Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Americans say they don't want the U.S. to strike Syria, but that they could support a limited action that did not risk the lives of American soldiers, according to recent polls.

In a new survey from NBC, 50 percent of 700 respondents said the U.S. should not take "military action" in Syria, while 42 percent said the U.S. should.

But opinions changed when participants were asked about airstrikes launched from U.S. ships, without involving ground troops or U.S. planes flying over Syria.

Asked their opinion about a mission "limited to airstrikes using cruise missiles launched from U.S. naval ships that were meant to destroy military units and infrastructure that have been used to carry out chemical attacks," 50 percent said they would support such an action, while 40 percent said they would not.

Those latest numbers are consistent with other polling taken this month. As of Aug. 27, a Reuters five-day tracking poll of 2,293 Americans found similar opposition to attacking Syria in response to its suspected use of chemical weapons: 28 percent said the U.S. should intervene, 42 percent said it should not and 30 percent said they didn't know.

How could they tell one building from another?


Asked their opinion about a mission "limited to airstrikes using cruise missiles launched from U.S. naval ships that were meant to destroy military units and infrastructure that have been used to carry out chemical attacks," 50 percent said they would support such an action, while 40 percent said they would not.

Afghan war started Oct 2001 .... 12 years and counting, no resolution in sight.

Iraq war started March 2003 ..... 10 years and counting, no resolution in sight.


Syria war started ?

Korean war - no resolution, both sides technically still at war - plenty of others.

Tony Blair called on UK and US to begin the War on Syria


War Criminal Tony Blair called on London and Washington to go to war in Syria.

The former British Prime Minister, a known war criminal and liar, made some new statements in terms of Syria and called on the governments in Britain and the United States to go to war in Syria in order to save the Syrian population. However, one might ask whether the Iraqis would sign such a statement by Tony Blair.

Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister, who has dragged Britain into the war against Iraq, based on fabricated claims, propaganda, and lies, sees no other option than to start another war, this time, against Syria. Perhaps there are also “ready-to-launch weapons of mass destruction” in Syria. Tony will tell us.

http://www.syrianews.cc/tony-blair-begin-war-syria/

Dreams,

I thought Blair was another slick salesman who ingratiated himself into the labour party.#

I thought he might sell the Labour party to the voters and he did.

I did not like him at the time and did not like many of his policies, although I thought during his period there were improvements in the social fabric of the country.

As far as Iraq was concerned I think he was self deceiving to say the least and it was a catastrophic mistake to do what they did and the way the occupation was carried out.

I was against that war and thought there were other ways of castrating Saddam.

I doubt that I would give Blair a glass of water in the desert.

==========

But listening to Obama a short time ago reinforces my respect of him.

What did O'Bammy say?

DYOH and evaluate it for yourself.

I have open a bottle of wine.

8-)

Obama post 28533 above

I suspect the bottle wasnt the first.


http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/31/syrian-air-strikes-obama-congress

re: #28542

How many soldiers on the ground?

Todays mail -

Now Ed says we've got to help Syrians,

A slippery hypocrite no one can trust

For Ed Miliband this week it was not about peace. It was not about parliamentary sovereignty, the national interest , chemical-warfare treaties or our (possibly now knackered ) 'special relationship with Washington.
It was certainly not about those children whose suffocated bodies were seen wrapped in white burial shrouds , after the Damascus suburbs gas attacks, murdered innocents ? V. low on the Miliband priority list. For the labour leader this week it was , as ever, about just one thing :me, me, me.

It was completely stupid to vote down the motion. The motion even said that there would be no action without a further vote.

And you believe what comes out of Cameroons mouth?

I don't always believe what comes out of either leaders mouths . The news to me does the labour party no more favours than the conservatives. Certain posters tend to keep running out the Cons when in fact the headlines are not a lot better for Labour.

MPs have privately begun to voice concerns that their leader made a catastrophic mistake by engineering the defeat of the Government’s motion in the House of Commons on Thursday night.

Meanwhile senior figures inside the Government accused the Labour leader of “stark raving hypocrisy”, “dishonourable behaviour” and “putting his party before the national interest”.

Ministerial aides said that Mr Miliband consistently gave the impression of a series of days that he would back a “consensual” approach with the Government, only to suddenly change his mind.

Labour politicians have also acknowledged that Mr Miliband’s strategy faces being undermined by every new atrocity committed by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

One MP, who declined to be named publicly, said he began to regret his decision to vote against military action within minutes of stepping out of the Division Lobby – because television screens began to show new footage of suffering Syrian innocents.

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A former Labour foreign minister said Mr Miliband must bear part of the responsibility for the failure to secure agreement on how Britain should respond to the crisis. Meg Munn, the Labour MP for Sheffield Heeley, said: “I think both leaders bear a responsibility for getting us into this position.

“I’m in favour of us taking action but I recognise that colleagues wanted more information. More does need to be done in relation to Syria and we’re now in the wrong position.”

Miss Munn, who served as a junior minister in the Foreign Office from 2007-08 and previously as minister for equality, added: “The whole situation is very regrettable.”

Another Labour MP said that, while his main concern was the plight of innocent people in Syria, he was also worried that last Thursday’s vote in the House of Commons – which the Government lost by 285 votes to 272 – would have damaging implications for Britain’s international standing.

Mike Gapes, MP for Ilford South, said: “I’m getting the impression that the country has become pretty neo-isolationist. That is not, in my view, how our country should be.

“However, I don’t believe the Obama administration’s approach is going to work.

“I’m very pessimistic about the whole situation. The whole way that politics has handled it is not good. I’m not criticising Ed Miliband; I’m criticising the whole political process.”

Privately, though, some Labour MPs have been more critical. While some on the Opposition benches were elated – and even boorish – at the victory they had secured on Thursday evening, some quickly began to see it differently.

After they had left the Chamber, some of the more reflective Labour politicians quickly found their consciences being pricked when, as if on cue, television images of an apparent firebomb attack on children and adults in a Syrian town near Aleppo began to appear on television screens inside the Palace of Westminster.

“Just as we came out of the Chamber the news of that napalm attack was running on the TV news, which looked like it could have only come from the regime,” said one Labour backbencher.

“Horrific pictures, absolutely horrific. You’d help but wonder what on earth we had just done.”

Another Labour MP admitted that every atrocity to emerge from Syria would now give rise to a pang of doubt.

“We will all have this on our consciences,” he said. “It may have been the right decision, but every time I see footage of another Syrian atrocity I will wonder.”

Even Labour backbenchers who are normally supportive of Mr Miliband said the party political approach adopted by their leadership had left them feeling ashamed.

They admitted the catcalling and points-scoring which developed in the House of Commons over a vote of such monumental, life-and-death importance had been highly inappropriate.

“There were colleagues grinning, clapping, celebrating,” said one Miliband loyalist.

“They seemed to think it was some sort of victory. That seemed appalling.

“The next day members of all parties were running around saying this was great day for Parliament. It seems absurd – all we were being asked to do was condemn an atrocity.”

Last night senior figures in the Coalition said that Mr Miliband gave the impression at a series of meetings and phone calls on Tuesday and Wednesday that he would back the Government’s motion.

In two phone calls on at around 8pm and 10pm on Tuesday night Mr Miliband calmly suggested that more information would from the United Nations would be “helpful” but he at no point said that he would vote against the Government’s motion.

The next afternoon at 3pm at a Downing Street meeting with Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary and Mr Cameron, Mr Miliband still gave no clue that he would abandon the “consensual” approach he had taken with the Coalition. Onlookers commented that his “posture” and demeanour seemed supportive.

When the Labour leader left Downing Street, Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg were convinced the Opposition would largely back the Government’s motion.

“That was our biggest mistake – to trust Ed Miliband not to play party politics with dead children,” said one senior Government source. “We were genuinely astonished – shocked. The only thing we can think of is that the Shadow Cabinet told him to u-turn and he did.”

Labour disputes this account of the Downing Street meeting. They say Mr Miliband had made no final agreement to back the motion. A Labour source said: “We were asked to a meeting. We attended and we listened to what was said. That was the right and proper thing to do.”

When pressed why Mr Miliband gave no initial signal that he might not back the motion, the source added: “If someone hands you a piece of paper at the end of a meeting with a lot of words on it the proper thing to do is to read it and consult with your party.”

At 4.30pm Mr Miliband chaired a 15-minute conference call of the Shadow Cabinet, where Labour’s front-bench team unanimously agreed not to back the Government motion.

A Labour spokesman said that the call was “business like”, but one party insider admits that senior members of the Shadow Cabinet had been alarmed by how little public support there had been for an attack on Syria.

At 5:15pm, the Labour leader called the Prime Minister back to say that he and his party would not support the Government’s motion. A furious exchange ensued between the two men.

“It was stark raving hypocrisy,” said a senior Government source. “Miliband was putting his party before the national interest. It was thoroughly dishonourable behaviour.”

A few minutes later the Leader of the Opposition posted a message on Twitter announcing Labour’s position.

Mr Miliband’s comments on Friday has only poured petrol on the row between Downing Street and the Shadow Cabinet. The Labour leader urged the Government not “turn its back” on the Syrian people.

One senior Liberal Democrat described there is now “sheer, unadulterated fury” flowing from their Conservatives to their Labour opposite numbers.

“I’d say we were more disappointed than furious,” the Lib Dem added. “Should we be surprised that Labour would seek to play politics with a situation like this – isn’t that what Oppositions do?

“The invasion of Iraq cast a long shadow over this whole affair. The Labour Party must entirely take the blame for the fact that the public no longer trust politicians to take decisions about when we should send our armed forces into battle.”

You cant believe daylight out of any of them, but throwing another war for vanity's sake is a stretch too far.

It wasn't going to be a war.It was a limited strike.

The last paragraph of the above article sums it up perfectly, Cheers Labour!