what’s wrong with this picture?
The British government will vote tomorrow on whether to start murdering people in Syria, in a bid to stop the spread of terrorism and the Islamic State.
Previous attempts by Britain and their allies to stop the spread of Islamic extremism by murdering and torturing people have failed. But the British government is confident that on this occasion their proposed action to murder more people is morally and logically the best course of action.
For those of you who agree that airstrikes in Syria are necessary, can you see any inaccuracies in my description above?
Air strikes are nonsense. Half-baked anything will only complicate matter sin bad ways. If you’re serious, go in on the ground and rout your enemy. Don’t the French have the Foreign Legion for just this sort of thing?
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Fareed Zakaria did a special a few nights back and said “boots on the ground” is exactly what ISIS wants.
He pointed out that ISIS “has always openly tried to draw Western forces into Iraq and Syria hoping to make itself the great army of believers fighting the crusaders.”
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I saw that, excellent reporting. I’m a fan of Fareed. And yes, they probably do want to drag us all in. Someone, though, has to go in.
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That would be the Kurds.
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Yes, but not everyone in the region “likes” the Kurds… ie. the Turks. It’s a clusterfuck of tribalism. But I agree… Let the Kurds (or the Jordanians) do what must be done. There’s no rationalising with IS.
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Of course they don’t like the Kurds… damned cultural upstarts refusing to be properly absorbed by a half dozen states in spite of a century of barbarism carried out against them by all the neighbouring powers. But they are capable ‘boots on the ground’ with a substantial stake in the game (which may explain why some Canadian ex-military join them and why Canadian Special Forces are training various front line Peshmerga units) and so if the regional powers try to continue to play this proxy war then let’s play it with New Rules… and watch a well trained, well armed, well supported mostly Muslim population carve out a strong independent and secular state from all these ‘countries’ that treats not just ISIS as the foreign invader it is but the Turks and the Iraqis and the Russians and the Saudis and the Iranians and the Syrians as well. Let’s make the Kurds our primary ally and support them no less than we do Israel and watch the playing field suddenly tilt in favour of those who actually live there. Of course, the Kurds themselves have various allegiances within their ranks – from Marxist to secular to Muslim – but their identity as a people first is solidly built on culture, language, as well as tribe. We can start a successful intervention and rectify a great number of historical grievances by respecting this basis for our targeted support rather than the products governments of colonialism. Did I mention the Kurdish tribal lands have a lot of oil, too?
This is why I’m all in favour of offering the Kurds whatever air support aids them in reestablishing full control over their tribal lands. And this includes a fair chunk of Syria.
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Agreed. They seem to be honest players. Admitting turkey into NATO appears to have been a mistake.
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Well, cold war, containment, Greece, Jupiter missiles, and all that.
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Are you serious? If you were ‘in charge’ would you vote to send troops in thinking it would sort anything out?
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No, I wouldn’t. War must always be the absolute last option, but if that decision is made, then there’s no point in pussy-footing around it. Air-strikes, police actions… Nonsense. Will achieve little but aggravate the situation.
This is a Muslim problem, and Muslims should sort it out. It’s a violent problem, and regretfully, only violence is going to end it.
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“It’s a violent problem, and regretfully, only violence is going to end it.”
Em, since when? Is it not well known that violence begets violence? I found a website we might not agree with: http://www.violencebegetsviolence.org/
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Are you suggesting one can reason with ISIS?
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Are you suggesting violence is the only option? Are you suggesting violence could resolve the situation in any way?
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Do you think you can reason with ISIS?
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Do you think violence is the only option? Do you think it could resolve the problem of ISIS/ISIL?
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I asked first… and I’m a Taurus, remember.
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It’s my blog … and I’m a ginger, remember?
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You two are hilarious!
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As for the question about inaccuracies, you use the term ‘murder’ which assumes the conclusion: that deaths are unjustified and so the deaths are unjustified.
I’m all for air strikes… laser targeting and done by Kurds to further their mission goals. It’s called air support.
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If we start killing from the air because we voted for it in our far-away isle and a handful of friends think it’s a good thing to do, does that make it legal?
There’s justification for intervention in another country, given that there is a direct security threat. But is the the most intelligent intervention more death and destruction? It’s murder, of course it is, premeditated and illegal.
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Your line of reasoning does not follow to the conclusion because you continue to use it as a premise.
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Oooh duck and dodge!
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Everything is wrong with your description! The British bombs are programmed to kill only terrorists
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Isn’t technology amazing? I love being able to kill the ‘bad’ people.
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and you can do this from California in a bunker, to boot! I can’t wait for the bombing to start
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Oh don’t! It’s so depressing …
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Did you see a school was hit last week? I’m not sure how buried it was in the news.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-air-strikes-at-least-five-children-killed-in-raqqa-school-as-britain-debates-joining-bombing-a6750591.html
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I had not seen this.
If the bible is to be believed, kill all, don’t spare women or children. That, my friend, is how god would like it.
On a more serious note I am appalled that some humanists would think it is a solution.
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I disagree with air strikes, but also with your description and the word “murder”. Murder is defined differently in Scotland and England: in England, the mental element must be Intention; in Scotland, it can be recklessness. The bombers would argue that their bombing is self-defence, which is a defence even to murder: reasonable force to prevent violence against people we wish to defend. There will be collateral damage, and much of the debate in just war theory is what action must be taken to avoid it. The bombers try to avoid collateral damage.
I prefer the word “killing”. I don’t think more killing will do any good.
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There is intention to kill and it’s in the knowledge the people not even directly involved in any kind of armed struggle will be murdered as a result. It’s not legal, in the sense there has been no international agreement on it. It would be self-defence is something killed a suicide bomber before they set off their vest – it’s not self-defence to bomb vague areas from the air. Please don’t call any kind of directly unintentional murder ‘collateral damage’ – we don’t have to fall into that kind of vocabulary trap.
And, yes, who thinks it will do good? I’d like to see a bombing supporter detail how they think it can bring positive lasting change.
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Right…
Violet, the real problem with “the picture”, is your “picture”…
I mean no disrespect, but the way you simplify the whole matter, is wrong, no matter the empathy depth it comes from.
Accusing the British government of “murder”, in a situation which could be best described as “war”, in which an inernational gang of mass-murderers calling themselves “islamic state” assassinate innocent people without any consideration for anything, neither life nor religion, proves little understanding of reality’s tragic details.
It is probably easy, from the peaceful comfort of your home, to not hear the justice cry of those who mourn the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of innocents slaughtered by these mindless fanatics, allowing yourself to pass judgement onto a government which has to do something, something which given the present situation, is neither easy, nor thoroughly “humane”…
Killing is never “humane”, nevertheless it becomes justifiable when protecting the lives of innocents is at stake.
I’ve lost family members in both wars, and because of them. I’ve never been a fan of the former Soviet Union, but I’m thankful for their sacrifices in liberating Budapest’s Jewish getto. Did they have to kill in order to achieve that? Yes, and I see that as perfectly justified.
Do I agree with everything it’s happening in the Syrian conflict, with the involvement of both western and eastern powers in it, or with the Assad government vs. “moderate” opposition? No, I don’t…
But while the Syrian conflict’s dynamics of international power struggle are “understandable” from a hystoric, geo-political point of view, the madness represented by the ISIS/ISIL is a threat that threatens the very core of existence outside their pathological understanding of religion…
I am truly amazed by your post, in a very peculiar way…
I’ve followed your heartfelt, oftentimes overly passionate posts about matters close to your yeart, with respect, as they seem to have balanced reason and emotion….
But this one…
Lack of reasoning, and poor judgement of a situation much more complicated than your overly simplified accusations…
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Thanks for your comment Liberty. Do you not respect the anti-violence stances that people like Aung San Suu Kyi or Gandhi took in their lives, within their own countries, in the face of violence and oppression?
“It is probably easy, from the peaceful comfort of your home, to not hear the justice cry of those who mourn the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of innocents slaughtered by these mindless fanatics”
Are the people of Syria crying for us to bomb their country? From everything I hear, they are begging the west not to compound the disaster by destroying more and killing more. Can you show me where the people who actually live in Syria are asking for this form of intervention?
It’s easy from the comfort of our homes to imagine that something might be solved by ACTION, any action, the kind of action humans have always (except in a few cases) taken in the past. Killing is killing is killing, and in this area of the world in recent history, our forms of intervention involving killing have always led to more chaos and killing. Or can you point me to an equivalent situation where it’s worked? Risking lives and killing to save a defined group of people in a small and defined area is just not a comparison, and I can’t see why you think it is.
“Lack of reasoning, and poor judgement of a situation much more complicated than your overly simplified accusations”
I disagree. It’s blanket killing knowing that completely innocent people will be murdered, and there is no clear aim, no sense that wiping out huge areas will actually have any real effect on the spread of ISIS/ISIL. If anything, all our experiences in the past with Islamist groups tell us it will only give a further rallying focal point for disenchanted and disenfranchised youth.
I don’t pretend to know what the answers are, but I would respect the international community more if they looked for new ways to deal with this.
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I must agree with much of your reply, with my heart. I also can’t remember anyone asking for foreign intervention, except for “those” whose requests are remembered only by particularly “interested” powers…
Nevertheless, military action is justified in light of “now” matters of urgency. And now, Syria seems to have become the HQ of this is/is/il, and something has to be done. And it will not be good, it won’t be right, it won’t be correct…
It’ll serve a purpose. A purpose which should prevent these assassins to impose their sick version of religion upon a pacifist world. Because that’s what they ultimately want. And pragmatically speaking, the enemies of my enemy, are my momentary friends…
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“It’ll serve a purpose. A purpose which should prevent these assassins to impose their sick version of religion upon a pacifist world”
I don’t think it will serve this purpose at all. At best it will pause it in one area, to the further horror of the neutral population, and allow it to grow more fiercely in the rest of the world.
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We shall painfully agree to disagree on this matter, or rather disagree to agree…
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