jonc

Well lets see:
Afghanistan: West go in guns blazing, install a inept and corrupt Government, Government lose control of liberated country, civil war breaks out between various factions, country destablises, extremist gain prominence.

Iraq: West go in guns blazing, install a inept and corrupt Government, Government lose control of liberated country, civil war breaks out between various factions, country destablises, extremist gain prominence.

Libya: West go in guns blazing, install a inept and corrupt Government, Government lose control of liberated country, civil war breaks out between various factions, country destablises, extremist gain prominence.

There's a pattern, basically it is the Western intervention that has created the basket case and allowed IS to grow in these broken countries the West left behind.

ditchmyster

iTrader: (7)

Yeah ok Mr politician.

Dear, dear, dear, even I'm struggling to believe you could be that dim.

Martin2005

?????

JTaylor

Great speech by Hilary Benn.

Steve Whitehorn

iTrader: (13)

Have you got a link to it

madscoob

iTrader: (3)

and the bombs start and guess what they will all move under the blanket of their best customer for oil TURKEY

JTaylor

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news...speech-6944024

shadz-vtis

Scrappy9

What l can't understand is Cameron making statements along the lines of cutting off the snakes head, if anyone knew where the snakes head was located it would have been destroyed months ago.
Unless of course everyone one else is incapable of carrying this out and have been waiting for us to enter the fray and sort it out for them

hodgy0_2

Because when you strip away the huff and self important bluster it is just so much empty rhetoric

Simply having good intentions is not enough

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

So, off we go with our jets to randomly create further scattered chaos.

I have a question; If our involvement is based on the UN calling for it. Then where can I find a list of UN member countries who are actively getting involved with Syria/IS on a military level? And which ones are not, and why not?

I just can't help thinking the last time(s) we got over involved (not helped by our government ignoring UN requests at the time), other UN members just paid lip service and didn't really do anything. I suspect it's the same this time round too. We'll plough billions upon billions into this affair with no end limit, while other members will just skirt round it with a few million and a couple of sorties.

jonc

hodgy0_2

lol,

the quote seems accurate

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...-david-cameron

empty rethoric

simply reduced to the old "good aids and bad aids" mantra

our bombs = good

Russia bombs = bad

Dr Hu

Makes you wonder how fcuked up these countries have become since colonialism became a dirty word.
Maybe we should have the Empire's back - seemed much better all round then....
HoooooRraaaaaah!

(and I'm only half joking!)

lunar tick

iTrader: (2)

The only credible plan that I can see to retake this territory is for the West to work closely with Russia and Putin, and stop painting them as 'the bad guys'. Yes, this will mean we will have to hold our noses as Assad is temporarily strengthened but at least there might then be a route forward to ease Assad out of power in a transition at a later date (ie we might stand a much better chance of Russia leaning heavily on him). Even this way is going to be very messy (it might not have been if we'd not stepped in to fund anti-Assad islamic extremists in the first place) and doesn't of course win the war of ideas. What we have essentially is a medieval barbarism vs. civilisation that might take many decades or even centuries to overcome. We should prepare ourselves for the long haul....

Tidgy

Thing is he said that before the paris attack. I think he's a bell end but things have changed

hodgy0_2

what's amazing is that this Iraq/Syrian conflict has been going on for almost 3 times as long as WW2

with no end in sight

Geezer

To be fair, the Russians are bombing anyone who Assad asks them to, not necessarily terrorists, I think that is what Cameron was getting at. Putin will alienate everyone, not just the extremists.

hodgy0_2

point taken Geezer, but that just reinforces the complexity of the situation and makes a nonsense of the claim that 70k troops are ready to unite in a single unified cause

it just seems to me that if all you have is a hammer - then every problem is a nail


I am not saying I know the answer - its just that I have a suspicion that the one we have arrived at is definitely not it

daviee

I found this well thought out. Worth the full watch.

Martin2005

The answer surely is; however ill thought out the long term 'broader' strategy is, no matter how bad the politics are, or the cohesiveness of the argument. We should be doing anything we can (no matter how small), to damage, disrupt and hurt these *******s as much as possible.
I really struggle to understand what the problem is with this.

JTaylor

I think this is where I'm heading, Martin. The 'do nothing' crowd from the far-left haven't a cogent argument when confronted with the question of Islamic State's inevitable growth resulting from inaction. I'm having a chat with a student from my church who insists that anything is better than us 'bombing innocent civilians'. When asked if this risk outweighs the fact that these fascists epitomise evil she simply reverts to the stock response that the 'west created IS' and that it's all a conspiracy designed to fund corporate greed...I despair that an otherwise bright kid is being fed this nonsense. If this is the narrative of the 'no' crowd, then I think I have to grow a pair and get behind the 'do something' train of thought.

hodgy0_2

can I come back to you in 3/4/5/6 years

hodgy0_2

what's the far left / right got to do with it

you either believe that bombing isis (whatever that means) is going to solve the problem or you don't

I don't think I do - if I genuinely thought it would, I would support it - simple

that's not based in either left or right views - just simply the recent evidence

i'll reply to this in 3/4/5/6/7/ years time - hopefully god willing I will be proved wrong

JTaylor

There's this, of course. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Never did I think I'd be missing the Hussein crime family and the Colonel. But, I just don't think we can sit idly by whilst the Salafist do evil.

hodgy0_2

maybe - but probably not relevant to people who marched against these interventions 15 years ago

JTaylor

I didn't mean to lump you in with the lefty nonsense and I agree with what you say, but the majority of the 'stop the war' types are very much of the left and tend to co-opt Islamist narrative and are prone to regurgitate conspiratard clap-trap. Facebook is awash with it, and my lefty pals are all posting the same, I'll-considered guff. You, on the other hand, seem to have the same reservations as me.

JTaylor

They're the same people who condemn western leadership for doing business with tyrants. They'll always have the deep peace of being in opposition. Doing something is a much riskier and braver strategy, even if you get it wrong.

Paben

iTrader: (5)

And these lefty Nay sayers will be waiting for the first ISIS atrocity on UK soil so they can announce loudly: 'We warned you, this is what your bombing has led to!' Unfortunately it's not a matter of 'if' but 'when' an attack occurs, bombing or no bombing. The security services cannot fend off every terrorist attack, and as has been noted before, we have to get it right every time, they only have to get it right once.

We need to watch out over the Christmas period, this will be a prime time.

hodgy0_2

I am afraid you have constructed that classic logical fallacy of building a Strawman aka the Strawman argument

Google wiki Strawman argument (for people who don't know what the strawman fallacy is)

It is not simply a question of do "something" or do nothing

The question is what is right and what is effective, what will get something that has a passing resemblance to success

In the last 15 years We have reduced the region back to the Stone Age - ably abetted by the very people we are attempting (failing) to destroy

We have bombed them to rubble

It has not fvcking worked

It really is that simple

Maybe a different approach (that may or may not include air strikes who knows but part of a wider approach that does not include the fantasy of 70k crack Syrian troops - jeez fvcking Christ)

But Fvck me surely even an idiot can see the same old same old is not working

Oh and we get it wrong, yes - but luckily we rarely carry the cost