Trumps attack onto the Syrian state is clearly illegal.

There are two legal reasons to start a war:
- in self defence if the own country is attacked
- if mandated by the UN Security Council

While Bush junior convinced the UN with fake decoments in regards of WMDs, Trump did not even bother to ask for an investigation of the gas attack and to get an approval to act against those who dropped the bombs.

Australia should never approve US activities which are against international laws.

The countries joining the US led coalition that way is becoming the coalition of evil states.

It is time to tell big brother USA to get reasonable.

The USA created Alqaeda to fight the Russians in Afghanistan.
The USA supports the Syrian Rebells and ISIS to destabilise the Assad regime, because the USA wants control over the oil pipeline from Iraq to the Mediterranian.

As an effect all US wars made the world an unsafer place with more terrorist acts than 30 years ago, causing thousands of civilian deaths and thousands of immigrants flooding Europe and Asia / Australia.

If Turnbull would be reasonale he would call the troops back home. We wasted enough money to fix problems caused by stupid US foreign policy. Trump should clean up the mess he and Bush junior created himself alone.

Given the US history of false flags, mistakes and downright lies used to justify their extreme violence against innocent people I need way more than usual proof before condemning assad for this attack.

Dear Foxy,

I am at the point where I think there are very few of us in Australia can have a decently informed perspective on Syria because different groups including MSM are spinning it very hard. This doesn't mean we should not keep trying to inform ourselves but it should make us deeply suspicious of anyone claiming a definitive take on the conflict.

Here is a different view of the start of the conflict. It is gruesome in parts but worth noting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8prwbWLa7f0&feature=youtu.be

It contends that hardcore Islamist ideology was part of the uprising from the very start. As with all these things there are undoubtedly elements of truth but it is what is left out that is almost as important.

Dear SteeleRedux,

I've just had a telephone call from a close friend
who lives in Los Angeles. I asked her what she
thought about her new President. I hadn't spoken to
her for quite some time and as she has always been
a conservative voter I was careful with what I asked.
I was surprised
at how emotional she became. She related some appalling
events concerning the man's behaviour and much to my
surprise she totally condemned what he was doing in
Washington.

I'm going to keep an open mind as far as the Syrian situation
is concerned until I learn much, much more about the situation.
Thank You for the link you gave me. It does help.

Hi Steele,

In societies with few traditions of democracy, but underpinned by very strong religious traditions, it may be possible (and maybe even unavoidable) for a nationalist leader to seize power and set up a dictatorship, like Nasser, Kassem, Boumedienne, Reza Pahlavi, Saddam, Assad & Assad, Gaddafi, etc., but that underlying Islamist threat will always remain. Probably this how it's worked for more than a thousand years, sultan against mosque.

This is on top of ethnic fractures, especially in the region around Syria: Turk, Kurd, Arab, Yazidi, Sunni vs Shi'ite, Shi'ite Turkmen, Christians, Druse, etc. So any Leftist or democratic forces don't get much of a look-in. They must be the bravest people in the Middle East.

So it seems that there are always powerful dictatorship forces, verging on fascism, powerful Islamist forces waiting to step in if the dictator falters (like in Iran), and very weak democratic forces. Not to mention a host of other groups, each pushing their own barrow, and just as likely to bitterly attack each other.

In this case, Trump seems to have shoved a stick up both the nationalist-fascist forces and the Islamo-fascist forces, while the fragmented and compromised 'democratic' forces seem to be pushed to the sidelines.

And over-arching Syria is of course, the Sunni-Shi'ite fracture. So even if one two-way conflict is resolved, others will immediately take its place. While I would support Trump's specific attack on that air-base in response to the specific use of chemical weapons, I think Obama may have been wise to just keep out of the whole mess.

Joe

Russian planes delivered the chemical weopans.