent people at will for decades beforehand. Assad's dad killed 60,000 in one region where people rose up against him back in the 80s.

I don't think two wrongs make a right, or that atrocities on one side 'don't matter'. But it's not as simple as 'Free Syrian Army = evil because some US website with an anti-Obama agenda says so'.

And if the West had helped the rebels, or gone in to give humanitarian aid, or reacted in some useful way two years ago, the opposition to Assad might not have been infiltrated by Al Qaeda. We stood on the sidelines and evil-doers have been drawn towards the conflict, as they always are. Terrorists will always take advantage of conflict and failed states.

Syria. I've no idea what we should do about it. It's horrendous. But what can we do? There are do many factions competing for power - who do we support? Do we send our own troops into this too?

In all other conflicts I've had a fairy clear idea about where I stood - but with Syria I honestly don't know what we should do.

I do think the people recording and sending us pictures and video are very, very brave.

Bit concerned that the Free Patriot site appears to be a US site, strongly in favour of guns, and very right wing Christian?

The link worked for me. Words cannot adequately express my absolute horror that this unthinkable form of atrocity is happening anywhere on the planet on which I live.

Yes, violence and war are happening all over the place, but not all war and violence involves very young children being forced to watch their parents being tortured and subsequently killed.

Yes, all violence and war has its casualties, but looking at that little girl's face is a truly horrific sight!!

I don't know what the solution to the situation in Syria is, but I have a 5 yr old DD, and that picture and story epitomises everything that is wrong with religious wars.