JON,

You said there was a UN report, there is not. There is an interview with a single UN official, that is contradicted by the UN body in charge of the investigation. As my kids would say EPIC FAIL.

The fighting is now fueled by foreign support, but the Assad regime had a full year of shooting up to 20 000 unarmed civilians before this happened. Subsequently the government forces have used their heavy weapons to shell urban areas which causes widespread and indiscriminate casualties. The rebels are not saints either, but their lack of heavy weaponry makes any attempts at balancing the blame futile.

The attacks by Israel can be considered an act of war, just as the supplying of tens of thousands of rockets to a terrorist organisation intending to fire them into Israel. No sane politician is going to lose a wink of sleep if Hezbollah loses its rockets.

In Libya a despotic tyrant that intended to inflict the same carnage that Assad is presently doing, was deposed with a fraction of the bloodshed we are seeing in Syria. The saving of tens of thousands of lives is seen as a stunning success by most of the world. There are a delusional few that think that sovereign governments should have the right to butcher their citizens.

It now appears that the UN 'report' on the use of sarin gas, was in fact the opinion of one of the four members of the UN Commission appointed to enquire into its use. Carla del Ponti made the statement not in an official report, but during an interview on Swiss television. The Commission as a whole has since issued a statement saying that its inquiry is continuing and that it has no 'evidence' that rebels used the gas. Ms del Ponti herself said she had only 'concrete suspicions'. I met Ms del Ponti some years ago. She is one of the UN's most able senior officials. She did excellent work in Rwanda especially. However, she does have a weakness for the limelight and in this case she certainly achieved it.

You seem to all be willfully blind to the elephant in the room. The greatest danger to all of us this century is certain to be the coming worldwide conflict between the West, and the forces of Islam.

If we have a friend in the current Syrian conflict, it has to be the Assad regime, rather than the rebels, who would quickly turn the Islamic Spring into a Koranic Winter, distinctly dangerous to any remaining remnants of Christianity, Judaism, Secularism, or anyone not totally committed to Global Jihad.

Our only true friend in the entire region is Israel, and we should endeavor to do nothing to endanger her. Let's just keep out of the conflict, apart from re-assuring Israel that we'll stand by her.

@Beaucoupbob. I think you will find, on examination of the evidence, that attacks on western interests by Islamic radicals are almost invariably in response to the west's interference in the affairs of their countries. If you bomb, invade and exploit others you mustn't be surprised when they retaliate. The miracle is that there is not a whole lot more retaliation given our behaviour over the years. Read William Blum's Rogue State; Peter Dale Scott's American War Machine; or Jeremy Scahill's recently released Dirty Wars for some insight into what is really going on as to the mindless pap published daily in the mainstream propaganda organs.

May I suggest that the real elephant in the room is that State of Israel. The west tolerates/condones endless acts of terrorism by Israel. It is the object of more adverse UN General Assembly resolutions than all the Muslim states combined. When it conducts a blatant act of war as in the latest bombing of Syria (whose land it illegally annexed) there was a stunning silence from the newly elected Security Council member that purports to act in our name. Unless and until we sanction Israel for the continuing egregious conduct it engages in there will never be peace in the Middle East.