""limited strike means killing kids,burning mutilating....how will it help the situation.

Sadam used chemical weapons against the Kurds. He was a shit. but really are we any better with the power struggle his successors inherited. Plus we know that given a democratic choice - people in that part of the world choose extremists of their own faction.

Plus to create this mess we have put our severely underfunded armed forces into the breach, and we have had lost good men.""

Thank you Al for saving me the bother of replying to one who makes me feel I need to wash my hands afterward.

The only thing worse than not intervening (other than with humanitarian aid) is intervening IMO.

Weighing up the alternatives, it's a no win situation and we have only recently extracted ourselves from one such and are still embroiled in another.

Intervening inevitably results in increased danger of terrorist attacks at home, more of our sons and daughters sacrificed, maimed and traumatised, and still no conceivable end game that will improve the lives of the Syrians who survive.

Not intervening (except on a humanitarian basis) will not increase the number of those who hate us (we have more than enough already), and might even improve relations between us and the Islamic countries. I know that idea will be viewed with horror by our Irsrael groupies, who would rather see a war to eradicate them.

The bottom line is that this scenario leads inexorably toward escalation, with Russia and China head to head with the USA.

War does not decide who is right, it decides who is LEFT!!

Don T.