Updated April 05, 2017 12:23:11

It's what we can't show you that burns the soul.

The pain of seeing the suffering, the dying, the desperation is too much to bear.

Reporters, producers, picture editors decide what are acceptable limits, how much you can bear — how much you should have to carry, because you can't un-see or easily forget the depths of suffering in places like Khan Sheikhoun.

On Tuesday, that was the scene of a suspected chemical attack that killed more than 50 people, including scores of children, believed to have been carried out by Syrian Government jets.

The hope is that by exposing horrors like this, however filtered, the light and weight of public opinion will reduce the chances they will happen again.

A suspected Syrian Government chemical attack has killed scores of people, including children.

But that's not working in Syria.

The atrocities continue.

The Syrian regime that was threatened with the infamous Obama red line over its use of chemical weapons years ago was revealed as hollow, and impotent.

The multiple security council resolutions on Syria fail largely because of Russian vetos.

This latest outrage comes just as peace talks aimed at ending it all resume.

If the Syrian Government is to blame, why would they choose now to outrage and offend?

It has alienated the same US administration that had been talking cooperation with Damascus in a joint fight against the Islamic State (IS) group.

And it's not as though Bashir al-Assad's forces are losing the war and resorting to desperate measures.

It makes no sense.

Of course the Syrian Government simply denies it's responsible and suggests the deadly agent could have come from a rebel chemical weapons factory.

The Russians have denied any involvement, and their support for their Syrian client appears undented.

So, just another crime against humanity.

No brake, no pause, not even a hint of embarrassment or regret.

Why is it the world's most deadly conflict attracts so little effective outrage?

The structures and strictures of ineffective global intervention don't work.

We turn our heads, lost in the complexities of a war that has displaced millions, killed hundreds of thousands, wrecked a nation, and diminished us all as impotent bystanders.

And so the innocents of Syria continue to die.

Seeing pictures of children struggling to breathe, whose lives have ended in unimaginable terror is unbearable.

But we can turn the TV off. It doesn't stop the Syrian reality horror show, but we can escape. The children, the mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, grandparents of Syria can't.

One day it will end. The killing will stop.

But that end is nowhere in sight.

It's not even on some far distant horizon.

It remains a blood-soaked land without hope, where barrel bombs and chemical attacks continue to be used against civilians with impunity.

Topics: unrest-conflict-and-war, world-politics, government-and-politics, syrian-arab-republic, russian-federation, united-states

First posted April 05, 2017 11:23:39