I think a list of options should be considered. I just read about one option nullifying all contracts related to the regime without the next regime incurring the debt. That would require Asaad to step down for the sake of economical legitimacy. Here: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2013/aug/28/syria-sanctions-bashar-al-assad Pre-emptive sanctions.

I’m not a believer in hitting violence with violence – or in revenge per se although I understand it. It’s possible a rogue officer ordered it. Why not send him to be tried for war crimes. Or even Asaad. I don’t think bombing them is a good idea. They might do something back. One thing we apathetic westerners might never understand is that people in the world are willing to die for what they believe in. That’s exactly why we should be afraid of Asaad.

Also – why this now? Israel used phosphorous in 2009. The US used phosphorous and depleted uranium in Iraq – the US and UK allowed all kinds of terrible things to happen in the past without butting in. They even did terrible things other than those 2 I just mentioned.

In Egypt 1000 people die “restoring” democracy and in Syria “300 – possible over 1000” die and we need to spend billions of tax money slapping Asaad’s wrist. Hypocrisy is an awful thing. Terrible. At least Milliband is pushing for more reasoning before saying ‘yes’. It helps. 100,000 people have died in Syria and nobody did anything except arm Islamic extremists who do pose a threat to us. Asaad doesn’t until now pose a threat to us. Carla Del Ponte said after aUN investigation it was more likely the rebels used sarin – on a number of occasions, and they left it behind in tunnels – suffocating regime soldiers. They have sarin gas too it would seem. Maybe they cant shoot it with a missile but they can dump it in a neighbourhood and blow it up. I don’t know – thats a tangent from your question though. If Asaad used those chemicals then of course something should be done. But something should equally be done to the rebels then for using it.

Don’t we have money problems amongst other things? War is pricey and nobody knows the outcome. Military peers and generals are even against it. Plus intelligence from Israel? Really? Israel…. come on. We are not threatened. All of a sudden we will be threatened and it will be expensive too.

I believe there are other ways to make it clear that it’s unnacceptable to use chemical weapons. Firstly be reacting on every instance and not just one. Secondly there are many other ways it would seem. There are people who are paid to come up with other ways. Why are we not talking about those other ways….

That war has been brutal. This incident is another brutal incident.

The islamists ‘rebels’ like to line people up and execute them. They recently executed 450 or 480 people from some sect or other, shia or the other one I don’t know but anyway – they are lovely aren’t they.

I think if we had not interfered Asaad would have won by now anyway – without us arming the rebels etc. Most syrians choose Asaad as the lesser of 2 evils because he affords them a more secular lifestyle – not Sharia law as the Islamists would have it not doubt. They just want to live and grow their food and go to school and be left alone.

Public opinion in Syria is that most don’t want us to butt in.

Furthemore I read about how only 50% of these missiles succeed in hitting their surgical targets. They aren’t that precise and nor is the intelligence which leads them to those targets. Civilians die either way.

It’s all terrible.

The US was dumb to draw a red line and then not cross it and then suddenly cross it. Furthermore now they have to send a few missiles just so they look tough because they said they would. FFS it’s absurd.

Why not discuss options. Why the hurry. Why the desperation to avoid finding out the UN envoy’s evidence. IT’s like they don’t want to see the findings or something. Why not openly discuss other options.

……and 75% of UK/US civilians don’t want to bomb. It’s the governments who want to and they are supposed to represent us. Do we want yet another enemy? What about Russia.

The hurrying bothers me and looks suspicious. It’s impossible to trust our leaders anyway. It’s hard not to want Asaad to bloody well retaliate if we bomb him. He has almost said he would and bring his neighbour countries into it too. It’s hard not to want him suprise the US a bit and retaliate if but for the danger of an all out war.

Do the US want him to retaliate?

Is this a bid for Iran? Is this for Israel?

Next Israel with say a missile was shot at them and they will unleash themselves on Asaad and nobody will even believe it – and think they made it up so they could finally get the party started. It’s impossible to trust. False flags. Iraq. The US is the only country to have ever dropped atomic bombs. What about that? I know whataboutery is not useful but it’s a part in everything our governments do because our governments always make the rules and talk the principles so they deserve the whataboutery in my opinion.

Non violent methods are better.

If they send missiles all it takes is for one missile to be returned, or one act of retaliation and then what? I can imagine Israel false flagging us into WW3.

What if we send missiles and then later Asaad uses chemicals again (if it was him, was it? really? the rebels used it too, just smaller) – then the west will be compelled to again send missiles. It sets a perrogative.

What about trying to take control of the chemical weapons in Syria?

What about sanctions or asset freezes?

What about getting Russia to back some kind of non violent response. If Russia is part of it then for Asaad it is much more serious. Maybe Russia would agree to pre emptive sanctions.

Maybe the Russians have given Asaad serious weapons we don’t know about and they have said they don’t want to get in any fights but maybe they know something we don’t – it’s been said over and over Asaad has the capacity to ‘suprise’ the west.

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……..I was mostly worried about where exactly Harvey and his cats are living because I fear retaliation and Cyprus is a very possible target for that. A man wrote a book about how imprecise these surgical strikes are – 50% or so go wrong for a large number of reasons. I wouldn’t like to be withing 20 miles of any target to be honest. Especially if there’s a risk of chemicals.

Michael – so do I but the difference is clearly that in the US the nice people have no say in what the government does whereas here we have just seen that the government does what the people wants to a great enough extent as to avoid war. The ex head of the british army talked about how our troops are citizens and that no war should be fought without the consent of the british people because the troops are british people and they need to feel like its all for a good reason.

Whereas in the US the purposefully make sure the their troops have absolutely no idea about anything – except the basic politics the government feeds them so they all just go running into war because they believe their government, not because they are the people and the people have spoken. HUGE, ENORMOUS difference in my opinion. They are actually trained to look at arabs as “dead bastards” and so on. It’s an entirely different mindset.

Yet the US is full of people who also have the right idea, but they aren’t technically speaking in a true democracy so it doesn’t work according to the people, but according to money, which diverts the government from the will of the people.

And finally – incase the amnesia continues it should further be remembered that:

“In the late 1980s, the US and UK took no action when Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against Iranian forces — and Iraqi Kurds in Halabja.

The US knew about, and in one case helped, Iraq’s chemical weapons attacks against Iran in the 1980’s, according to recently declassified CIA documents obtained by the US website Foreign Policy.

Its report indicated that the US secretly had evidence of Iraqi chemical attacks in 1983. The evidence, according to FP, is “tantamount to an official American admission of complicity in some of the most gruesome chemical weapons attacks ever launched.”

…………………………….so it’s impossible in my mind to get my head around any of this grandstanding to begin with. The government relies on our average person’s lack of knowledge. If people bothered to dig a bit deeper they would of course be shocked and history different.