There may well  be a lot of “national soul searching” as George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, put it after Parliament voted yesterday against the UK joining in any punitive military attack on Syria following the use of chemical weapons in that country. I’m sure he’s right and I’m sure too that Parliament was right in voting the way it did. If nothing else, it shows that the Prime Minister and his Government cannot act without first consulting the wishes of the people via their democratically elected representatives.

As mentioned before in this blog, involvement in Syria would be a big mistake, as it undoubtedly was in Iraq and Afghanistan and to a lesser extent Libya. Yes, all those countries were or are ruled by dictators whose behaviour is naturally abhorrent to anyone with an ounce of morality but what is to be gained by foreign involvement? Once the dictator has been removed who or what is going to take his place? Since the answer to that question is normally hard line Islamists it is probably better to leave the military despot in charge. Better the devil you know and all that. At least these despots generally have no wish to take on and destroy the West, unlike the hard core fanatics of Islam.

Military involvement in Syria by any western nation would be a huge mistake for many reasons and, in any event, it appears that there is still no concrete proof who was responsible for the chemical attacks in the first place. It may well have been the Syrian Government but it could also have been the struggling rebels who, let’s face it, have much to gain from western involvement. Chemical weapons are both repugnant and horrific and many in the West are rightly concerned by their use. However any death by violence is horrific. Are the people in favour of intervention saying that the death of 200 women and children by chemical weapons is worse than their death by bullets and bombs? If so, why? The end result is still the same.

This is a dangerous vicious world and horrible things are happening on a daily basis in virtually all of its four corners. What about the genocide in Somalia and other parts of Africa, the continued massacre of Kurds in Iraq, the torture and murder in North Korean prison camps and the butchery of Mugabwe’s cruel regime in Zimbabwe? Are people agitating to intervene there too? Where do we draw the line?

The United Nations was set up, among other reasons, to police the world. It’s sad that the security council often proves toothless due to the exercise of the member’s veto and unless they change the rules to allow action by majority vote the UN’s impotence and prevarication will continue. As for the UK, well, we are a small nation, no longer with the voice that we used to have. On a global stage we are weak both economically and militarily. Sad and brutal though it may be, we have no business getting involved in what, basically, are other countries’ problems.