I certainly hope this ends here. I certainly hope that this scheme was cooked up between Obama and Putin to release pressure to go to war that Obama is under from the Pentagon and Corporate interests. I certainly hope that these malevolent criminal entities don't cook up another false flag event to obtain the same goal. I certainly hope WWIII never happens. I certainly hope the speech tonight reflects these other hopes. Here's to hope!

Diplomacy works. Until Bashar al Assad believed that the United States would kill his soldiers did he become interested in possibly giving up his chemical weapons. Syria is in a terrible condition, mostly because of its despotic dictator. He has to go just as the other dictators have been taken down. God bless our Secretary of State, John Kerry, he said the right thing because his heart is good. We are fortunate to have this good man on our side.

Just saw the speech. That was a relief! Now if Obama can just keep the Pentagon on a short leash we might just survive this nonsense. I might have just got my vote worth!

Some people just have an innate ability to do the right thing without thinking!

Here is what I am worried about. Congress will pass something that says there won't be any bombing unless there is another gas attack after Syria surrenders theirs to the UN. Then somebody will make sure there is one.

Kerry's scary. He's been hanging out with Kissinger, which is beyond troubling.

We'll see, the devil is in the details. I do, however, question, just how off the cuff, John Kerry's remarks were. These guys rarely say anything unplanned. Thom, I know you believe it was diplomacy, but I think it was the threat of the military strikes that brought people to the diplomatic approach.

MMmmNACHOS ~ I must agree. We already have more than enough ridiculous laws on the books to ensure we will never be as free as we think we are. You are right in saying we need more investment in our society than wars or new laws. Publicly funded mental institutions for instance will solve the problem of shooting children much faster than any gun control laws ever will. The black market does not care if their clients have mental disorders or not. They only care about their ability to pay for the goods. As you've stated if we invest simply in single payer health care for all, publicly funded mental institutions will follow.

2950-10K ~ I share your concern about the abundance of assault rifles in the street. No good is ever going to come of that. However, I think that if we attack that problem at the source we will achieve better results. There is no reason that gun manufacturers should be allowed to manufacture more assault rifles then are needed by the military or special police units. It is this surplus that ultimately finds it's way into private and criminal hands. Gun collectors and responsible citizens who--for whatever reason--want to own and collect such things should be allowed to do so after a thorough background check, licensing, and showing proof of insurance. I believe that stricter regulation on gun manufacturing, not gun sales, is the way to go to reduce the number of guns--especially assault rifles and machine guns--on the street. We already have way too many guns in the world and not enough food. We need to encourage gun buyback programs that destroy the weapons and not resell them. There is no reason that we should allow enough guns to be produced that there is a gun for every man, woman, and child in the world. That is what will happen unless we attack this problem at the root of the source. Remember the law of supply and demand. The more guns there are the easier and cheaper they will be to obtain. That is the problem in my humble opinion.

Dropping bombs may not work, but obviously a credible threat to send in missiles will. We wouldn't be here were it not for President Obama's willingness to face the wrath of both the unstable Obama haters and the knee jerk progressives. Sad to say, Thom's just not getting it because he is forgetting everything we know about Barack Obama the person. I cringed at some of his really insulting remarks. NO ONE is saying it's ok to kill people with conventional weapons, but what the President has clearly demonstrated is that chemical weapons, like biological and nuclear weapons, are classed as WMDs and banned for good reason. They are anti-civilian instruments used to terrorize, demoralize, depress, suppress, and run off the civilians, leaving the field open to destroy any opposition. For Obama it's not about "wanting" war, it's about the actual USE of WMDs. He's been at this for his whole public career, duh! And the minute he expressed his firm intent to stop it in Syria, notice that it DID stop.

I also found it absolutely cringeworthy for Thom to rant that the President hasn't seen people die. Every President is exposed to the horrors of all kinds going on around the world every day. For some of them it is meaningless, but for this President it hits home. He has been steeped in empathy has seen all the kinds of suffering and death. The difference here is this is ONE kind of suffering, at this moment in time he is in a position to DO something about. If you can't solve all the world's problems at least do what you can do about those you possibly CAN solve. Even if you have to appear to the home crowd like the bad guy for awhile.

We owe him thanks, but shy of that, should have some understanding and respect for what he is and what he's trying to do. I strongly support a congressional resolution to back up his threat in the event that diplomacy with the Syrians fails. It's the only way to make sure that diplomacy will succeed.

Quote mblockhart: They [chemical weapons] are anti-civilian instruments used to terrorize, demoralize, depress, suppress, and run off the civilians, leaving the field open to destroy any opposition.

But in this case the evidence posed by the UN shows that this "attack" was actually not done by Assad..that it was most likely done by the rebels! Have you forgotten all of the false flags that the US has done to justify invading or overthrowing other countries? Have you not paid attention to what the rebels did to those people in Maaloula, Syria and other places around Syria...in villages around Allepo in the north...Homs further south? They were especially cruel and murderous in Maaloula because it was mostly a Christian village. They cut the heads off of people they captured. And Assad's forces finally drove the rebels off.

Incidentally, many of those people who have been killed in Syria were casualties from both sides as a result of the attempts of the rebels to overthrow the Syrian regime...a rebel force that includes Al Qaida and mostly outside forces put up to no good by Saudi Arabia and the US. Blame those deaths on the instigators of unrest...the US and Saudi Arabia and other countries assisting the rebels. And for what? Again, as in Afghanistan, it has to do with putting a pipeline through Syria. But the western propaganda tries to put all the deaths off on Assad which just isn't true. People do die when they get caught in a battle zone. Shame on the US for helping to foment regime change in Syria. That, in itself, is a war crime.