Come one Rob.... You're making very good points in the discussion at hand, which make for excellent reading and though provoking conversation about this crisis in Syria. Stop with the sidebar semantics. Defiant's referral to the UK as "England" is no less ignorant or uninformed then people referring to the United States as "America". England is clearly the dominant component, of the United Kingdom, and people around the world are far more likely to perceive this, and ignore the irritation of the Welsh, the Scots, and so on. Defiant is a lumbering Pollock, but he is well aware of this. He just used the word England out of expediency in typing, and making a general reference, just as you did in response labeling him as an American.

Chemical Weapons/WMDs. – It’s long been suggested that Iraq evaculated many of the WMDs that Sadam had to Sryria. Yes, people WMDs really did exist in Iraq, and just because they were not discover after toppling Saddam, doesn’t meant they were a fluke. They were in fact very real, and identified after the war with Iraq in 1991

Just listen to a defeated Saddam for a second. In a post-invasion interview, Saddam admitted that he had been bluffing about his WMD. This is actually case-closed for the conspiracy theories about his weapons transfers.
But for a moment, let’s suppose that Saddam circumvented the most intrusive sanction regime the world has ever known and rebuilt his WMD programs after inspectors (and Israeli jets) destroyed them. His reasoning would have been deterrence — as Thomas Schelling put it, Saddam would have given his enemies a “threat that leaves something to chance.” That’s why the Assad regime threatens on and off to use WMD: It keeps the foreign hordes at bay. So why, with U.S. massing forces on his border, would Saddam give up the one thing he had to raise the cost of invading to the Americans?
Second, let’s say that Saddam wasn’t so concerned about the Americans — a miscalculation that Saddam seems to have made. That’s actually not a rationale for transferring weapons to Syria. Just like in 1991, he faced the collapse of his regime. Except back then, he slaughtered jubilant Shiites and used chemical weapons on the Kurds. Why, in 2003, would Saddam give up the worst threat he could make against his people?
Third, the Iraqi Ba’athists and Syrian Ba’athists are far from allies. Syria’s Allawites are minority Shiites and proxies to Iraq’s arch-enemy Iran. They fought on the allied side against Iraq during Desert Storm. Why would Saddam turn over his deadliest weapons Iran’s best friend in the region? Remember: Saddam says he made his WMD threats to cower the Iranians.
Fourth, from a U.S. military perspective, the transfer would have been impossible to hide. I worked at U.S. Central Command’s Mideast headquarters before, during, and after the invasion, which gave me a good understanding of what was going on at the time. The region was blanketed by U.S. military assets. Operation Enduring Freedom was in full swing in Afghanistan, and Operations Northern and Southern Watch were still in place over Iraq. If something moved — like, say a convoy of Winnebagos of Death heading for Syria — it could be detected and killed.

While you can club Defiant on his mistaking Brown for the present PM, I think that the whole "professed to tell me how my government was behaving" thing gets a bit rich. We've been enduring a good deal of that from across the board, and the great white north for years in this forum. I get what you're saying, but the irony of it actually coming home to roost is rather tangible.

In this case I'm actually rather pleased with how the UK has distanced themselves from President Obama, although I cannot say I'm surprised. He's a bumbling idiot, and the stakes are a lot higher than this previously excused botches in maintaining good relations with the UK have been. SO thank God for the old UK maintaining some sanity and not being blindly led by the USA as they are often accused of.

WHat is being suggested, and with a lot more basis in fact than anything you can offer is that Saddam's WMDs are probably somewhere in Syria.

It is often said, sometimes with dubious authority, that Baghdad never cooperated in the UN quest to account for its nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. In fact, that is not entirely correct. Immediately following the termination of hostilities in 1991, Iraq did cooperate in a significant fashion. Not only did Iraq turn over militarily significant holdings of weapons of mass destruction to the United Nations as instructed, but it also participated effectively in a follow-on destruction process. The destruction of proscribed weapons and of associated facilities was carried out mainly by Iraq but under constant supervision by UNSCOM and the IAEA. Data from the archives in New York bear out the contention that UN inspectors proved to be extremely successful in effectively accounting for the disposition and ultimate destruction of nuclear materials and associated facilities as well as of proscribed missiles and of chemical weapons.

By the mid-1990s, significant quantities of Iraq’s nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs had been destroyed or rendered harmless under UN supervision. In 1996 the IAEA was able to report to the Security Council that no nuclear weapons had been manufactured in Iraq, that proscribed nuclear material had been removed from the country, and that no clandestine nuclear weapons program remained. During that time frame, UNSCOM was also able to account to the Security Council for 817 of the 819 short-range SCUD missiles known to have been in the Iraqi inventory. Indeed, UNSCOM itself had destroyed 48 SCUD missiles and 50 warheads and used material balance techniques reinforced by an extensive excavation program to confirm that Iraq had destroyed the rest. The inspectors were able to provide final proof by comparing missile and engine numbers with documentation the supplier states provided to UNSCOM.

Likewise, in the early 1990s, Iraq turned over to the United Nations more than 40,000 proscribed chemical warheads, half of which were drained and consequently destroyed by Iraq, again under UNSCOM guidance. Add to that the supervised destruction by Iraq of an additional 700 tons of bulk chemical weapons agents, some 3,600 tons of precursor chemicals, and more than 100 pieces of equipment used to produce chemical weapons, and it is clear that significant military quantities of chemical weapons had indeed been identified by Iraqi authorities and destroyed during the period between 1991 and 1996. Moreover, UNSCOM inspectors were able to extrapolate from some excavations of Iraq’s declared sites that claims made by Iraq of unilateral destruction were reasonably accurate

Western non-governmental organizations have stated they believe Syria has an active chemical weapons program.[9][10][11][12] The U.S. has stated that the Syria "has had a chemical warfare program since the mid-1980s", In 1988, a U.S. analyst described Syria's CW capability as more advanced than that of Iraq, however, Israel stated in 1989 that Syria had the "potential for chemical warfare, but not more than that".[8]

Syria reportedly manufactures chemical weapons(CW) agents, including mustard blistering agents, and deadly nerve agents like Sarin, Tabun and VX. A 2007 assessment indicated that Syria is capable of producing several hundred tons of chemical weapon agents per year.[13]

and as a major ally of Russia, does anyone really think Russia would be pure as altar boys?

Ray, if Israel can inttercede to destroy specific weapons systems with impunity why do you think they re worried about what the US will do to punish Assads transgressions?

So, I think Obama has terribly miscalculated by going to Congress, even if Congress gives him a green light. Obama has created a precedent. How does he not follow that precedent before moving on Iran. If I'm Netanyahu I order a full review of capabilities to surprise attack Iran today without U.S. support. It will only get harder

Four months ago, Inhofe demanded that “President Obama step up and exhibit the leadership required” to show Syria’s Bashar al-Assad “that his barbaric actions have consequences.” Writing in USA Today, Inhofe added: “Continued inaction by the president, after establishing a clear red line, will embolden Assad and his benefactors in Tehran to continue their brutal assault against the Syrian people.” Inhofe floated the idea of a “no-fly” zone or even “boots on the ground.”
But last week, as Obama moved toward military action to enforce his “red line,” Inhofe issued a statement saying that “[o]ur military has no money left” for a strike on Syria. On “Fox News Sunday,” Inhofe reiterated his position that “I would oppose going in and having military intervention against Syria.” He said that Obama should not have drawn a red line in the first place