Sense of déjà vu in desire for military action against Syria

HERE we go again. Similar postures and statements but a different party. William Hague appears, and has done so for the past few months, hell bent upon some form of military action in Syria.

All the old clichés and rhetoric are being dragged out of Downing Street, namely “it is highly likely”, “appears to have”, “strongly suggests”, along with other vacuous terms in an attempt to persuade the world that chemical weapons have been used in Syria.

We cannot wage war against a country which has not been 100 per cent confirmed as using chemical warfare.

I seem to recall Tony Blair and company leading us down this path against Saddam Hussein on the back of statements declaring that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction which could be launched within 24 hours and look where that took us.

Finally, why didn’t the West take action against Saddam 10 years prior to his overthrow when he launched his chemical weapons (sarin) against the Kurdish tribesmen, killing thousands in the process?

But of course, he was a “friend” of the West at that time.

How can we have confidence in our intelligence gathering, bearing in mind what has resulted in the past?

From: Rodney Atkinson, Meadowfield Road, Stocksfield, Northumberland.

IN every sense David Cameron is (in his own words) the “heir to Blair”. He is historically ignorant, internationally naive, superficial, aggressive and a poodle of a US president.

There is no evidence which justifies an attack on the Syrian Government for using chemical weapons – at least no more evidence than there is that the Syrian rebels have used chemical weapons. If Cameron and Obama bomb the Syrian Government they must equally bomb the opposition.

It was, of course, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton who turned Nato (previously a defensive alliance against Soviet Communism) into an aggressive power, attacking countries as they and their successors saw fit, on the pretext of ‘humanitarian intervention’ – Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya. Now they are picking on Syria and siding with some of the most vicious and murderous Islamic groups against a regime which at least has protected its Christian population – unlike the Muslim Brotherhood with its fascist and anti-Christian history in Egypt.

The British people must stop any attack on Syria. There is no legality in such an attack and it could unleash a series of dangerous Middle East conflicts. I hope our Parliamentarians grasp the seriousness of the situation.

From: DS Boyes, Rodley Lane, Leeds.

HAVING watched most of the debate on Syria in Parliament, I was mightily relieved that common sense prevailed and that the key vote went against the Government.

However, I thought one of the finest speeches was made by Bradford West’s Respect MP George Galloway, who ignored the gung-ho Tory rhetoric and stuck to the truth, which is that the Syrian rebel faction does not represent an oppressed majority there, but some are very dubious people with their own agenda involving many atrocities.

In addition to which he also pointed out the failings of the UN whereby the veto has been used over and over again to prevent progress towards a Palestinian nation state which, after 65 years of them being refugees in their own land, is a travesty. We have to wonder why the UK and the rest of the supposed civilised Western world continue to turn a blind eye to what is happening to these poor people.

From: Peter Bye, Park Crescent, Addingham.

THE biggest single contribution the Americans could make to peace in the Middle East is to destroy the illegally-built Jewish settlements in the Palestinian homelands.