WHY does the United Kingdom (or at least Theresa May and her supine Cabinet colleagues) think that we should once again interfere and take military action in a foreign state, in this case Syria?

Great Britain no longer has a worldwide empire and global responsibilities, nor do we always need to be the support act and bag carrier for the United States and in its self-appointed role as leader of the free world. Peace-keeping, and even military intervention in the last resort, is now the responsibility of the United Nations. Unfortunately any military strength it had has been seriously eroded in the last 25 years, and of course the Russian veto on UN action is also a major difficulty in situations like the latest Middle East crisis. But it is no longer the job of the UK to barge headlong into the internal affairs of another sovereign state, no matter how regrettable its behaviour may be, unless it is a direct threat to the United Kingdom.

Mrs May doesn’t need to refer to ancient history to see the folly of unilateral aggressive interference. In March 2003 she was sitting there on the Opposition benches when Tony Blair used wrong intelligence information and political deceit to persuade the House of Commons to send military forces into Iraq, and we all know the disastrous consequences of that to the whole Middle East. Yet it seems that she will make exactly the same mistake again if the unstable President Trump eventually decides to intervene in Syria. Why do politicians never seem to learn?

Iain AD Mann,

7 Kelvin Court, Glasgow.

REGARDING the Tory Government jumping into bed with America and France to exact retribution on Syria over the recent gas apparent gas attack: can someone tell me where the MPs who approve of this action (even though they are not to be consulted) will be able to pick up their arms and ammunition to carry it out? This would ensure that our young military personnel would be saved from the consequences of this dangerous escalation of an undoubtedly dreadful war in Syria, and be more able to protect the UK from terrorist attacks.

John Aitken,

87 Windsor Avenue, Falkirk.

I’M a “conspiracy theorist”, but then again we conspirators believe the pejorative term was coined to avoid the Establishment having to disprove alternative explanations. We were proven right to be sceptical about Iraq weapons of mass destruction and other instances.

Is it a “conspiracy theory” to link the Skripal poisonings to the Douma chemical attack and the fact that Bassar Assad and the Russians are winning the proxy war in Syria to the obvious relief of those Syrian citizens trapped for years in East Ghouta? The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has confirmed the presence of a nerve agent in the blood samples taken from the Skripals but cannot say who manufactured it, let alone where it came from nor who administered it (“Watchdog backs UK findings on poison attack”, The Herald, April 13). Hopefully once the same organisation accepts the Syrian invitation to examine the scene of the purported incident in Douma confirmation of whether an incident actually happened will be possible, but yet again it will not confirm who was responsible for the incident as we know that the “rebels” have access to Sarin and chlorine gas. In both instances the British general public has been denied sight of definitive proof of Russian or Syrian culpability, if such proof exists, yet our Government is playing games with semantics.

In Syria it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine fact from fiction, however it is a matter of public record that James Mattis, the US Secretary of Defense, recently confirmed that there is no evidence that President Assad has ever used chemical weapons either against the insurgents or the civilian population. The “White Helmets” who supplied the footage of the alleged Douma attack is exactly the same source as reported previous alleged incidents which Mr Mattis tells us cannot be proven to have been performed by Mr Assad. Depending on where one looks for background information on the White Helmets, incidentally an organisation funded by UK and US taxpayers, video and still photographs suggest all may not be as it seems. Videos exist for example of them staging incidents and tutoring children on how to simulate the symptoms of poisoning; these videos are just as convincing as those taken of supposed actual incidents. We have no way of knowing if any of this is factual or who produces them yet some appear as “evidence” on our media; video provided by a third party cannot be trusted implicitly.

David J Crawford,

1300 Great Western Road, Glasgow.

WE are forgetting something. In all the furore over the alleged poisoning of a Russian defector and the alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria, we are not emphasising enough the nefarious tendencies of the Putin regime in other areas. Have we forgotten the Beast from the East? It is well known that in Soviet days their military and their scientists could affect the weather, making sure it never rained on May Day parades, for example. In the years gone by since then we can assume that these capacities have been greatly enlarged. Who else stood to gain by the gridlock in late February /early March which brought Britain and its economy to a standstill? And what about the unprecedented cold and wet spring set to destroy our fruit crops (though we won’t have the migrant labour to pick them anyway)?

The only credible explanation is that Vladimir Putin and his cronies are behind this dastardly attack on our climate, as they are, it would appear, behind every other negative happening in the world. We do not have the proof of any of these things, it is true, but there is no other explanation, is there?

There has to be a proportional response to this, and I suggest that a surgical strike on Russian meteorological stations and research establishments would be appropriate. This may lead to a wider conflict, even to the Third World War, but it is important that we stand up for truth and justice. There is no time to wait for any evidence on the issue of the weather just as there is no time to wait in response to the chemical attack, for which proof is still sought. Were not the weapons of mass destruction eventually found? Have those who doubted Tony Blair forgotten that as well?

If so, if we have actually forgotten the lessons of Iraq, still bleeding – and that after 500,000 dead – God help us all.

Ian R Mitchell,

21 Woodside Terrace, Glasgow.