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Syria Conflict: Government Helicopters 'drop Chlorine' On Aleppo

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mikey4444 | 07:54 Wed 07th Sep 2016 | News
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-37291182

Assad has been using chemical weapons on his own people for years and this is only the latest occasion. And yet the rest of the world just stands by and watches him get away with murder.

( the BBC clip may cause distress)
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It's worth reflecting that Assad was supposed to have decommissioned his chemical weapons years ago. That was the excuse we had for not intervening before: that we would at least be doing something "humanitarian". Meanwhile, he stepped up his "conventional" attacks (it was probably a sick joke to the bombed civilians of Syria that we were so concerned about the chemical stuff, but happy it seemed to let the other stuff continue).
And, plainly, didn't even totally decommission the chemicals either.
Of course it is true that other sides have used chemical weapons too, but no prizes for guessing how they acquired them.
what shall we do mikey?
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TTT...to be honest, I am not entirely sure. But when other dictators like Assad were up to similar tricks, the West stepped in decisively.

What would the Balkans be like now, for instance, unless we had intervened ?

It seems that the solution may lie in the UN. It was formed just after the War, in October 1945, precisely to, at least try to stop outrages like this.

Assad is a horrible, blood-thirsty war criminal, and yet the world just stands around and lets him get away with it.
The difficulty with Syria is finding out who are the good guys.
Mikey > But when other dictators like Assad were up to similar tricks, the West stepped in decisively.

...and look what happened in Iraq :(
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Yes, I agree, but its a lot easier to tell who the bad guys are, and Assad is at the front of that queue.

Can I remind everybody what Hilary Benn said, in December 2015, in a speech that was widely supported by people across the political spectrum ::

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2015/dec/03/hilary-benn-airstrikes-vote-speech-full-must-confront-isis-evil-video

It seems we are no closer to actually doing anything that we were then.
"TTT...to be honest, I am not entirely sure. But when other dictators like Assad were up to similar tricks, the West stepped in decisively. " - yeah and the Tibetan peace porridge brigade are still whining about it! You can't have it both ways.
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agchristie....but a no-fly zone was introduced, to protect the Kurds against the exactly the same type of chemical warfare that Assad is using now.

At present time, Assad can do whatever he likes, because he knows that there is no-one that will stop him.
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TTT....I have never whined about taking decisive action against bar stewards like Assad, and never will. For the record, I think it was right to remove Saddam from power, although I will admit that the West didn't cover itself in glory in the aftermath.

The UN should meet and impose a no-fly zone ASAP. Another thing that might help concentrate Assad's mind is if a couple of large battleships were to be stationed in the Med, with its guns zeroed in on his Palace.
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Talbot....very interesting link at 09:19 this morning. Do you know when that meeting happened ?....the Telegraph doesn't give a date to its link, which is odd.
It is an extremely complex situation Mikey.My point was that acting decisively can sometimes be paid with a higher price.

We have to be careful where Russia is concerned of course.
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agchristie....I haven't said it would be easy....I agree, its very complicated.

But one of the reasons that it as complex as it is today, is because we have faffed around for too long, without doing anything. The situation was a lot clearer a few years ago, and Russia wasn't involved militarily then.

This war didn't start yesterday or even last week. Its been going on for years, and at least 400,000 people have died at the hand of Assad.

I would contend that it would be inhumane to continue to sit on our hands, doing nothing. We have the UN and it should act.
Mikey > But one of the reasons that it as complex as it is today, is because we have faffed around for too long, without doing anything.

Yes,that damn vote in the House AGAINST Cameron!
"We have to be careful where Russia is concerned of course. "

This is the great myth. Why exactly do we have to be careful? I have never understood that. Russia is a bully to its neighbours, but weak on the world stage - why else would they be busting a gut to hang on to a measly Mediterranean naval base? Their economy is in freefall, their population predicted to halve by 2050. Their naval a collection of rustbuckets. Yes they possess nuclear weapons but to use against whom precisely? The West where the dirty money of their ruling elite is laundered? , but they are too dependent on it themselves for it to be used as a global economic weapon (and it has even ceased to be an effective weapon against the majority of their neighbours)
Having said all that it IS hard to know what one can do know we tried to go down the UN route before, and we weere scuppered by Russia and China. The sutuatiion is now so complicated, with so many warring factions and their supporting patrons...
Brokering a ceasefire will be impossible I should think unless and until one side thinks it is otherwise likely to lose and/or the other feels it cannot win outright: but there are a lot of sides.
"Oil" they are too dependent on - sorry got omitted
-- answer removed --
We've been over this countless times before, but pretty obviously what caused the civil war was the massive over reaction to the anti government protests. This is what Syria and Russia hope we will fight when they witter on about 'terrorists'. The first acts of 'terrorism' were committed BY the regime against peaceful demonstrations.
hope we will 'forget' (sigh)

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