Why all this fuss about chemical weapons? Apart from anything else, they don't seem to work very well. As opposed to bombs, guns, knives, lorries, planes - that everyone seems happy about.

It's like 'assault rifle' JK, sounds more menacing.

Simple surely.

The other methods are specific - or relatively so.

Chemicals literally go where the wind blows.

Absolutely uncontrollable and indiscriminate.

Could it be linked to the "industrial military complex" model, ie no money for shareholders outside of traditional munitions in waging war? Hard to have shares in chlorine gas, no problem with tomahawk missles...

No one is happy about them.

I urged intervention 7 years ago ... and the Loonies have wrung their hands ever since (STILL watching children die every day)- but all they can bleat is "Why don't they have a nice chat with that Mr Mass-Murderer and see if he will sort it out"

The question cannot be answered.

How can you make comparisons about how people die?

How can you compare a brutal regime like Assad's with those attacking him : a collection of the worst murderers on the planet (and why is this ignored? The world was howling about ISIL & Al Qaeda last year)

Why did we applaud and assist Saddam Hussein when he gassed 10,000s of Iranian soldiers during their war?...and then turn on him and blow up the whole of the Middle East?

Why did we sell him the chemical weapons in the first place?