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Cameron returns to London, cutting his holiday short. William Hague states "..warning the UN could be bypassed if there was "great humanitarian need" i.e. ignoring the rule of law in the UN.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State John Kerry has condemned what he termed the "moral obscenity" of the Syrian government's use of chemical weapons against its own people. Don't recall Kerry speaking out about the use of uranium tipped munitions in Iraq. Or maybe I missed his condemnation of the US use of Agent Orange by the ton in Vietnam. And let's not talk about napalm and cluster bombs.

Here we go again. Choosing which side is the goodies and which side is the baddies when in many ways we haven't got a clue. If the rebels end up in power, will it be any better for Syrian civilians? God knows.

Blair with his dodgy dossier was responsible for taking this country into an illegal war that turned out to be based on a completely wrong premise i.e. Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.

The likes of Hague don't even need a dodgy dossier. This was what he said in 2002, well before the dodgy dossier,

""Does the Prime Minister recollect that, in the half-century history of various states acquiring nuclear capabilities, in almost every case?from the Soviet Union in 1949 to Pakistan in 1998?their ability to do so has been greatly underestimated and understated by intelligence sources at the time? Estimates today of Iraq taking several years to acquire a nuclear device should be seen in that context, and within that margin of error. Given that, and the information from defectors five years after the Gulf war, that 400 nuclear sites and installations had been concealed in farmhouses and even schools in Iraq, is there not at least a significant risk of the utter catastrophe of Iraq possessing a nuclear device without warning, some time in the next couple of years? In that case, does not the risk of leaving the regime on its course today far outweigh the risk of taking action quite soon??

On and on, seemingly without end. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya. All enjoying democracy, Western style!!!!

What is it with politicians and war?

Neil Kinnock was addressing a group on 6 June 1983 and said Margaret Thatcher was the most loathed PM of the 20th century, when a heckler shouted "At least Mrs Thatcher has guts" to which Kinnockio replied, "It's a pity others had to leave theirs on the ground at Goose Green to prove it."

Have we learned nothing from Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Egypt et al?

No one thinks Bashar al-Assad is a nice bloke but there is absolutely NO EVIDENCE that he has used chemical weapons on his own people. One might ask why would he when his troops are winning the conflict? It would not be the first time "rebels" have murdered their own side to gain sympathy.

Whatever happened and whoever was behind the attack, it is NOT the responsibility of the UK (or indeed USA) to intervene...

"Whatever happened and whoever was behind the attack, it is NOT the responsibility of the UK (or indeed USA) to intervene..."

Unfortunately politicians think otherwise.

There's an election coming in 2015.

Showing the voters what a good war leader you can be is always worth a few votes.

That's another trick Cameron learnt from his hero the Thatch.

"Showing the voters what a good war leader you can be is always worth a few votes."

Not necessarily. I think it depends on the circumstances.

On the whole, I seem to recall most of the electorate were in favour of the Falklands War. British territory had been invaded by a foreign power. The Falklands War gave Thatcher a huge, electoral boost and without that, she would have probably lost the following election.

The Iraq War lost votes for Labour particularly amongst its own support. My guess is that the majority of the electorate are against any intervention in the Syrian war and this will lose votes for the coalition, particularly the Lib Dems who were against the Iraq War.

The electorate looks at foreign interventions in a much more guarded way after the Iraq war experience.

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I hope you are correct.

My observations have been for the last several Prime Ministers, Thatcher, Major, Blair, is that as soon as they got into power they couldn't wait to show the world how hard they were.

Their first priority seemed to be to cosy-up to the Yanks and be able to come out with the line ?we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our American allies? at the first opportunity.

They then bang-on about the ?special relationship ??, and fly off to Washington or Camp David or wherever the US President is at the time, so they can get themselves on the TV News standing next to the Pres at a really important press conference.

With Cameron this will be plainly true and he?ll have to stand behind a lectern to hide the bulge in his trousers. It will be the hardest he has ever been since that time he was punished for dropping the crumpets when he was fagging at Eton.

The only reason Brown isn?t in the list is because I think he wasn?t in the job long enough to get involved in a good war.

By Special Relationship I mean the Yanks say ?jump? and we say ?how high?.

I'm really getting pissed off with this.
Hague seems in a desperate hurry for a war so he can become one of the boys.
There is no evidence of anything as yet.

It seems that both sides have some very nasty people. Why does the UK have to get involved in something we don't understand? Seems to me that others dictate and own British politicians. But which country will gain from this? Or is this about getting to Iran?

I read somewhere that Saudi Arabia wants to build a gas pipeline through Syria to Europe to compete with the Russians? Is it about energy. There is a lot of gas off the coast of Cyprus that the Russians are exploring. By the way just come back from Cyprus and it is teaming with Russians and Chinese. The Chinese are buying nearly all the property for sale. I'm told they get visa free travel throughout the EU if they spend more than 300,000 euros on a property. A good way of getting into the UK.

I don't remember the US and UK governments' endless hand wringing when Saddam Hussein used mustard gas and sarin to kill 5000 Kurds in Northern Iraq in Halabja in 1988.

Why was that? Well at that time, Saddam Hussein was a goodie and it was in the closing days of the war with Iran, the baddies, who had had the support of the Kurds.

Despite overwhelming evidence that the Iraqis carried out the attack, the US State Department took the view that the attack had been carried out by the Iranians (this is the sort of thing baddies do) and the CIA pushed this view for much of the early 90s.

Then in the late 90s Saddam Hussein became a baddie and surprise, surprise, the Americans changed their views radically and the blame for the chemical attack was laid at Saddam's door and was one of the factors used in justifying the Iraqi War.

Vomit inducing hypocrisy!

Pipeline politics



The Trans-Arabian pipeline

[quote]Blair with his dodgy dossier was responsible for taking this country into an illegal war that turned out to be based on a completely wrong premise i.e. Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.[/quote]

The UN Security Council is the only body with the legal authority to rule whether the Iraq war was illegal or not. 10 years have gone by with no decision made and no other UN member officially asking for a ruling to be made.

As far as I'm aware we signed up to the genocide convention, which mandates members to either stop or punish genocide. Saddam committed genocide on the Kurds. There is no timeframe given by the genocide convention on when punishment should be taken.

I assume you support the women who were molested by Jimmy Saville all those years ago, and that serious sexual offenses and murder should still be punished even if the crimes were committed decades ago? Yes? Good man. I also assume you think the genocide and torture of a whole ethnicity is actually worse than one rape or murder? Yes? Good man. Me too. So, given our attitude to the punishment of rape and murder in our own country, and given the mandate for genocide prevention or punishment, you're of the opinion it was perfectly legal to remove Saddam Hussain.

Now, I know you're going to bring up the number of casualties, or that even Iraq would be better off still under Saddam than it is now. That's fine. I wouldn't agree with all of your points but at least we're discussing our opinions. I would agree that the post-invasion plans were a complete shambles and the Americans had no idea what to do or how to deal with Iraq after Saddam. But when it comes to legality, that has not been decided and you worded your point on this as some sort of fact.

As for Syria......we've -up to now- not been involved at all yet the death toll in the last 2 years of civilians surpasses the civilian death toll in Iraq in it's first two years. Children are being tortured and raped in their thousands making the Catholic Church seem like Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory in comparison. We know with Iraq that trade embargos don't work as only the poorest suffer anyway, so what do we do - pull out the popcorn, put our feet up and see how it pans out?