Syria

Any little credibility you had left has now gone.

What credibility are you talking about?

In any case, stripping out the political and economic conspiracies that people love to point out whenever they have a chance (because they 'still believe' it's all true... a bit like people believe they can get pregnant after engaging in oral sex or Santa Clause) this is first and foremost a HUMANITARIAN cause and that should be dealt with by an international body.

Now what Russia and China are doing is disgraceful. Germany is not part of the Security Council but using Syria in their election campaigns is equally disgraceful. And the fact that the European f*ckin' Union has no common position on this and other than some under-equipped special intervention troops have no one to intervene anyway is equally disgraceful. Then we have NATO which exists for what reason again??? International Policy has become more of a mess than ever.

Having said that - the fact that Obama doesn't seem to back down now that the British Parliament has ruled out an intervention is just great. Kudos to him, it's the right thing to do.

In what way? Do you think that it was a 100% inside job and that the towers were rigged with explosives etc? There are some ridiculous theories out there.

I think the most that America did was allow it to happen.

Well it looks like democracy reigns in the UK at the moment but how long that will last, who knows.

If nothing else, Blair going into Iraq has definitely left a legacy for future PM's to wind their neck in when faced with vocal opposition to using force so I'd expect Cameron to do the same.

Looks like Obama is still gunning for Syria though which I'm quite glad about as something really needs done to tip the balance. In order for evil to triumph it only requires good men to do nothing and so on...

I'm reading a book just now charting the history of the world (it's a big book!!!) and an interesting point was made yesterday about the US being fiercely isolationist prior to WW2 but within a few years they'd been forced into the previously unthinkable role of them being the world's policeman (which is an interesting but different debate) and only goes to show that international relations is such a minefield that with the best will in the world, no one can really tell what will happen if anyone makes a play in Syria.

I have some Syrian friends from my time out in the Middle East with a young daughter. Thankfully they're still in Saudi but it's heartbreaking to think of what their friends, family and home may be going through just now.