https://www.mail.com/int/news/us/8407954-ap-sources-us-france-uk-discuss-gas-attack-respons.html#.1272-stage-hero1-1

Should certain countries take unilateral action against Syria following the use of poison gas against rebel held enclave?

The question is as old as the invasion of Iraq. What responsibility is there to interdict the use of WMD and the question is also is chlorine a WMD? We all know the Syrian regime, and by implication the Russian regime is dirty.

Nothing but boots on the ground is going to stop the Syrian conflict, however Turkey, a NATO ally, is also involved and hand shaking with Iran and Russia, both participants in the conflict. This means putting boots on the ground may be extremely difficult.

So much hand wringing in Washington and Paris while the UN once again does nothing

The Dufus should put his missiles where his mouth is.

The Dufus should put his missiles where his mouth is.

I'm not sure that is an answer, escalating the conflict doesn't help, hasn't helped. There is a need to get a permanent ceasefire but achieving that is elusive

false premise ....."

Should certain countries take unilateral action against Syria following the use of poison gas against rebel held enclave?

The question is as old as the invasion of Iraq"

There was an extensive coalition of nations and the debate on what should be done took over a year .

"

What responsibility is there to interdict the use of WMD
"...

here we go again . In less than a decade there will be hand wringing by the same people saying we should've done more to end the holocaust that A$$hat rained down on the people.




Nothing but boots on the ground is going to stop the Syrian conflict, however Turkey, a NATO ally, is also involved and hand shaking with Iran and Russia, both participants in the conflict. This means putting boots on the ground may be extremely difficult.

So much hand wringing in Washington and Paris while the UN once again does nothing



I disagree we do not need a heavy presence on the ground . We just have to make it clear that there is a severe price to pay if he chooses to use wmd . Maybe this time instead of putting pot holes in a runway we take out a squadron of Syrian helicopters .

As far as the Russians go ;we wasted a sizeable force of the
CHVk Vagner (aka Putin's private army ) (aka "mercenaries ") recently in Syria . The Russians push a bayonet until it meets steel . The emperor was a push over so they pushed him over. Make them pay a heavy price for their support of a regime that has completely lost legitimacy and the moral authority to lead Syria.

I'm not sure that is an answer, escalating the conflict doesn't help, hasn't helped. There is a need to get a permanent ceasefire but achieving that is elusive

That's the problem Clete, there will be no cease fire, so lets get on with a real war. You know blow the hell out of Assad's air force and ground troops and take out the air bases. Screw Russia and Iran. They stepped into this mess and have chosen to back a genocidal animal.

Besides, what's the point of having a loud mouth Dufus as CIC if he isn't going to show his backside when it counts, or he should shut the hell up about what Obama didn't do.

false premise ....."
There was an extensive coalition of nations and the debate on what should be done took over a year

.

And the result is the mess we have today which can be directly traced to the wrongful actions of GWB and others




Here we go again . In less than a decade there will be hand wringing by the same people saying we should've done more to end the holocaust that A$$hat rained down on the people.

There is a way to end this conflict but no one will take it, a small tactical nuke could end it immediately and one more genocidal nutcase could be consigned to history. But no, the nations who could end it won't because they fear, yes, fear the condemnation of history.




I disagree we do not need a heavy presence on the ground . We just have to make it clear that there is a severe price to pay if he chooses to use wmd . Maybe this time instead of putting pot holes in a runway we take out a squadron of Syrian helicopters .

I'm not sure what you are disagreeing with. More than a squadron of helicopters needs to be taken out, Barrel bombs can be are delivered by fixed wing aircraft also. In Iraq a no fly zone was enforced, but this solution doesn't appear to be an option. Putting a few potholes in an airfield doesn't work either, been there, done that, but Assad goes on almost emboldened.


As far as the Russians go ;we wasted a sizeable force of the
CHVk Vagner (aka Putin's private army ) (aka "mercenaries ") recently in Syria . The Russians push a bayonet until it meets steel . The emperor was a push over so they pushed him over. Make them pay a heavy price for their support of a regime that has completely lost legitimacy and the moral authority to lead Syria.





You think knocking off a few Russian mercenaries is a sufficient show of strength to deter Putin. He is laughing at you. It is Russia that has feet on the ground, a tactical move that pulled your teeth. You continue to play with IS, but the Russians don't care about IS, they just want their naval base.


That's the problem Clete, there will be no cease fire, so lets get on with a real war. You know blow the hell out of Assad's air force and ground troops and take out the air bases. Screw Russia and Iran. They stepped into this mess and have chosen to back a genocidal animal.

Besides, what's the point of having a loud mouth Dufus as CIC if he isn't going to show his backside when it counts, or he should shut the hell up about what Obama didn't do.

I think the loud mouth is as big a part of the problem as was BO, much talk, much shouting from the sidelines, but not much real action. Waving a big stick doesn't work with someone like Assad, he has nowhere to go. Dropping a cruise missile worked on Gaddafi, similar solution needed

Tal and company still think that Putty and Trump are in cahoots . Yes ,by trying to build world consensus Saddam had time to move his wmd stockpile into Syria and to develop an insurgency strategy . Bush's mistake was in belief in the international community consensus before acting .

By the way ;what do you think about a future Chinese military base in your back yard at Vanuatu ? Maybe now you can take the threat of Chinese aggression a little more seriously .

Tal and company still think that Putty and Trump are in cahoots . Yes ,by trying to build world consensus Saddam had time to move his wmd stockpile into Syria and to develop an insurgency strategy . Bush's mistake was in belief in the international community consensus before acting .

By the way ;what do you think about a future Chinese military base in your back yard at Vanuatu ? Maybe now you can take the threat of Chinese aggression a little more seriously .

Oh how you are addicted to fake news, I expect it is a US plot to force us closer to the US, Vanuatu has debuked the idea and said clearly they are against the militarisation of the Pacific. What does your administration think about such comments which are clearly directed at GUAM. Turncoat has clearly come out against it, no doubt trying to claw back some adverse newspolls, and so has New Zealand. If Vanuatu knows which side its bread is buttered on they won't move to upset us

The NY Slimes ? Fake news ? No way !!
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/world/australia/vanuatu-chinese-military-base.html

Syria is moving assets and planes to Russian bases, but we can still light up everything else. Russia and Iran have been given enough fair warning that the missiles are a coming.

Yes some more gunboat diplomacy and another vast fleet on its way. The point really is what do you strike? Some airbases where helicopters are launched? Some chemical weapon or chemical plants? Or the presidential place. The fact is the US has no authority in this conflict, concern yes, but authority, no. They have stood idly by for six years and now think it is time to act?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5611419/Trumps-armada-Huge-task-force-12-warships-sets-sail-Syria.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5611419/Trumps-armada-Huge-task-force-12-warships-sets-sail-Syria.html)

In the meantime the attack had its effect, the Army of Islam have left the area driven out to an area where they are safe under Turkish auspices

Yes attacks have been made on chemical weapons facilities, and I have to ask, Obama pushed for Syria to give up its chemical weapons and Trump attacked a year ago so how come these facilities are known to exist and do exist? Have we been taken for a ride and if so, by whom

There have been many incidence of Assad using gas on his people after the Trump missiles attacks. Russia and China have been blocking every effort in the UN to address this until Britain and France acted with the US Friday night outside UN authorization. No one else wanted to be involved. Not Germany, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or any other nation.

No doubt Assad will rebuild his gas manufacturing infrastructure, and has stashed a stockpile somewhere for future use.

There have been many incidence of Assad using gas on his people after the Trump missiles attacks. Russia and China have been blocking every effort in the UN to address this until Britain and France acted with the US Friday night outside UN authorization. No one else wanted to be involved. Not Germany, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or any other nation.

No doubt Assad will rebuild his gas manufacturing infrastructure, and has stashed a stockpile somewhere for future use.

Yes he is probably using Saddam's fabled stockpile. What is happening in Syria is tragic but the world created the UN to deal with this sort of thing without giving it the ability to act. So we are back to unilateral action of a few claiming they are protecting themselves because their ability to protect the Syrians is limited

No doubt Assad has his own stockpile and has had one going way back to his own father. It's easy enough to mass manufacture. Process and procedures in any institution are only as good as the ones who adhere to it and the world is still dominated by the rules of sovereign nations and the rulers who want to keep their power. Easy to see the Russian interest in Syria, they have an important military base and fingers in some important natural resources, so keeping Assad in power is crucial to them.

This civil war has costs multi millions to suffer and die WITHOUT the gassing. Assad and Russia have won. They should have been taken out instead of just warned about using gas.

No doubt Assad has his own stockpile and has had one going way back to his own father. It's easy enough to mass manufacture. Process and procedures in any institution are only as good as the ones who adhere to it and the world is still dominated by the rules of sovereign nations and the rulers who want to keep their power. Easy to see the Russian interest in Syria, they have an important military base and fingers in some important natural resources, so keeping Assad in power is crucial to them.

This civil war has costs multi millions to suffer and die WITHOUT the gassing. Assad and Russia have won. They should have been taken out instead of just warned about using gas.

Yes Assad should have been taken out by a cruise missile, but it is a very blunt instrument and there is no plan for what happens to Syria after you do that. The lesson of Libya and Iraq is obvious, you just don't take out the established government and leave a vacuum.

I agree that Assad has won, six years, hundreds of thousands of lives and he has won, a few rebels remain and he is not magnanimous enough to offer and end to it

This is Putin's quagmire . Wack their capabilities and let him figure out how to keep A$$hat in power .He has won nothing . Without Russian shadow army mercs he would be worm food .

This is Putin's quagmire . Wack their capabilities and let him figure out how to keep A$$hat in power .He has won nothing . Without Russian shadow army mercs he would be worm food .

And one day he may be, but as you say leave him to it, the arabs have ways of dealing with despots that the rest of us haven't conceived, a thousand camels and all that

If he or his father for that matter followed the teachings of their own religion then we wouldn't be here would we? His claim to Islamic ways is BS by deeds. Given the long history of foreign domination though it's no wonder that Assad and his father have used whatever means they can to retain power, with the help of Russia and their fellow Shia's Iran, who have gone through their own occupations by colonial powers from the west.

Don't bring religion into this Tal, you can't expect anything from muslims but lies. Iran may have been misused by the west, but occupied?

Boots on the ground isn't the only way to occupy a country Clete. A hand picked puppet leader who shills for foreign powers is just as effective in pillage and plunder as an army. It's funny how you can always denigrate a religion other than your own, and then accuse me of bringing religion into the conversation. In truth there are fake Muslims and fake Christians and many helpless sheeple to follow the crumbs of salvation straight to hell. Assad himself is from a minority sect of Islam that associates with the Shia's, but make no mistake his religion is POWER. Nothing to do with any God by any name.

He sides with the Godless Putin because they both want more power. Simple as that. The Dufus puffs himself up after going boom boom, that accomplished absolutely nothing! It was louder than his last roar, with a bigger cast of characters, a show of indignation at best, and nothing but show at worst.

Changes NOTHING.

Tal, you like to defend Muslims, but Islam is a religion that tells its followers lying is acceptable when dealing with a non believer, Christianity does not tell me lying is acceptable behaviour. I'm sure you have a good handle on fake Christians and the lies told as well as a good handle on hand picked puppet leaders.

In my opinion Syria should be left to work out their own solution unacceptable as it is to us, the west should get out of the middle east even if this means Russian influence will increase again. You talk about puppets but your leader is a puppet of the Saudi just as the Bush's were

Your religion tells you that it's okay to hate? It's okay to be a hater? Yeah right! You have a lot of self righteous audacity. There is no difference to me between Islam and Christianity.



In truth there are fake Muslims and fake Christians and many helpless sheeple to follow the crumbs of salvation straight to hell.

Your religion tells you that it's okay to hate? It's okay to be a hater? Yeah right! You have a lot of self righteous audacity. There is no difference to me between Islam and Christianity.

Tal, what my religion tells me is that there are those who follow Christ and those who do not. Jesus warned us the antichrist is in the world and I see Islam as a manifestation of that. It is not hate speech to so, no matter what the cockeyed left in your country might think. Now I can judge Islam by its actions and I can judge some so called Christians by the same standard. You are very mistaken that there is no difference between Islam and Christianity, that is an anti Christian view

You are entitled to believe as you will, as am I, and be you Muslim, or Christian or any other religion, all I care about is are you a good human in words and deeds, or a not so good one. My main point is only to point out the history of this regional conflict which I think on closer examination could enhance this discussion to a higher level than mere religion, and focus on the very common human behavior of seeking MONEY, and POWER. That's an older motivation than any religious affiliation.

Despite your very dim views of Muslims, and the conflicts and skirmishes throughout history, they seem to coexist around the world very well except when some nogheads haters inflicts their bigoted poison into the mix as ISIS did, and of course YOU hard core Christian made it about YOU, and completely ignored the fact of the wholesale killing and repression of their own fellow Muslims. You are correct as we have seen this before in human behavior for GAIN, by the overly ambitious throughout history.

That's my main argument against the DUFUS! He is clearly driven by creating chaos and division for his own personal gain, and that does nothing to promote order and peace. Hi words and deeds just don't match, nor benefit no one but his own agenda, which is clearly money and power, as is the agenda of Putin and Assad... and others to be sure.

They all got to go to give the peace a chance.

the arabs have ways of dealing with despots that the rest of us haven't conceived, a thousand camels and all that....
Then why do they remain in power for decades until there is some outside intervention ? I look at the American revolution as an example . WE would not have won without the assistance of the other global power rival of Great Britain.

The emperor dealt herr Donald a bad hand by letting Russia, Iran and China believe they could advance their goals of regional domination without U.S. resistance. In Syria as elsewhere, Trump has to decide if he wants to ratify that American retreat or develop a strategy to stop it. It is unclear which direction he will steer because to abandon the emperor's policies would be to abandon his own national security naivety .

The Dufus has to own his own actions and while loud and public, rather sloppy in the way he deals with other nations. That's where experienced state department officials and AMBASSADORS working behind the scenes could have been of great benefit, instead of the public name calling to keep his base excited and project strength, because indeed he better have the support of our allies to accomplish anything substantial.

This sound bite diplomacy doesn't fool Putin or Xi, since it's based on ego, not data, and they can carry on with their own agendas unfettered by the Dufus threats. Even Assad can ignore him and do as he pleases and what he was doing all along... ending the threat to his power. Yeah, our orange idiot is feckless and no matter what you say Obama left him, he has torn it down and has no clue which way to go next. LOL, but rest assured he will make a big do about his handling of it.

We haven't even talked about the rest of the players in the Levant who are doing their own thing at the risk of even more slaughter of those allied with us still. I'm referencing Turkey, and the expansion into Kurdish territory.

Don't know what you are talking about . There were 3 maybe 4 allies that participated in the strike . It was a no brainer ;and as a side benefit ,it showed how weak the Russian position is there . How does that square with the ridiculous fantasy you guys have with this collusion narrative ?

The Dufus has to own his own actions and while loud and public, rather sloppy in the way he deals with other nations. That's where experienced state department officials and AMBASSADORS working behind the scenes could have been of great benefit, instead of the public name calling to keep his base excited and project strength, because indeed he better have the support of our allies to accomplish anything substantial.

This sound bite diplomacy doesn't fool Putin or Xi, since it's based on ego, not data, and they can carry on with their own agendas unfettered by the Dufus threats. Even Assad can ignore him and do as he pleases and what he was doing all along... ending the threat to his power. Yeah, our orange idiot is feckless and no matter what you say Obama left him, he has torn it down and has no clue which way to go next. LOL, but rest assured he will make a big do about his handling of it.

We haven't even talked about the rest of the players in the Levant who are doing their own thing at the risk of even more slaughter of those allied with us still. I'm referencing Turkey, and the expansion into Kurdish territory.

Dump has said he wanted out of the middle east, he doesn't want regime change in Syria like his predecessor who created a quagmire and carries the blame for Iranian expansion and Russian interference. Turkey has taken advantage of a vacuum. What allies do you have there. Turkey is your ally although they don't know which side they are on. Look at a map, the Turkish incursion is small

The Kurds ARE KEY allies against ISIS. While Turkey is a NATO member, Erdogan's power grab and his fight with the Kurds is very disturbing. He is becoming a dictator in the style of Putin and Assad.

The Kurds ARE KEY allies against ISIS. While Turkey is a NATO member, Erdogan's power grab and his fight with the Kurds is very disturbing. He is becoming a dictator in the style of Putin and Assad.



Being a dictator is a form of government common in the east, Erdogan is far worse than Putin and certainly on a par with Assad.
He needs to be closely watched as his new détente with Iran is very concerning. We can expect that Erdogan wants to re-establish the Ottoman empire just as Iran wants to re establish the Persian empire, actually they are a lot closer to it than we might think

Just like Putin wants to restore the old Soviet Union? Plus Putin uses underhanded tactics to make his opposition disappear or nullifies them with jail, and plenty of propaganda, so he doesn't need gas, or his regular army so much. A slick mobster approach, with an interesting tactic of removing his armies insignias, and letting them be mercenaries, which he distributes to targeted countries.

Nothing like a dictator seizing and keeping power to fuel human migration patterns.

Now Tal are you objecting to a little Russian recreation for their troops? Is there a large movement of the Russian population? Assad certainly has depopulated Syria