Commons vote on Syria airstrikes (round 2).
Discussion
May be.
However I really question whether it is down to the UK to implement all this.
Strategically, you do not enter a conflict without objectives and a plan to achieve those. I see absolutely no evidence that any such plan exists, beyond a sense that if we don't do as the Americans tell us we are going to get our knuckles rapped. But the Americans threw everything they had against the Taliban in Afghanistan and where did it get them? How often were we told that we were winning the war against the Taliban? Yet we didn't. The Taliban are back there and despite all the rhetoric back in '01 and all the good people we lost we have to accept that and deal with them. It makes no sense at all to repeat that experience.
To go into that kind of situation, where we know from experience that only an all arms offensive is going to actually destroy the enemy, that any such destruction is going to be temporary, that we are going to be fighting a guerrilla war of attrition for years against an enemy who is being strengthened by our very presence, surrounded by supposed allies we can't trust, in a country where we are regarded as a traditional enemy and at the very least not to be trusted, and where we can do very little without killing civilians, and where our soldiers have to play by the rules which no one else is going to observe, and where no major efforts to reach an underlying political settlement have made any progress at all, is not militarily rational. This is another Stalingrad, and to what end?
However I really question whether it is down to the UK to implement all this.
Strategically, you do not enter a conflict without objectives and a plan to achieve those. I see absolutely no evidence that any such plan exists, beyond a sense that if we don't do as the Americans tell us we are going to get our knuckles rapped. But the Americans threw everything they had against the Taliban in Afghanistan and where did it get them? How often were we told that we were winning the war against the Taliban? Yet we didn't. The Taliban are back there and despite all the rhetoric back in '01 and all the good people we lost we have to accept that and deal with them. It makes no sense at all to repeat that experience.
To go into that kind of situation, where we know from experience that only an all arms offensive is going to actually destroy the enemy, that any such destruction is going to be temporary, that we are going to be fighting a guerrilla war of attrition for years against an enemy who is being strengthened by our very presence, surrounded by supposed allies we can't trust, in a country where we are regarded as a traditional enemy and at the very least not to be trusted, and where we can do very little without killing civilians, and where our soldiers have to play by the rules which no one else is going to observe, and where no major efforts to reach an underlying political settlement have made any progress at all, is not militarily rational. This is another Stalingrad, and to what end?
The forces that currently represent IS in Syria and Iraq must be destroyed. There is no other way. The only question should be how to do this, not whether to do this, and that means will bombing be sufficient or will ground troops be necessary.
Do not judge this by the experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan as this is VERY different. The motivations then were based on a lie, for political gain or economic gain (whose gain, individual or national, we cannot be sure). The political and tribal makeup of this scenario is very different.
The hardest thing to do will be to combat the ideology of IS, something force alone will not stop. I believe that as long as men with evil intent and medieval views hold power and influence within the Muslim community then they will continue to manipulate and coerce young men who are of a similar mindset or hold a grudge or have issues of self worth and don't feel they have a place in society. Intelligence and surveillance is required in this instance and the Muslim community must bring itself in from the cold.
Do not judge this by the experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan as this is VERY different. The motivations then were based on a lie, for political gain or economic gain (whose gain, individual or national, we cannot be sure). The political and tribal makeup of this scenario is very different.
The hardest thing to do will be to combat the ideology of IS, something force alone will not stop. I believe that as long as men with evil intent and medieval views hold power and influence within the Muslim community then they will continue to manipulate and coerce young men who are of a similar mindset or hold a grudge or have issues of self worth and don't feel they have a place in society. Intelligence and surveillance is required in this instance and the Muslim community must bring itself in from the cold.
Anyway it looks to me as if the Russians are going to destroy ISIL in conjunction with Assad's ground forces so why exactly do we not let them do it instead of encouraging NATO members to shoot down Russian aircraft.
We ought to be sitting down with Russia and Assad and Iran to discuss the future of stable government in Syria and the surrounding area. We also need to be pushing for progress on an Arab Israeli Peace Conference. Those would benefit both the Middle East and the UK. Bear in mind that we were instrumental in creating the state of Israel, and for that alone the Arabs are suspicious of us. Kill those individuals responsible for terrorist activities by all means but forget pointless and expensive bombing and under no circumstances launch some pan-Western crusade.
The more this goes on the more it seems like a power play between Russia and America with the objectives on the American side being to reduce Russian influence and to degrade the military capacity of other nations in the area to challenge Israel.
Neither of these is of any benefit to the UK and all the talk about clear and present danger is just eyewash. Talking up Russia as a new Evil Empire is both pointless and dangerous, and the UK has zero interest in engaging in a geopolitical brinksmanship in this area.
We ought to be sitting down with Russia and Assad and Iran to discuss the future of stable government in Syria and the surrounding area. We also need to be pushing for progress on an Arab Israeli Peace Conference. Those would benefit both the Middle East and the UK. Bear in mind that we were instrumental in creating the state of Israel, and for that alone the Arabs are suspicious of us. Kill those individuals responsible for terrorist activities by all means but forget pointless and expensive bombing and under no circumstances launch some pan-Western crusade.
The more this goes on the more it seems like a power play between Russia and America with the objectives on the American side being to reduce Russian influence and to degrade the military capacity of other nations in the area to challenge Israel.
Neither of these is of any benefit to the UK and all the talk about clear and present danger is just eyewash. Talking up Russia as a new Evil Empire is both pointless and dangerous, and the UK has zero interest in engaging in a geopolitical brinksmanship in this area.
anonymous said:
[redacted]
It isn't enough to say that this situation is different. Many factors appear very similar, and what both experience and intelligence should be telling us is that we have to cut off ISIL supplies of money, weapons and recruits. Where is the strategy for doing that? We should not be handing them the PR victory they are desperate for by launching the most indiscriminately violent of campaigns with the spectre of Israel standing at our shoulder. What is totally bleeding obvious is that if this bombing goes ahead we will be watching press conferences in months to come where the RAF are being asked how they came to blow another wedding party or a hospital or a school up by accident. For us it is collateral damage - for them it is children, husbands wives and parents. No wonder they get angry. Only recently the Americans with all their technical assets accidentally destroyed a MsF Hospital in Kunduz in Afghanistan. We are asking for similar events which will only cause ISIL to grow more heads. Let's keep cool, and bear in mind that we are the reason they exist, and we need to stop being that.Being seen to do the right thing is going to be doing much more to reduce their appeal to Muslims that bombing Syria.
Our intelligence agencies should be pinpointing the individuals responsible for terror and eliminating them as it is patently clear that the threat comes primarily from cells inside the EU, courtesy of the EU's idiotic old fashioned and wooly minded Schengen arrangement.
Speaking as an active Conservative supporter and former member of the armed forces I see this as Cameron's Tony Blair moment. We have see exactly what can and cannot be achieved by bombing campaigns. Blair is widely and imho rightly described as a war criminal. Cameron can act decisively and correctly, or he can become the next bloody handed war criminal to become a director of an American merchant bank.
I didn't imagine when J Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party I would find myself agreeing with him. The next election is just far enough away for Syria to become a disaster, Cameron to be discredited for his part in it and Corbyn to be proved right. In those circumstances an election win for Labour is not impossible.
There may be elements within the services who would welcome a ground offensive in Syria as a chance to demonstrate what they can do. I do not however regard it as acceptable to say later that British servicemen died basically for an outstanding training opportunity and a tranche of medals. I also thought that we were still in an era of austerity, and there is no way to piss money away faster than a military campaign.
I didn't imagine when J Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party I would find myself agreeing with him. The next election is just far enough away for Syria to become a disaster, Cameron to be discredited for his part in it and Corbyn to be proved right. In those circumstances an election win for Labour is not impossible.
There may be elements within the services who would welcome a ground offensive in Syria as a chance to demonstrate what they can do. I do not however regard it as acceptable to say later that British servicemen died basically for an outstanding training opportunity and a tranche of medals. I also thought that we were still in an era of austerity, and there is no way to piss money away faster than a military campaign.
Edited by cardigankid on Saturday 28th November 11:27
AJS- said:
Not sure Iran have much useful to add in terms of a stable government we should have anything to do with.
With respect, that is what I mean by demonising. It is easy to describe nations and organisations as people we should have nothing to do with. We have been there with the IRA the Taliban the Boers the Bolsheviks and others but in the end we sat down and negotiated with every last one of them. Iran is an ancient culture and a nation full of sophisticated and intelligent people. Not all of them no doubt. The idea that we are going to treat them as if they didn't exist is not the way forward.Edited by cardigankid on Saturday 28th November 11:16
I have a lot of time for Iranians, it's history and it's people who to this day are largely intelligent, secular and reasonable. It's government is a very different matter.
I'm not entirely opposed to working with Iran in very limited ways, but since their mode of government seems to be worse than Assads by any reasonable measure I don't see what they can add here.
This makes me suspicious that we are being drawn into a power struggle between Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood who are all seeking insane ends by various insane means.
If anything useful at all is to come out of this shambles it must be some major step towards a secular liberal Arab country, and I don't see anything much that Iran can bring to that.
I don't know who coined it but there was a saying while Saddam was still in power that Iran was a secular country ruled by theocratic maniacs and Iraq was a theocratic country ruled by a secular maniac. It's looking more and more true.
I'm not entirely opposed to working with Iran in very limited ways, but since their mode of government seems to be worse than Assads by any reasonable measure I don't see what they can add here.
This makes me suspicious that we are being drawn into a power struggle between Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood who are all seeking insane ends by various insane means.
If anything useful at all is to come out of this shambles it must be some major step towards a secular liberal Arab country, and I don't see anything much that Iran can bring to that.
I don't know who coined it but there was a saying while Saddam was still in power that Iran was a secular country ruled by theocratic maniacs and Iraq was a theocratic country ruled by a secular maniac. It's looking more and more true.
My standpoint is that they have a finger in the pie therefore they have to be at the table.
I'm in no way anti American, may I say, I like the people and the culture of free enterprise, and I even have my name down for a Mustang which I may get one day, but sometimes they do stuff abroad which I'm not sure they understand the ramifications of. Most American citizens are at greater risk of being shot by a disaffected teenager in one of their high schools than by an Islamic terror organisation, even today, and I think that gives them a distant perspective which makes it easier for them to see this as another WW2, ie bomb them flat then finance them to rebuild in a form we regard as friendly.
They also, as the prime supporter of Israel, need to take a much stronger lead in sorting out that particular problem, which is at the heart of most of the trouble in the Middle East. Britain is no longer an Imperial or world superpower, we need to understand that and that our prime interests are furthered by peace and trade, not by war. The Americans, who are the global superpower for the good of mankind, if they can bring themselves to do it, might benefit from taking advice and example from those who have been there and got the T shirt, from Rome to Britain. If you set yourself up as a world power you set yourself up as a target, and by your existence you encourage groups to form and rise in opposition to you. To avoid simply finding yourself ultimately fighting everybody, is a task of huge political complexity and subtlety, and they need to master it.
It is interesting to compare the Roman withdrawal from Britain with the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. The whole process is very similar, starting with military support missions to the puppet state left behind which cannot defend itself, to delegation of this responsibility to local militias, to the involvement of mercenaries, who, in the case of Britain, ultimately took over.
I'm in no way anti American, may I say, I like the people and the culture of free enterprise, and I even have my name down for a Mustang which I may get one day, but sometimes they do stuff abroad which I'm not sure they understand the ramifications of. Most American citizens are at greater risk of being shot by a disaffected teenager in one of their high schools than by an Islamic terror organisation, even today, and I think that gives them a distant perspective which makes it easier for them to see this as another WW2, ie bomb them flat then finance them to rebuild in a form we regard as friendly.
They also, as the prime supporter of Israel, need to take a much stronger lead in sorting out that particular problem, which is at the heart of most of the trouble in the Middle East. Britain is no longer an Imperial or world superpower, we need to understand that and that our prime interests are furthered by peace and trade, not by war. The Americans, who are the global superpower for the good of mankind, if they can bring themselves to do it, might benefit from taking advice and example from those who have been there and got the T shirt, from Rome to Britain. If you set yourself up as a world power you set yourself up as a target, and by your existence you encourage groups to form and rise in opposition to you. To avoid simply finding yourself ultimately fighting everybody, is a task of huge political complexity and subtlety, and they need to master it.
It is interesting to compare the Roman withdrawal from Britain with the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. The whole process is very similar, starting with military support missions to the puppet state left behind which cannot defend itself, to delegation of this responsibility to local militias, to the involvement of mercenaries, who, in the case of Britain, ultimately took over.
Edited by cardigankid on Saturday 28th November 12:14
Agree with your reservations about US foreign policy though I doubt that Israel really is at the heart of Islamic militancy.
Putting Syria in Irans sphere of influence would be doing 2 huge things. One accepting the existence of an undemocratic Islamic world. Two, creating an alternative pole within that to Saudi dominance of it.
The second might be a reasonable long term strategy. The first would require a drastic rethink of how we deal with that world.
Putting Syria in Irans sphere of influence would be doing 2 huge things. One accepting the existence of an undemocratic Islamic world. Two, creating an alternative pole within that to Saudi dominance of it.
The second might be a reasonable long term strategy. The first would require a drastic rethink of how we deal with that world.
allnighter said:
Tactically it would make more sense to help Assad defeat all the armed gangs and restore sovereignty of Syria. we should talk to him, and offer assistance alongside the Russians and give the legitimate Syrian army all the help it needs to defeat Daesh and everyone affiliated to it. The government in Syria needs to regain control of the situation but it can't if we, our allies, and the Saudis,and , and , and.... persist on undermining it and arming mercenaries. There is no such thing as moderate opposition. Anyone who takes up arms and ambush & kill Syrian soldiers/ policemen is part of the problem not the solution.
This is BANG ON. Utterly 100% I don't understand why Assad is ridiculed. He actually runs a country and before all the apologists go on a rant about barrel bombs what the f
k would they do if totally beleaguered by terrorist goatfkers for years? Syrians GO BACK to their towns when the SAA liberate them because they FEEL SAFE in the secular society under Assad. Refugees in Europe would go home under Assad. The origin and events of the original demonstration that started it all are as murky as our own Bloody Sunday and it could easily have been a setup against Assad as the 'oh we're just free students being fired on' crap that we are led to believe.
He can be dealt with politically after this total clusterduck is over.
Assad/Libya/Kurds/Iraqi have large armies hammering IS and I hope will massacre them to a man. The 'moderates'? Sorry but you're in the middle so either give up and help or suffer the same fate as IS
IS is a world issue. All others (including Turkey and Saudi) should fully declare their position and alliegances and then either help or have their fate determined for them.
AJS- said:
And how sure are we that it's not a lie this time? Or that we are not again being used as the muscle for another group of wrong people?
If it's a lie it is a damned good one.I totally agree, too, that we have to be very careful what we do and how we do it and most definitely shouldn't just do 'something' without very carefully considering the planned action. I agree with Corbyn being the conscience of parliament as along as he actually understands someone will have to use force to counter IS and that he isn't on some pacifist mission. Pacifism is great when there are multiple sides to an argument, all with some validity and with some shared common ground. I can't see IS as having anything good to offer the world. Sending troops off to war, of which some will never return and some will come back damaged, must not be taken lightly.
I agree with the sentiment that this is also a multi-faceted conflict, with the USA and Russia choosing very different paths because of their own rivalry. It's clear to see that the Americans just don't want the Russians involved here, they can barely hide their contempt. I see the Americans as having already started their plans to instigate change in Russia in anticipation of a new race for Arctic territory and oil.
Edited by anonymous-user on Saturday 28th November 20:06
There's no doubt that IS are evil. As there was no question that Saddam was.
What's less clear is what we are aiming to achieve, how likely we are to do so and how desirable this actually is long term.
One potentially worse scenario is uniting IS sympathisers with the Muslim Brotherhood/al-Quaeda lot and creating an Islamist opposition which will more easily over run Assad and create an Islamic fundamentalist state.
What's less clear is what we are aiming to achieve, how likely we are to do so and how desirable this actually is long term.
One potentially worse scenario is uniting IS sympathisers with the Muslim Brotherhood/al-Quaeda lot and creating an Islamist opposition which will more easily over run Assad and create an Islamic fundamentalist state.
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