Syria

As other people have said the UN should deal with it, who ever voted us and the yanks in as some kind of world police force? Deal with the corruption and injustice at home, or do our govt. get involved in this kind of foray to keep our eyes away from home?

How on earth are the UN going to 'deal with it'? What are they going to do?

So they either get away with or get bombed?

All those in favour of sending the boys in are generally the ones who have no chance of going themselves. Not all but most from what I heard on the radio this morning. I listened to Paddy Pantsdown giving a Churchillian style speach where apparently we have gone from Great Britain to Little Britain in one move. Not only small and insignificant in World affairs but a joke in Little Britain mode. What bollox. It's not that nothing should be done for me it's that it's about time somebody else did it and not us everytime. I don't care if America goes in as that's their choice but given the number of members of the UN let somebody else join them and pay the bills.

Rickler wrote:

How on earth are the UN going to 'deal with it'?  What are they going to do?

I don't know really Rickler, but at the end of the day dealing with shit like this is the role of the UN, our governments can't run their own countries properly but get involved in others, I wish they wouldn't.

cameron got chinned ! excellent. no money for services for the disabled etc but plenty of loot to blow up syria/libya etc at a moments notice!

Parliament got it right for once! I have never seen c*meron (spit) looked so pissed off after todays defeat in the Commons. And he's only pissed off because this time he can't strut around with obama bombing yet another country. He's pissed off he can't to a bliar and lie to and bully MPs into voting for illegal and murderous wars just to satisfy his own vanity and to suck up to the yanks. I really hope that's the end of our 'special relationship' with the US.

NOW F*** OFF C*MERON AND TAKE THAT VILE UGLY BALD MONKEY HAGUE WITH YOU!

The UN is so corrupt it makes FIFA look like a vicarage tea party.

Freathy wrote:

Parliament got it right for once!  I have never seen c*meron (spit) looked so pissed off after todays defeat in the Commons.  And he's only pissed off because this time he can't strut around with obama bombing yet another country.   He's pissed off he can't to a bliar and lie to and bully MPs into voting for illegal and murderous wars just to satisfy his own vanity and to suck up to the yanks.  I really hope that's the end of our 'special relationship' with the US.

NOW F*** OFF C*MERON AND TAKE THAT VILE UGLY BALD MONKEY HAGUE WITH YOU!

Exactly. He looks like a wuss now and it may be the defining point in his career as prime minister. Miliband has been f@ck all use for anything so far but he got that one right!

I said earlier damned if you do & damned if you don't. I don't think we should have gone into Syria BUT what's the alternative if Assad is engaged in a vicious indiscriminate war.

And please don't cite what we have been up to in Afghanistan with drones, the chaos in Iraq etc. That is indisputably accurate but doesn't answer the question of what is the alternative.

He's not engaged in a vicious indiscriminate war against us, lets try minding our own business.

Absolutely. The syrian army aren't massed over the channel preparing for invasion. It has absolutely f*** all to do with us. Civil wars and ruthless dictators elsewhere have always been and will always be. Anyway the Syrian 'rebels' are being joined by a whole host of foreign fighters, mainly Islamic jihadists, who will eventually prevail. Assad will fall eventually anyway. It's inevitable.

For me this has nothing to do with Cameron being seen off. Just for once the MPs appear to have listened to the public or at least some of them. Miliband was playing politics rather than voting with any conscience. However this was not something politics should be played with and for me he comes out with no credit whatsoever. The good MPs were the ones who voted against their own party's wishes not the ones who voted along party lines.

As I said above knecht, it isn't a case of nothing being done it's a case of somebody else doing the right thing just for once. All these others in the UN who vote for action yet take none ever. My guess is this time the French with turn up.

I'm in the wait for the UN camp.

The biggest issue I've got is that you get rid of Assad, then wut?

Chemical weapons are bad fore shore, but lots of people have been killed using other weapons, that's bad fore fooking shore too.

Stay out.

We have our own people committing suicide on a daily basis and nobody cares. I walked through town earlier tonight at my own risk, full of people with nothing to lose. This from the 6th? richest nation.

People die everywhere, often needlessly, we can't help them all. Especially at a time when immoral rich people are creaming the wealth and the poor are expected to feed those doing so.

My war is here, in UK!

That's how I feel too Coxside. We've made enough fruitcake enemies around the world who are now willing to kill British civilians and soldiers because politicians have seen fit to go invading every country that has anything of worth they can take a slice of.

There are atrocities carried out on a daily basis all around the world and we don't have the resources to send troops in every time.

The UN's role is to sort these things out and the UK should be right there standing as part of the UN but not jumping whenever the feckin yanks click their fingers.

British soldiers would be killed again if Cameron had his way and there's been far too much of that in the last twenty years. Especially when you consider how few other nations have suffered mass casualties during the same period.

The middle east is a crazy, crazy place right now and whatever the US or the UK did today it will probably be having to send troops in again in five years time because the new regime then carries out similar atrocities getting their own back.

Even if you dispose a nutty leader, who takes over next?  The West can't flex power here, it has been proven more than enough times.

That said, it's a good base for US against Iran.  What a lovely world we live.

I remember the trigger happy Bush and Blair and the lies and deceit they told because they wanted to keep a tab on the oil supplies in Iraq. I remember Blair's speech when he said that we would rebuild Afghanistan and that we would not pull out until we did.

I remember millions starving to death in Ethiopia, the rape and murder of women and children in Rwanda and the governments bombing of its own people in Sri Lanka while the US, UK and the rest of the world stood back and done nothing.

Be sure of this, if a capitalist government involves itself in a war for humanity it does so only to gain a foothold on territory or wealth!

I agree with all that GOB and have said the same elsewhere. But - at what point do we/should we involve ourselves in atrocities in other countries? To simply say 'It's none of our business' is akin to ignoring the abuse going on in our neighbour's house as its a private matter. Neither we nor the UN properly went into Ethiopia, nor did we do the 'right thing' in Rwanda or even Bosnia and Sri Lanka. The UN got castigated for that. Israel/Palestine is a running sore but it suits the States and others to turn a largely blind eye. The States ignores lots of the UN pronouncements because it doesn't suit. The UN may be a joke but it may also be the best joke we have.

Did Blair & Bush lie? They're politicians - they have to. But I think an important element would have been their Bible-led hubris that convinced them they were going to save the world.

My problem Knecht and I believe the problem for the majority, is that we can't trust our government to make decisions for humanity benefits, sadly the outcome of that is that innocent people will suffer as they are now in Syria.

To answer your question Knecht, we should involve ourselves in atrocities in other countries when we feel that we can trust our government and, that our government has a genuine interest in humanity and not simply to gain territory or financial benefits. Sadly, I do not believe the governments reasons for wanting to become involved in Syria are for those qualities or for the right reasons and the end result will be disaster.

When I see our government involve the country in conflicts where there will be no capitalistic benefits my faith will start to be restored.

What Gob said.

Keep out of it.

1) Where is the moral imperative for a country that uses Drones for indiscriminate killing to attack one who uses Chemical weapons to do the same. Bombing is indiscriminate to a large extent.

2) What does bombing achieve?
a) if it removes the Assad regime, what replaces it? No-one seems to know who the protestors are exactly. There is evidence of links to Al-queda. There is some suggestion that they too may have used Chemical weapons - what then? Do we bomb both sides? The Assad supported won't just disappear if the rebels take control, the civil war will most likely continue, just with sides reversed.
b) If it fails to remove the Assad regime we've only bombed a country, thus killing more people, to probably prolong a civil war. How would this effect our standing with other middle-eastern countries?
c) The only way to potentially enforcing a democratic regime is with ground troops. 10+ years of that in Iraq wasn't exactly successful. Who has the stomach/money for that sort of campaign, which has probably only a modest chance of success.

3)Why the interest in 'fixing' Syria, while long running civil wars in places like The Congo/Burma are relatively ignored?

4) There is of course the question of trust. The Labour government, supported by the Tories, lied their way into a war on Iraq. Despite widespread propaganda from the media, the majority of the country seem unconvinced as to the justification for intervention. The mask has slipped, we (rightly) no longer trust our politicians to make honest decisions.

5) The question of cost. While it feels wrong to mention cost when it comes to people's lives, the coalition have been using cost as a justification for legion of policies that significantly harm the wellbeing of the population of their own country. Suddenly however cost is no option when it comes to bombing another country. Could the fact that the defense industry provide funding for the Tory party have anything to do with it?

6) There is no mandate. As mentioned before there is vast opposition to intervention. In one poll the 'yes' vote was down to 2% - and that was in the Telegraph! Hardly a home for pinko-lefty types!

7) At least f**king wait for the evidence. Cameron's pathetic dick waving before the evidence had been gathered is if anything even more shameful than Blair's actions. His later comment that Miliband was 'siding with Russia' for disagreeing with him was truly pathetic. Just when I thought he couldn't go any lower in my estimation, he finds another way to demonstrate how utterly repellent he is.

It's worrying when I find myself in general agreement with the mood on ATD, "special relationship"? What like when they helped us out in The Falklands or when they left our arses in a sling over Suez or when they bugged out leaving the Marines to fight their way South from the "Frozen Chosun".

This whole Yank love in is simply a relic of the one off special circumstances of WW1 and its sequel, I give Harold Wilson kudos for tell them to go feck over Vietnam, all the rest just puckered up and sucked the d1ck of whichever Pres that was looking for a boost in the polls and to line the pockets of the boys who put him in office.

Just a thought to stir the pot, which countries stand to gain most from instability in the region pushing the price of oil up? Er, the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia with its evil little gang and Iran, and who are the major protagonists here?

Chemical weapons the pariah?

Where were the Yanks when the Iraqis were gassing the Iranian soldiers or as stated earlier the Kurds in Halabja, where were the Yanks when the Yanks were dropping Agent Orange and other such shiite all over SE Asia, where were the Yanks when the Israelis were dropping phosphorous on the Palestinians? What is so special about gas that makes Napalm pale to insignificance?

Yes of course it is a weapon of mass destruction, but then again so is restricting imports of baby milk into Iraq leaving literally hundreds of thousands of innocent children to die of malnutrition, come to think of it so is the machete when enough Hutus have got them with no one to put a stop to the carnage.

It's all blox.

Greenjock wrote:

Whats going on in Syria is appalling and the UN should step in and stop it immediately. It shouldn't be down to Britain to get involved, or the yanks whenever there's oil to be had. Time some other cnuts stepped up to the plate methinks.

The UN are useless and not worthy of anything,especially when Russia and China veto everything the West suggests.

I have been listening to Radio5-live a great deal and there has been so much spoken about Syria.

The Syrians who have been attacked by the Assad regime feel let down by the vote on Thursday,they felt that Britain WOULD come to their aid in time of need.

The USA will probably go in with France and possibly Turkey [all NATO members i add],but once punitive strikes are ordered,there is no turning back and whatever happens thereafter,nations will be on edge.

Russia have said they will come to the aid of the Assad regime should it be attacked,they have moved naval units in to place,i assume China will offer its help too.

Russia could well bomb rebel strongholds,along with other areas too if she so pleased.

Turkey would probably face some form of wrath also,as would France no doubt.

Israel has stated that she will unleash hell upon Syria should Syria retaliate against her for Western strikes. Iran have also stated that they will get involved in the event of USA led action against Syria.

The USA will be obliged to defend Israel in the event of Syrian and/or Iranian aggression.

Britain,as a fellow NATO member would have to go in if the USA and France and Turkey were to be attacked by non-NATO members.

The threat of WWIII developing and/or evolving from this crisis is very high indeed. It has always been stated over the decades that a Third World War would start in the Middle-East.

Britain may not be involved in possible punitive strikes against Syria,but if you were to look at the wider picture or scenario,Britain could still get sucked in to a more broader conflict.

If the World ever faced a serious-grave crisis,then it is now and here today..

I know I should really always put my glasses on to read the small stuff...but I don't...so I did a double take in Village's post above when I read Jock's quote box as IJN and not UN