NO SYRIAN ATTACK

(This paragraph is me, not the NYT; that article lead follows) 

There is too much risk. Too much BLOWBACK. It is horrific to see and "allow" gassing of the populace b a government, but the horror, imbalance, disruption, divisiveness and violent follow up we endure still from the lies and intelligence boondoggle in Iraq must not be repeated. No intervention. Send in UN peacekeepers by the hundreds, but no intervention by our blue water Navy, Cruise Missles or other "surgical strikes"-- the resultant horror possible outweighs benefits of handling it this way, especially with Russia and China firmly against such an action. 

These are the UN peeps out interviewing and investigating in the neighborhoods that were gassed. Good coverage in the NYT

U.S. Facing Test on Data to Back Action on Syria

NEW YORK TIMES

By MARK MAZZETTI and MARK LANDLER

WASHINGTON — The evidence of a massacre is undeniable: the bodies of the dead lined up on hospital floors, those of the living convulsing and writhing in pain and a declaration from a respected international aid group that thousands of Syrians were gassed with chemical weapons last week.

  And yet the White House faces steep hurdles as it prepares to make the most important public intelligence presentation since February 2003, when Secretary of State Colin L. Powell made a dramatic and detailed case for war to the United Nations Security Council using intelligence — later discredited — about Iraq’s weapons programs.

  But with the botched intelligence about Iraq still casting a long shadow over decisions about waging war in the Middle East, the White House faces an American public deeply skeptical about being drawn into the Syrian conflict and a growing chorus of lawmakers from both parties angry about the prospect of an American president once again going to war without Congressional consultation or approval.