And the missiles have been launched ..

[Coldwaragain]

Oh crap.

Even supposing the conspiracy theorists are right that this was some sort of domestic distraction bombing (?) even in that circumstance I’m glad our country has stepped up and said no to Assad using chemical weapons. The bombs were accurate and were incredibly direct . I thank May for having the backbone to do it. I think it won’t help her at the elections, but it will give succur to Syrian civilians trapped in that area . It might help Putin to become more helpful when aid convoys enter

Wow user came in all guns blazing

Ironically

Ive been away for a few days and missed all this, thank you for the informative thread

On Sky News this morning Shami Chakrabarti, Shadow Attorney General has just said the UN's report of Assad gassing Syrians at least 12 times in the past was down to his 'bad behaviour'. This is the same women whose report said there was no anti-semitism in the Labour Party! So that's all right then!!!! TOTALLY DISCREDITED!!!

We should be very cautious lobbing missiles at a country with so much Russian military on the ground.
I just do not see how this action will change anything at all, it will not deter Russia or Syria or anyone else, we have intervened and bombed our way into many countries, yet still dictators do very bad things.....not least the genocide in Burma right now, the war mongering hawks are all very quite on that arent they? possibly because the victims are are Muslims and China back the Burmese military.
What i thought was very striking, was the UK fired 4 missiles, the french 3 and the USA 100 plus.....

Jas

I think you are looking at this the wrong way. The Russian military has significant forces in Syria. Therefore to use chemical weapons, Assad must have - at the very least - agreement that Russia will look the other way.

Assad has won in Syria. The missiles were for russia as much as Assad. We are telling the Russians to back down as we are approaching the end of our patience.

Taking out key parts of Assad’s chemical weapons capability is just a useful side product of that

Your argument is faulty because both Assad and Russia know full well the West will not invade Syria and because of the nature of the opposition can we afford for Assad and the Russians to fail.

We do not want another jihadist state nor one so close to Europe.

All lobbing missiles at Syria does is increase a confrontation with Russia and it would only take a malfunctioning Cruise missile to start one and where might that end?
It will not stop gas attacks from either side.

Jas

Of course we won’t invade Syria

But The important thing is that we didn’t back down in the face of Russian threats. At the point which diplomacy becomes appeasement enough is enough.

It was morally the right thing to do and it also showed putin we will stand up to the playground bully.

..and thats my point, they both know this.

Russia and Putin are not some NK upstarts who can be pushed around or threatened by the likes of Trump or May.
So, what do you propose when Assad next uses gas? 500 missiles? 10,000? or a nuclear strike?

You need to consider how far you are willing to go because Putin will go further and as long as Putin backs Assad, then Assad will also.

Jas

I agree but I think it’s worth splitting putin and Assad. The ability of Assad to cause trouble pretty much limited to Syria.

Putin on the other hand is a much bigger problem. I agree he will seek to up the ante - ultimately it’s probably only nuclear weapons that are stopping the west and Russia engaging in open warfare. We have been engaged in a Cold War with the since at least litvenyenko.

There are no easy answers. I suspect we would be fighting Russian forces in Ukraine now if it weren’t that the risks are so high