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Tariq Ali: I’m against interventions because they make the situation worse. I don’t know of a single intervention that has actually made the situation better. This is already a messy situation – a thousand people have been killed in Egypt, Bahrain is repressed and Syria is in the middle of a civil war. The West is backing one side of this civil war, but it’s best not to allow the West to go to war, so we have to try.Are you worried it could lead to a wider conflict?
I don’t think it will lead to a wider military conflict, but there will certainly be a wider political one.If proof emerges that chemical weapons have been used by the Assad regime, would you support intervention?
We don’t know yet. We don’t know if they’ve been used yet and we don’t know who’s used them. I’m not in favour of war, even if chemical weapons have been used. The Americans used them in Fallujah and who stopped that? This is an excuse, which is being manufactured – but we are not sure if it’s a truth or a lie.What do you think are the government’s true motives for military action in Syria?
I think they’re going in to weaken the government and ensure it doesn’t win the civil war.

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Steve Hedley: Well, it’ll do more than marching up and down the street then going home. We had a million people march against the war in Iraq and it had absolutely no effect. We’ve got to up the ante. If it means people getting arrested for civil disobedience, that’s what it’s going to take.Do you see hypocrisy in America using chemical weapons as a reason to attack Assad?
John Kerry served in Vietnam, where they used phosphorus, Agent Orange and all sorts of chemical weapons. And not just in Vietnam – it spilled over to Cambodia. At the moment, we’ve got drones terrorising people in Pakistan. How is that any different?
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I think it goes back to the 90s and the NeoCon strategy. Ultimately, it’s for the control of oil and other energy. I think that they want to Balkanise the Middle East. This madness has been spread all over the world. We’ve got fracking in this country now – a process that has been proven to cause earthquakes and contaminate the water supply. So, like everything, it’s all about energy, money and profits.


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Fali: We need intervention by airstrike. We need them to bomb Assad from the air. We’re not asking for people to come in on the ground. We don’t need the American or the British army on the ground; we have our Free Syrian Army on the ground who can sort everything out. We’re asking Western governments to impose a no-fly zone over Syria and to attack Assad’s military bases. We don’t want anyone on the ground.Are you not concerned that once Western forces get involved in the conflict the whole thing could spiral and lead to even more loss of life?
Obviously that’s a concern, yeah. We are all human and often conflicts can escalate and innocent people will get hurt or even killed, but come on – Assad has killed thousands of people and nobody’s taken any action. If a military intervention comes, then maybe we can finally stop Assad. Obviously people will lose their lives, but what is the solution? We can’t step down and we can’t leave it to the politicians.So why do you think the West have been so reluctant to get involved in the conflict? Do you feel Syria has been neglected?
They want Assad to stay in power. They don’t want him to go anywhere. It’s been almost 29 months now with no help from anyone. Now, because it’s been so long, they’re trying to figure out who the strongest side is. If they think that Assad is getting weaker, then maybe they’ll choose to back the Free Syrian Army. But obviously they’re not with the Syrian people – they don’t care about us. If they did, they would have acted a long time ago.
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Kaya: These are the people who conspire to attack Syria. It’s a naked conspiracy to destroy Syria and then Iran. Sooner or later, the conspirators' crimes will come to light, just like the war in Iraq. The wars are the economy. If you control the area, then you control the income of the area. It’s as simple as that. The rest is just secondary; it doesn’t matter how many thousands of people die.My weapon is my pictures. I use satire and satire is the best weapon. One picture can say all that needs to be said.I don't know, I think I'd rather face a satirical weapon than a chemical one. Thanks though.

Jeremy Corbyn MP: I don’t believe the motives of the West are entirely honourable in this matter. I’m not an apologist for the Syrian regime and I certainly condemn the use of chemical weapons by anybody. The UN inspectors have not yet come to a conclusion on whether chemical weapons were used, and I think we should at least wait for that. Instead of moving loads of weaponry around, we should be calling a conference with the Russians, Iran and the Gulf Cooperation Council in Syria to bring about a peaceful solution and not another war.
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No, I don’t think it does. Obviously chemical weapons are wrong and illegal – as are nuclear weapons, as are depleted uranium, as are land mines. But does that justify the bombardment of the whole country with the consequences being the death of hundreds of people who had nothing to do with chemical weapons or the use of them?One of the most vocal pro-intervention states has been France. What do they stand to gain from toppling Assad?
Well, I think France has pretensions of its previous colonial grandeur. The Allies made an agreement during the First World War that France would get control of Syria and Lebanon, and even during the Second World War the Free French Forces, which were led by Charles de Gaulle – instead of fighting the Nazis at home, as they should’ve been doing – were busy killing proponents of Syrian independence. So the French colonial interest continues, as does the British.Ten years ago, a million people tried to stop Britain and America invading Iraq. That failed. What can be done to stop it happening in Syria?
This is very much déjà vu. We had a young, over confident Prime Minister who was so totally convinced of his own abilities to take a country to war. Then it was Tony Blair; this time it’s David Cameron. The result of the Iraq war was the destruction of so many lives in Iraq, but also a deep cynicism in the British political system, and I think we’re still having to live with that today.
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