british mps vote to drop bombs
I appeal to colleagues on all sides to make sure that we do not ignore the lessons of Afghanistan, ignore the lessons of Iraq, ignore the lessons of Libya. Let’s not repeat the mistakes of the past, let’s not give the green light to military action without a comprehensive and credible plan to win the peace. (Angus Robertson MP, SNP)
Angus’ appeal fell on deaf ears as British MPs last night voted overwhelming to drop bombs on the people of Syria, in a bid to destroy a terrorist organisation causing untold misery there and threatening to disrupt our peaceful lives here. Apparently, lessons from the past do not have any relevance, and the base human urge to destroy our enemy is not touched by logic or common sense.
We must now confront this evil. It is now time for us to do our bit in Syria. (Hilary Benn MP, Labour)
For those who don’t know, ‘doing our bit’ is a rousing call to the heart of every proud British citizen. Obviously it’s completely meaningless, because ‘doing our bit’ doesn’t need to be anything remotely useful – just as long as we’re seen to be supportive or important on the world stage. It makes one feel all warm and fuzzy inside, perhaps brings an emotional tear to the eye, to be ‘doing our bit’. But again, we don’t need to analyse what a sensible or constructive form of ‘doing our bit’ would be – as long as we’re chipping in with fatality statistics, everyone will know we’re a team player confronting evil.
Raqqa is being Slaughtered Silently” – citizen journalist group in the IS stronghold
We are against the UK strikes on Raqqa. All the world is bombing Raqqa and the UK will not make any change in the situation. If the UK wants to help people then it should accept Syrian refugees and not close the border. Just bombing IS in Raqqa from the sky will not defeat IS, but it will make people suffer more. IS will use the UK strikes to recruit new people in the West and new fighters and maybe they will carry out terrorist attacks. In the end nobody will liberate Raqqa except the people of Raqqa. (BBC)
This kind of complicates things. Armchair analysis and emotional appeals to (abstractly) help our allies can lead us to believe the best course of action is bombing. But it gets a bit awkward when people actually living there, confronting the evil of ISIS/ISIL on a daily basis, do not want to be bombed. And, furthermore, their armchair analysis coincides with anyone looking at what has happened in recent history and they conclude bombing will help recruit more terrorists.
What about the Free Syrian Army? They’ll understand, right? They’re military people fighting to the death for their nation. They’ll be delighted to hear they have more air support, right?
The Assad regime is the cancer which ISIS (Islamic State, also known as Daesh) grow out of. So without erasing Assad from power – which means treating the cure, not just symptoms – that will not make a big difference. Daesh and Assad are two faces of one coin. You should start with Assad but we understand they’re not going to hit Assad. With air strikes and partners on ground, that could finish IS. We’re frustrated with the whole international community – not just the UK.
Just as well The West Knows Best, and we have so much success in meddling in Middle Eastern politics.
So, the final word on the British vote and the superficial nature of political decisions comes from Mhairi Black, SNP, the youngest MP in the British parliament:
Very dark night in parliament.Will never forget the noise of some Labour and Tory cheering together at the idea of bombs falling
I really don’t like our decision to bomb Syria.
(1) The whole debate doesn’t make sense – we’re deciding whether to extend a failed policy of bombing across a boarder, as if ISIS cared about boarders. They are not a state; they do not care about boarders.
(2) Bombing is a failed policy – I am not an idealistic pacifist, I just don’t see the efficacy of it. Bombing in other places has not made us less vulnerable to terrorism.
(3) Bombing is exactly what ISIS want – if fuels their propaganda and therefore their recruitment drives.
(4) ISIS is mobile – unlike a state, ISIS can just migrate into another country and still remain “ISIS”. This means we are engaging in a highly dynamic attack that means we are necessarily at the disadvantage.
(5) Innocent deaths – I don’t understand how many deaths of innocent Syrians and British servicepeople are equal to one British citizen’s life. (But I expect it is a 1:1 transaction.) But I suspect there will be (vastly) greater innocent lives lost in the bombing than in the (probably unsuccessful) avoidance of terrorism in Britain.
(6) Reason to bomb seemed emotional – they seemed like “we want to show allegiance to France” and “we are angry”. Both true, but to show allegiance to France is to stop ISIS, and cutting off their finances by stopping the sale of their oil and their acquisition of weapons (may be) is more effective than bombing. Yes, we are angry. But we shouldn’t have let that cloud reasonable decisions and be aggressive.
Rant over. Sorry to flood your feed with that.
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I agree completely, especially that support for bombing seems to be driven by a base emotional response to what happened in Paris. Surely MPs have a duty to think about matters more deeply. The argument was reduced to ‘if we bomb we’ll get rid of ISIS’ or ‘if we don’t bomb we’re terrorist sympathisers’. Both utterly false.
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I still can’t really fathom why Cameron didn’t apologise for calling people who suspect there may be more effective ways to deal with the problem “terrorist sympathisers”.
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I think it just shows that politics are a petty game of oneupmanship to most politicians. He knows that in pushing to kill people he doesn’t have the moral high ground, so he has to invent some by demonising those who disagree.
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It’s classic rhetoric, really.
Are you British?
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For now, you?
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Yep.
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Welcome to the country. Where in the wet are you?
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In the bit that keeps trying to leave. What about you?
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Is that Scotland or Cornwall? I’m in Bristol, that bit that thinks it’s cultural, bit it’s just farmers and hipsters.
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Sounds nice, bit less drizzle than here at least. 🙂 What did your MP vote?
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For. I feel a little betrayed. I thought it was multicultural enough here for us to understand the people in other countries are… people.
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They are people! They just don’t matter as much…
I noticed that some of the hesitation to approve it was around the risk to British military lives – very little concern for deaths outside of that. It’s stunning when you see that kind of discussion in action.
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I think I have said my piece on this.
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Indeed. I should have included it in the post, but I’ll paste it here instead:
“As consolation for the people of Syria, they can know the MPs voted with a heavy heart for the peace bombings”
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There is so much vague sloganeering going around this Syrian problem that it is doubtful anything good will come out of this move.
What is the goal of the military involvement? Is it to destroy ISIS or to just look like you are doing something?
Does the West support Assad or not? Really, if you want a stable Syria at this point Assad is probably the best bet, but then what? Do you really want this guy exercising regional muscle in Lebanon and Iraq? If you don’t support Assad, then you have to deal with the Iranians and Russians who do. Western powers have no allies in Syria to speak of. The West refuses to define objectives, and refuses to acknowledge the gamut of potential outcomes.
“Bombing never works” is also a slogan that doesn’t mean very much. Sometimes it works great: once the Serbs had their heavy weapons destroyed and utilities cut by NATO bombs the Bosnian war wrapped up pretty quickly and Milosevic was ousted. It probably depends on the psychology of the enemy, which Western politicians don’t understand in this case.
When talking about root causes we tend to diagnose issues by what makes sense in Western public discourse. We say the root cause of terrorism is bombing, or poverty, or bad government, or climate change, because that is what makes sense to CNN or the BBC. Ask ISIS why they do what they do and they say it is to establish their Utopian caliphate, and they act for all the world like they mean it. These people operate under a different set of categories that Western leaders refuse to admit even exist.
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“Really, if you want a stable Syria at this point Assad is probably the best bet, but then what?”
Choke. What news source are you using?? My understanding is that ISIS have only been able to flourish because of the horrors inflicted by Assad – many people are pushed into a corner and have no-one else offering an alternative.
I agree it’s a massively complicated situation though and there is no clear objective to go for – beyond agreement that ISIS are horrendous and must be stopped.
““Bombing never works” is also a slogan that doesn’t mean very much. Sometimes it works great”
Matters have been resolved in interventions that include bombings. I suspect there are often other ways of reaching the same end point. But in any case, I’m not impressed with any comparisons people are coming up with – they are much more clearly defined groups of people in smaller areas. Religion knows no borders and the potential recruiting ground (made more fertile with bombing) is immense.
“We say the root cause of terrorism is bombing, or poverty, or bad government, or climate change, because that is what makes sense to CNN or the BBC. Ask ISIS why they do what they do and they say it is to establish their Utopian caliphate, and they act for all the world like they mean it.”
You’re confusing things here. Their core aim is the Islamic caliphate. But they are only gaining significant levels of support because of bad government and bad interventions. Angry people looking for hope – and getting it so wrong.
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I agree you shouldn’t be impressed with analogies, they are often slight-of-mind tricks. I didn’t mean the Serbian example to prove that bombing Raqqa is the right thing to do, but to attack what I think is an airy slogan. I don’t really know the right thing to do in this case. I think I know what the goals should be, not really how to get there.
ISIS is a reaction to Assad? Lots of people hated Assad, not all of them are ultra-violent Utopian death cultists. Different rebel groups had different aims and motives in the Syrian Civil War. Are all those aims and motives nothing other than a reaction to Assad? Doesn’t modern political Islamicism go back to the foundation of the Muslim Brotherhood? That is well before the Assad family.
You habitually reduce Muslim motives to reactions – as if Islamic terrorists have no agency. It is always somebody else’s fault.
You would think everybody wants the same thing out of life, but they don’t. Or rather, yes they want certain things naturally but their priorities and notions of how to get there can be utterly different. We can’t say “poor people don’t have airconditioning and western-style secular democracy with a consumer culture and welfare state, so they go on killing sprees in Paris.” They don’t want your culture or values. If you offered it to them, they would not take it.
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Culture and values no. Lifestyle and money yes. Why otherwise do Africans risk their lives on rafts every year to cross the Mediterranean to Europe? Why are people hanging off trucks in the Channel Tunnel? Why are there camps outside the tunnel,of people waiting to illegally enter the UK? What part of that lifestyle do they not want?
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People will go to great lengths to get out of rural poverty, even if it means just trading it for urban poverty: who wants to work 14 hour days in sustenance farming?
Culture and values are the determinant part. It is what makes a people, not possessions.
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“You habitually reduce Muslim motives to reactions – as if Islamic terrorists have no agency.”
Entirely inaccurate. I don’t ‘reduce’ for a start. I expand on trying to fully understand the motivations for all actions, regardless of religious belief. You, on the other hand, seem intend on reducing the actions of those attracted to ISIL to sheer religious fanaticism. People don’t go there naturally, it’s a defensive posture, a corner that people run to in sheer desperation. If we don’t attempt to understand why they go there, we can’t cut off their supply of recruits.
“They don’t want your culture or values. If you offered it to them, they would not take it.”
I don’t want my culture or values either. The difference is I can live my life comfortably in minor irritation, or if I reach boiling point, there are protest groups I can join to make my voice heard. People living in misery with no power will join any group that promises a voice and a better life. What can’t you understand about that?
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I understand your reasoning,it is just false. You are saying that you would really strap on a suicide vest and try to blow up a school, or shoot up a nightclub, or as happened yesterday, shoot up a center for disabled people, if you felt like your voice wasn’t being heard?
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In your first sentence, you said … “voted overwhelming to drop bombs on the people of Syria.”
This is the part that the “powers-that-be” don’t consider … “the people of Syria.” All they are able to focus on are the “bad guys.”
C’mon … ratio-wise, how many bad guys will be wiped out by a bomb as compared to the “people of Syria”?
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It’s scary to think. And if they were ‘collateral damage’ to a certain end point it would be tragic, but the fact that they will die in a campaign that is unlikely to improve the situation is beyond thinking about.
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Bomb – The- World-
Let them know it’s Christmas Time
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What did your MP vote? I think this is one of the few occasions in my life where I’m proud of the SNP. I didn’t even have to bother lobbying my MP (which I’ve never even considered doing prior to this week.)
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Mine is a Tory. I emailed him, saying that bombing is the way to make enemies of everyone under your bombs: has he not heard the “We will fight them on the beaches” speech? He voted for bombing. It will make negotiation more difficult and radicalise young British Muslims. He did not reply to me.
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Blinkers firmly buckled down.
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I read that a poll showed evenly divided support for bombing Syria among British women, two to one in favour among British men. I disagree. I do not see what military objective can be achieved. I think the concomitant destruction, alienation, dissociation and despair caused will make peace more difficult. But we are in the minority.
On 4 October, Mr Cameron told the Commons that Russian bombs in Syria would “lead to further radicalisation and increased terrorism”. But that’s because they are horrid Russian bombs rather than good British bombs. Those underneath surely know the difference.
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the one of the many occasions we are in agreement, Clare.
It’s Christmas time and we have fireworks!
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I noticed a lot of hardcore working class (yeah what’s that) area MPs voted against. My partners South Walian area was pretty strong, and my Yks area too. I read an interesting post about someone working in a Syrian refugee camp, I’ll try and find it and add the link.
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That would be great if you can find it, thanks.
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Shazzam! http://lifeisacamino.com/2015/12/02/the-night-shift/
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Really interesting, thanks!
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Dylan said it best in three lines:
‘It’s a hard rain’s, gonna fall.”
It’s alright, Ma, I’m only bleeding.”
and …
”Someone who will die for you, but it ain’t me, babe,”
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Some thoughts here.
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