I fear that Syria is something of a lost cause and the Allied missile strike is a pretty empty gesture. No one has much of a firm policy and the USA doesn't even have a Sec of State or ambassadors in neighbouring Qatar, Jordan etc, so even if they had a policy, they have no one to explain it on the ground. What can they do? Announce it by tweets, or send the apparently mute and increasingly invisible Jared Kushner in to do his job and fix the Middle East?
Chemicals or no, the Assad family has always been brutal to Syrians. If you want some historical perspective, explore what the regime did to Hama, "the most beautiful city in Syria" in 1982 - a crack-down, or massacre, in which up 40,000 civilians were killed.
After the destruction of the city, an American journalist visited the site:-
Quote:
Not far from the city center we came to a neighbourhood that had been plowed up and then flattened.
"Where are all the houses that once stood here?" I asked.
"You're driving on them," he said.
"But where are all the people who used to live here?"
"You're probably driving on some of them too."
I kicked the ground beneath my feet and uncovered a tennis shoe... '
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