Bomb someone in Syria poll - will it work

[gruffalo]

eharding said:

l354uge said:

It wont work, and never will. You cannot bomb an ideology, only give the people brainwashed by it the thirst for vengeance.

We need to stop the weapons and money supply, companies and governments working with IS should be sanctioned into submission and those responsible sent to the Hague.

If London doesn't get bombed next year I'll be shocked.

Well, the deal is done.

But what most folk seem to have missed is that our contribution isn't really to engage with "bombers" as such, so much as "snipers", and UK have particular skills and capabilities in that department.

Yes, they're snipers that cruise around at 600mph, and can reach out and touch an individual from dozens of miles away, but the net effect is that as of this evening the ISIS leadership in Syria know that they have a significantly higher chance of being personally evaporated, without warning, from a clear blue sky, than they did yesterday.

To my mind, that is a good thing.

Edited by eharding on Thursday 3rd December 01:13

Don't forget that many of the grunts fighting for daesh are paid mercenaries, we have to make them think "you know what this isn't worth the money and free sex any more, I going home"

For many it is not an ideology but a living they can't resign from for fear of retaliation against them from the higher echelons. If the RoW can make them more frightened of continuing than going home then we will win.

[Nom de ploom]

dandarez said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

If you are correct, and I fear you could be, there will be many MPs especially with more than egg on their face.

The difficulty is there will be a good number of them here already I suspect.

I am still struggling this morning to understand why we would drop bombs on a foreign land in a country we are not "at war with" legal or not, UN ratified or not...

is it like saying we have no beef with say, New Zealand but we'll drop bombs on the south island because there are some "nasty" people there....

[fatboy18]

Seems Nuts to me

[RYH64E]

Nom de ploom said:

The difficulty is there will be a good number of them here already I suspect.

I am still struggling this morning to understand why we would drop bombs on a foreign land in a country we are not "at war with" legal or not, UN ratified or not...

is it like saying we have no beef with say, New Zealand but we'll drop bombs on the south island because there are some "nasty" people there....

I lot of them were born here and live here, it makes more sense to me to concentrate on the home grown threat.

[popeyewhite]

AJS- said:

I'm still not sure how we will know if bombing has 'worked' or not for any specific objectives. More generally, I would have thought if bombing worked Iraq would be the most peaceful country on earth by now.

On the subject of bombing this puzzles me: A number of other countries have all been bombing what they think are 'valuable' targets in the area the UK is sending jets to.

Did these countries have a pow-wow and decide 'right we'll ignore this target and leave it 'til England joins the fray in a couple of months', or do we have or own very advanced methods of target acquisition, and if so why the hell didn't we share this information months ago? We have missiles that reportedly mitigate collateral damage but then we have snipers who could do the job just as well.

I also wonder how many countries are now flying sorties/'protecting borders' over Turkey/Syria? Surely only SO much can be accomplished from the air.

[andy_s]

Us bombing will change nothing positively. Us using a dozen planes would do nothing that can't be done already. Having no real plan will lead to escalation/creep in the worst case and be a waste of effort in the best.
Anyone who knows anything about the situation will agree.
This is politically driven and has no real world need.

[Jim the Sunderer]

Ah yes, using £500,000 missiles to blow up £500 knackered pickups.

[Beati Dogu]

jmorgan said:

Beati Dogu said:

Pyrolysis said:

Well that's the jets on route to their targets already!

Yes, you've gotta love our ever-helpful media for telling every Tom, Dick and Mohammed that.

Don't think there was ever going to be an element of surprise the way this has played out in the commons and the press, that is when aircraft leave, where to though?

Sort of obvious if a yes vote and they would be going very soon after I thought.

That's not the point. You don't risk operational security with this sort of information. But then the media must be extremely pissed off they can't be on the ground being led around by the dick by the enemy's PR department like they were in Iraq and Serbia.

[Timmy40]

Jim the Sunderer said:

Ah yes, using £500,000 missiles to blow up £500 knackered pickups.

I'm sure they did something similar on an episode of Top Gear once. ( serious point, obviously the value of the vehcile has nothing to do with it, if it's carrying a senior Daesh commender the value is price less ).

[RYH64E]

Timmy40 said:

Serious point, obviously the value of the vehicle has nothing to do with it, if it's carrying a senior Daesh commander the value is priceless.

And what are the chances of that actually happening? Despite what we read, slim to none I'd say.

[AJS-]

popeyewhite
I suspect the reality is rather less sophisticated and it's more a case of picking some building or vehicles deemed to be IS and going and expensively blowing them up.

[NelsonP]

dandarez said:

Phillip Hammond a few moments ago:

'Britain is tonight a safer place because of the vote...'

Well, it sure don't feel that way Phil.

What a load of nonsense!

[Timmy40]

RYH64E said:

Timmy40 said:

Serious point, obviously the value of the vehicle has nothing to do with it, if it's carrying a senior Daesh commander the value is priceless.

And what are the chances of that actually happening? Despite what we read, slim to none I'd say.

Really? Because from what I read ( and I know you'll reply that it must all be made up propaganda ) senior ISIL commanders have been getting spread all over the desert by drone strikes on a regular basis in Iraq.

[benjj]

Have we got any super cool HD videos yet of Brimstones flying through windows and stuff?

That's the best bit of war - sitting at home in your pants watching stuff get blown up while eating crisps.

[RYH64E]

Timmy40 said:

RYH64E said:

Timmy40 said:

Serious point, obviously the value of the vehicle has nothing to do with it, if it's carrying a senior Daesh commander the value is priceless.

And what are the chances of that actually happening? Despite what we read, slim to none I'd say.

Really? Because from what I read ( and I know you'll reply that it must all be made up propaganda ) senior ISIL commanders have been getting spread all over the desert by drone strikes on a regular basis in Iraq.

How many senior commanders do they have? If true, they must be running out soon.

[Godalmighty83]

benjj said:

Have we got any super cool HD videos yet of Brimstones flying through windows and stuff?

That's the best bit of war - sitting at home in your pants watching stuff get blown up while eating crisps.

We haven't really seen much from the activities in Iraq, they seem to be going quite low key with the action shots of late.

[IATM]

gruffalo said:

then maybe just maybe the rest of the Arab community will step up to the plate and provide a well armed, well supported and well trained disciplined peace keeping force.

Edited by gruffalo on Tuesday 1st December 15:40

I maybe suggest doing some reading up rather than making assumptions

[anonymous-user]

Last night on Ch 4 News a London based supporter of the Syrian opposition made the point that to many people in the region IS is a side show. Over here, we get all worked up about IS because terrorists who strike in the west claim to be part of IS (whether they are or are not doesn't matter very much -they share the same viewpoints). People in the region have many other horrors to worry about apart from or as well as IS. Even if it were possible to precision-bomb every single IS fighter to death while sparing all civilians, buildings etc (yeah right), the problems would roll on, and there'd be another version of IS popping up to piss us all off before long. We need a big plan for the big picture. As far as I can see, we ain't got one.

[jmorgan]

^^^^

Sort of what I gather from the press and others that tell their story to the press.

[andy_s]

^ a familiar tale...