US and Britain working together in preparation for possible military action against Syria. Are we really going to do this again? Update!

Courtesy of The Telegraph:  

Britain is planning to join forces with America and launch military action against Syria within days in response to the gas attack believed to have been carried out by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces against his own people. 

Royal Navy vessels are being readied to take part in a possible series of cruise missile strikes, alongside the United States, as military commanders finalise a list of potential targets. 

Government sources said talks between the Prime Minister and international leaders, including Barack Obama, would continue, but that any military action that was agreed could begin within the next week. 

As the preparations gathered pace, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, warned that the world could not stand by and allow the Assad regime to use chemical weapons against the Syrian people “with impunity”. 

Britain, the US and their allies must show Mr Assad that to perpetrate such an atrocity “is to cross a line and that the world will respond when that line is crossed”, he said. 

British forces now look likely to be drawn into an intervention in the Syrian crisis after months of deliberation and international disagreement over how to respond to the bloody two-year civil war.

We are just now getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan and now we are preparing to go into Syria?

Look I understand that if Assad used that gas to kill all of those people that he needs to be punished, but dammit do WE always have to be the ones who do the punishing?

I promised my daughter that someday soon we would be a country no longer engaged in war, in fact that is one of the reasons that she wanted to vote for Obama.

I just can't stand not being able to keep a promise.

By the way Colin Powell does not think America needs to rush into this thing either:  

"In both Egypt and Syria, America has to take a much more clever role," said Powell, who added he considers the Syrian conflict to be a civil war. "We shouldn't go around thinking that we can really make things happen." 

Powell advised the United States should wait for the war to be settled and then offer to help with recovery. The choice between President Bashar Assad and the Islamist-influenced rebels did not appear to be much of a choice, he said. 

"I have no affection for Mr. Assad. I've dealt with him. I know him. And he is a pathological liar, with respect to my interaction with him," Powell said. 

" But at the same time, I am less sure of the resistance," Powell continued. "What do they represent? And is it becoming even more radicalized with more al-Qaida coming in? And what would it look like if they prevailed and Assad went? I don't know." 

And if anybody should know the importance of being careful before committing our troops to a military engagement, it would be Colin Powell.

Update: Well this certainly does not help:   

Britain said on Sunday that evidence of a chemical weapons attack in the suburbs of Damascus could have already been destroyed ahead of a visit to the site by U.N. inspectors. 

Earlier in the day Syria agreed to let experts from the United Nations on Monday visit the site of the reported poisonous gas attack which killed hundreds of people on Wednesday of last week. 

"We have to be realistic now about what the U.N. team can achieve," Foreign Secretary William Hague told reporters. 

"The fact is that much of the evidence could have been destroyed by that artillery bombardment. Other evidence could have degraded over the last few days and other evidence could have been tampered with," he said, referring to opposition activists' reports that the army has shelled the area in the last few days.

So evidence to confirm the attack may have been destroyed before it can be confirmed by the UN.

That is awfully convenient.