And the missiles have been launched ..

[Coldwaragain]

Oh crap.

I thought it was all to do with the gas and or oil supply to the West?

Russia and Assad have signed the UN’s Chemical Weapons Convention. They are supposed to have destroyed their stockpiles.

And yet they are using chemical weapons.

The UN can’t do anything about this because Russia uses its veto.

So what is the international community supposed to do when you know that Russia will make everyone dance like monkeys coming up with evidence and then it will be ignored or lied away anyway?

I don't understand why some people think this bombing will change anything. Trump bombed Syria last year following a chemical attack, that did nothing to deter more attacks. Why is this time different?

It’s not just about Assad though, is it? If you can demonstrably get away with chemical attacks without any consequences, then more and more despots will give it a go.

One-off air strikes against chemical weapons facilities are not a boots on the ground war.

It is ironic how people are getting behind May today when Tony Blair has been described on here as the worst PM ever for similar.

It's patriotic isn't it? Stick behind your country and never mind all those awful things that the politicians do the rest of the time. May will get judged for this if it's later discovered that Assad hasn't done the things that he is accused of. What, there are no chemical weapons after all? Ooops! Sorry!

As @noblegiraffe said, a couple of limited strikes are not comparable to Iraq

@zen1 why do we sell arms to the Saudis who slaughtering Yemeni children?

Ah, but they are our friends so that makes it all OK. Mass murder is only unacceptable when it's our enemies that are doing it, when it's our friends we can sell them weapons and look the other way.

If does later transpire that there were no chemical weapons, I wonder if we'll ever even get to hear about it.

Lessons have probably been learned since Iraq.

Hands up who thinks Assad hasn’t used chemical weapons against his own people?

Seems to have been quite a measured moderate strike. Hopefully this will warn Assad off using chemical weapons again. We cannot allow chemical weapons to become an acceptable weapon to use.

What do you mean would this be the first time, Mother? He’s done it before, we’ve been here before.

Its terrible.

Could someone who is knowledgable about this issue explain to me why Assad would use any weapons against his own people?

I don't really understand this issue.

Mass murder is only unacceptable when it's our enemies that are doing it, when it's our friends we can sell them weapons and look the other way.

That happens just as much by those who want us to stop selling arms to the Saudis as it does to the side your sniping at.

Even Sweden sells them arms

I support the strikes

I don’t see what choice we had. I really don’t see that doing nothing was an option considering the breach of international law with chemical weapons.

If the past weeks have shown anything, it’s that Russia’s current modus operandi is to wage war through misinformation. They’re not going to fire a rocket at us, it damages their ‘aw shucks, us? But we’ve done nothing it’s all western propaganda’ message. But I am more concerned about cyber attacks on infrastructure in the coming months.

We were unwillingly made front and centre of the Russian chemical weapons problem when nerve agent was used in Salisbury putting the general population at risk. In light of this I think it would have made us look hypocritical and weak not to be equally outraged over the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

It’s a civil war, finding. There are rebel groups within the country who want to overthrow Assad, and Assad wants to stay in power. Various countries and groups are supporting either Assad or the rebels.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Civil_War

Assad had no reason to use chemical weapons in a war that he was winning. Why has he risked the wrath of the world and the knowledge that he'd almost certainly get air strikes. It all seems very suspicious, especially as Trump had just announced he was pulling his forces out of the region. Maybe Putin is right when he says it's staged. Basically nobody tells us the truth.

Asaad had been warned about the use of chemical weapons and it seems so utterly ridiculous that he still resorted to using them.