France is waving it’s genitals around. No one else that matters though as far as I’m aware. I always laugh when I hear people going on about how we have to be involved in this sort of thing in order to be a ‘successful’, ‘influential’ country and so that we ‘can sit at the top table’. And then I look at Germany. For obvious reasons they’ve not done much military adventuring in the past 60 years and it doesn’t seem to have done them much harm in the global scheme of things.

I don’t seem to hear much about any other countries possible involvement

The gulf states have been pouring money and weapons into Syria. The opposition is funded and armed to a significant extent by KSA and Qatar. That is a key reason why the opposition is quite so toxic – much of the heavy lifting is being done by people we would happily describe as “al-qaida” if they popped up anywhere else.

Turkey has been permitting opposition fighters to base on its territory, and has been providing some logistical support I think. I’m not clear what Turkey’s perception of the risks created by partition of Syria and a potential link-up between kurdish syria and the kurdish autonomous region in Iraq are.

Russia supplies weaponry and credit to the Syrian government, which provides Russia with warm-water naval facilities that aren’t locked up behind the Bosphorous. Russia has modern warships in port in Syria at present.

Iran has been funnelling weapons and personnel into Syria to support the government. Iran needs Syria friendly as its conduit to hesbollah, apart from the importance of avoiding isolation.

Large numbers of hesbollah fighters from Lebanon appear to have been fighting with Assad’s troops.

Israel is staying pretty quiet. Iran has threatened to retaliate against Israel if Syria is hit. Israel’s disputed border in the Golan has been reasonably quiet, although Syria facilitates hesbollah’s confrontation on the Lebanese border. I suspect the Israeli calculation is that a KSA-sponsored shambles with a government looking something like Hamas would be worse for its security than the ba’athists are.

China and Russia, fairly crucially, are actively against anyone intervening. The Chinese are pretty absolutist about the sovereignty of states (understandable both due to their past history and also to their current government arrangements) and Russia has always defended its right to deal with secessionist territory as it sees fit.

Sorry for the brain dump. The maxim “gassing people is bad” is clearly correct. Applying it as policy to Syria is almost impossibly hard. 😕

Syria doesn’t have any debt owed to the Rothschild-controlled central banks.
That’s what this is really about.

[TANNOY] Mel Gibson to the forum please.

Two questions from me:

Assad has being bombing his own people for how long now….why are chemical weapons the straw that broke the camels back?

At what point do you think that we should go in a bomb them ton? I believe that you have kids in the forces….at what point would you support Cameron et al sending them into a war zone?

May be a little insensitive; apologies, but what is the point of chemical weapons on the general population? In warfare there’s bullets and bombs and soldiers develop ways of shielding themselves, bunkers bullet proof vests etc so chemical is a different angle of attack. Why use it on civilians? Is it cheap? I wouldnt have thought so, so is it the terror factor? Or what?

Just a macabre thought I was pondering

Militarily, I would guess it’s fairly effective of clearing an area and killing all the people there without destroying it.

It’s probably cheap, and fast, compared to other ways of doing the same thing. Urban fighting is very expensive in terms of the resources it consumes (ie soldiers), and very destructive.

Why they did this in this case? Who can guess. It’s beyond me how these people can sleep at night, likewise the incendiary school attack we’re seeing reports of. I don’t even dare roll the film.

Assad has being bombing his own people for how long now….why are chemical weapons the straw that broke the camels back?

I’d like to know too.

Send in the militia to wipe out a village and that’s somehow “not un-acceptable”. Do the same with shells and gas and it’s a war crime. Both events are horrible and the outcome is the same. It troubles me that using bullets or artillery isn’t regarded the same way.

I think it is a very hard call and to be honest, god knows the answer.
but what I do know is, that it is far worse to stand by and watch a countries army kill it’s own people. if that means we invade, then so be it.
we cant just let it happen, bashar needs to be caught and brought to justice.

both my kids are in the forces now, and both decided to do so themselves.
and both realise what it entails.

Absolutely mattjg. Doesn’t make sense to me but we seem to find the phrase so emotive that it can be used to (try to) justify an attack.

Anyway, to answer the OP, let me know if he invades Czechoslovakia and we’ll talk. Perhaps then more than 3 of the 200ish countries in the world would show an interest in intervening too. Until then it will be just another in the long, long history of western attacks in the Middle East which will inevitably cause more problems than it solves.

Problem is the west missed the opportunity to support the rebels. Now there are a lot of extremists within the rebels making them no better than Assad. Capable of their own atrocities.

**** knows what is really going on except loads of civilians are dying.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

But we should not be helping al-Qaeda

Perhaps then more than 3 of the 200ish countries in the world would show an interest in intervening too.

I feel a bit like this too. What’s to stop some of the other 197 countries stepping up to the plate this time? Especially all the other Arab countries. Step up guys and help your ‘brothers’.

Why is it only the US? Again?

I should’ve known better than to post in this thread 🙂

Just to clarify, my intended point was that if we (or the US/France/whoever) are in such a tiny minority then we should definitely not go it alone, and should wait until/if there is more of a consensus. No three countries alone should be able to decide on such action, whatever you or i may think and however big our country’s guns may be.

If we believe in democracy then 3 shouldn’t outweigh the other 190+. If others don’t agree then just like Mr Cameron in parliament last night we should recognise that we are in the minority and should take no action.

All IMO of course. Anyway, that’s me done on the subject.

If Assad does deploy chemical weapons again I hope that Milliband and all the other politicians who voted against last night watch the horrific images on screen will realise that this is the result of their course of action and publically apologise.

And if the Tomahawk attacks take place and chemical weapons are used again then what? Assad is fighting for his life. I don’t think missile attacks will stop him using chemical weapons if that is what it takes for him to win his civil war. And I’m not sure the other side are any nicer either.