Syria - what is to be done?

There is masses of fudge (compromise/grey area, whatever you want to call it) in politics. That was my main point. I'll stick with that for now.

Thanks for the backhanded compliment, anya, . No, I'm not applying my logical thinking to Trump's wee brain. I'm applying it to the US government. Trump is not acting alone. He is not incapable of being influenced by the people with better political brains (whether one agrees with their ideas is irrelevant to that remark) around him.

Bags you are a logical wee body. But you are trying to apply that same logical thinking to the workings of Trump's wee brain and it won't work (your logic that is not his brain...though come to think of it...).

Trouble is, he's now so puffed-up with his 'success' and the general approval that he now has Kim Yong Whatever The Fat Controller From North Korea calls himself, in his sights and that's another matter altogether. Two big spoilt kids, raised to think the sun shines out of rises and sets on them and with nukes to play with.

Elsewhere I read that the Foreign Ministers of the G7 states, US, Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Germany & Japan do support the idea of the use of "smart sanctions" to drive a wedge between the Kremlin, the Assad regime, and Iran.

What to believe? Who to believe? What to expect? All unknowns. A little more watching and waiting, I think.

It'll take the G7 foreign ministers a while to agree on appropriate sanctions, I should think.

In theory sanctions, non-military force if you like, seem like a better idea than Cruise missiles, though I don't think the US was wrong to send that sharp message in support on international law condemning the use of nerve gases that cause people to suffocate. I don't think it's good idea to try and effect regime changes in unstable states but I don't think that standing back and watching a revolting civil war is ethical either. There are no absolute rights and wrongs in these cases. There is only mess.

Was all the talk about Trump cosying up to Putin from "the experts" as well?

Trump and his administration are in favour of imposing more sanctions on Russia after the chemical attack in Syria. Our government supports this idea. But our European allies don't. Hmm.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/07/us-russia-relations-syria-military-strikes-putin-trump

"Three of Trump’s top officials delivered that message to the public, careful to sidestep the president’s long history of contradictory statements and his love of a “flexible” negotiating position. In doing so, they sketched a foreign policy as reactive and mutable as the commander-in-chief himself. "

Pretty much without thinking. I'll go along with the experts on trump.

How do we know it was done without thinking? Obama had thought about it but then been persuaded that Russia would make Assad destroy his chemical weapons. I wouldn't be surprised if even Trump (even Trump!) and his advisors had thought about the crossing of the red lines of international war crime law and what should be the reaction of the US and its allies.

Agreed, whitewave.
What will be his next action without thinking?
Lots of republicans are feeling uneasy now, as they were told he would not take them into another war.

I meant Congress!!!

Action without forethought is worse than no action.

Congested, maybe, No point with the UN as Russia and China will veto it!

If I was so unfortunate to be a mother who had just lost my child due to military action, I would weep just as much for my child whether she had been killed by chemical means or simply blown to bits.

iam64 that's not sitting on the fence that is the sort of intelligent considered action a world leader should be undertaking. My worry is that IS and other jihadis will take heart from Trumps actions.

I'm still struggling with Trump's action in bombing the airfields. My main concern is that the US and its allies (the Uk of course) have been supporting the rebel groups against Assad. Assad is a brutal dictator and the original rebellion seems to have been with the aim of getting rid of him and establishing a more democratic rule. Inevitably in that region, Al Queda, Daesh and other equally unpleasant groups joined the rebels. I loathe Assad, don't trust the Russians and like everyone else, wishes some kind of political solution can be found.
Trump hasn't waited long before confirming the fears most people had about his reactive, emotional personality being high risk in a Potus. I believe it's unlikely any group other than Assad is responsible for the chemical attacks and share the hopeless feeling that "something must be done". Trump would have been well advised to obtain the support of congress (and the UN?) before taking action. Or - am I fence sitting again?

The bombing of the airfield and associated infrastructure was never intended to make Assad stop and hide under the table , it was to make him stop using chemical weapons.Hopefully it will. The Americans were upfront about warning the Russians so that they ( and Syrians) could get out of the place and not be killed.

Sadly Assad clearly feels secure enough to continue with his murderous killing of his citizens.

In 1957, my parents also had a young German girl on a 'peace and reconciliation programme'to stay with us for six weeks, paying her and her parents a return visit in 1961. Bearing in mind fairly recent circumstances, I always felt that this gesture was particularly magnanimous on the part of my mother. So I suppose it proves that, contrary to popular belief, even staunch Tories aren't necessarily racists and bigots!

Surprised because it was quite soon after the war.
In the fifties my parents had Germans, Jamaicans and Nigerians staying in our house. Obviously didn't move in similar circles.
My parents were always staunch Tories, but this didn't seem to fit.

The current BNP was set up in 1982, but the original BNP was set up in 1960 and lasted until the National Front replaced it. Why are you surprised? If anything, the right-wing was more active in the 1960s in the UK than it is now.

Oswald Mosely was still active in politics in the 1960s. One of his aims was a European single nation state.I wonder what he would have thought of Brexit!

This is the Wiki entry for the original BNP:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_National_Party_(1960)

John Tyndall founded the current BNP after falling out with other National Front members. The ideology was identical to the National Front.

Sorry! This is off-topic, but maybe the previous poster will reconsider whether I'm at least a bit of an expert about threatened take-overs of Europe by alien cultures - or, at least, the paranoia about it.

PS. The woman in the red suit is dead, but my mother isn't and I don't want to give any more details.

Did you see there was an EDL march in Birmingham on Saturday afternoon?
The mosque countered it by having an English tea party.
A hundred on the march; three hundred at the tea party.
Brilliant.

White Defence League as well, not EDL. Even more blatant.

I'm surprised at there being a BNP in 1960. I wouldn't have thought anyone would have dared set up such a party. However, they obviously moved in different circles to the present BNP.

No, I didn't, thank goodness. The woman in the red suit was my mother's best friend at school and was a frequent visitor until she moved to Germany. I briefly met the woman's lover, Peter Ling, who is described as "a former armed robber, later to be exposed as a paedophile, who was Colin Jordan’s right-hand man for two decades."

Colin Jordan was a life-long Nazi, who founded the National Socialist Movement. George Lincoln Rockwell, who founded the American Nazi Party, was his deputy. Jordan was married briefly to Christian Dior's niece, Francoise and she provided him with much of the movement's finance.

Maybe you can understand why I'm so wary of right-wing movements and their philosophy. Ling and Jordan weren't idiots. Jordan went to Cambridge and was originally a teacher and Ling went to Oxford. They were real hard-core Nazis, who really believed that white people are superior and that "others" are scum, but trying to take over the world. I've read some of the letters the woman in the red suit sent to my mother. They're stark staring bonkers, but frightening, especially as Nick Griffon & Co seem to be setting up a neo-Nazi hub in Hungary and the possibility of a neo-Nazi government in France, etc.

Flipping heck, daphne! Did you know them all?
Pleased you grew up.

The authorities can only take action based on evidence, not just because they suspect someone is a terrorist.