Nah Britain won't get any of that treatment. All that rhetoric came from gung ho republicans when they were hammering the war drums. This time around whilst they are probably still keen on a good old bombing they will more likely use this as a tool to hammer Obama; as in he's so useless that he can't even get the British on board. Plus most of the US citizens seem as exasperated by perpetual war as British citizens do.
Do you now support military action against Syria's government?
- Thread starter Diamond
- Start date
Nah Britain won't get any of that treatment. All that rhetoric came from gung ho republicans when they were hammering the war drums. This time around whilst they are probably still keen on a good old bombing they will more likely use this as a tool to hammer Obama; as in he's so useless that he can't even get the British on board. Plus most of the US citizens seem as exasperated by perpetual war as British citizens do.
I've yet to be convinced that the casualties shown on TV were caused by a chemical attack. There could be a number of reasons why they suffered that don't necessarily require a chemical weapon attack. The destruction of a chemical plant, warehouse with chemicals, electronics factory, etc, could all account for the symptoms seen. The only other evidence is of government planes dropping bombs producing a 'firey smoke' and some intercepted communications by the US. We should let the inspectors get on with the job that they've been given.
Nor am I convinced that we have the military means to carry out an effective response, we could target air-defense sites, HQs, depots and airfields, but there would inevitably be civilian casualties. It's a bit pointless to kill more civvies that you might protect be doing nothing. It's not as if we, or even the US, could intervene on the ground in Syria. The UN Security Council will be effectively neutered because of the Russian veto. If there really is evidence that the Assad regime was responsible for a CBRN attack then the best thing would be to seize Syrian government assets, indite him and the rest that are implicated as war criminals, and supply medical and food aid to the refugees and insurgents. It will help to bleed Assad of funds and resources. Beyond that our responses are severely limited.
Syria is NOT the same as Iraq or Afghanistan, it is far more like a western country in terms of infrastructure, industry, education and social values. Iraq had been bled by years of conflict of Iran and been cut-off by the US. Much of Afghanistan is barely beyond a neolithic lifestyle, subsistance farmers struggling just to get by. Both countries had be strained by the maniacs in charge to a much greater degree than the Assad regime.
Nor am I convinced that we have the military means to carry out an effective response, we could target air-defense sites, HQs, depots and airfields, but there would inevitably be civilian casualties. It's a bit pointless to kill more civvies that you might protect be doing nothing. It's not as if we, or even the US, could intervene on the ground in Syria. The UN Security Council will be effectively neutered because of the Russian veto. If there really is evidence that the Assad regime was responsible for a CBRN attack then the best thing would be to seize Syrian government assets, indite him and the rest that are implicated as war criminals, and supply medical and food aid to the refugees and insurgents. It will help to bleed Assad of funds and resources. Beyond that our responses are severely limited.
Syria is NOT the same as Iraq or Afghanistan, it is far more like a western country in terms of infrastructure, industry, education and social values. Iraq had been bled by years of conflict of Iran and been cut-off by the US. Much of Afghanistan is barely beyond a neolithic lifestyle, subsistance farmers struggling just to get by. Both countries had be strained by the maniacs in charge to a much greater degree than the Assad regime.
Frumious B.
Well-Known Member
Cameron would have won the vote if he'd waited another day. Klutz.
What was this? Treaty of Paris and the Fox-North coalition breaking up?
agricola
a genuine importer of owls
I doubt it - the mood of the whole debate in the Commons and the Lords (and perhaps more importantly who it was doing the slating) was vehemently against anything to do with it, and what Kerry came up with today would have been torn to bits in exactly the same way that the evidence presented by HMG was.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I agree. But in a couple of weeks' time, who knows? The beauty of yesterday's motion is that it rules out British military involvement in Syria now and in two weeks' time. Only a direct threat from Syria to Britain, which is vanishingly unlikely, can change that. It's really rather amazingly, puzzlingly heartening, all this. I still don't know quite how to react.
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
Any thoughts?
Saudi Arabia is a US ally after all.
Saudi Arabia is a US ally after all.
camouflage
gaslit at scale.
I tell you what man, it's hilariouss watching the whining and hand-wringing on the news because Britain doesn't get to join in the fun. Soul searching, looking weak, but the French are going, are we still special, role in the world, etcetera. Laughable.
Barking_Mad
Non sibi sed omnibus
Nothing would surprise me, especially this. Whilst the UK media were desperate to point fingers at the Syrian government there was unsurprisingly much thought that it might be a false flag operation designed to give reason for a military operation. Even if this was done without a nod and a wink from the US i dare say that if they found out they'd be quite happy to ignore it anyway and continue to peddle the same line.
It's so pathetic isn't it, all these fucking Tories desperate to re-live some of their imperialist former glories by hanging onto the Americans coat tails every time they go on some ill-advised campaign in the middle-east. Utterly pathetic.
kebabking
Not a Girly Swot, but I like them....
that you're a dog fucking racist piece of trolling shite?
Barking_Mad
Non sibi sed omnibus
agricola
a genuine importer of owls
TBF its the interventionist brigade of all parties - Cameron, Howard, Ashdown, Blair etc - who are the ones whinging about loss of face; the establishment Tories were the ones who gave this proposal its biggest kicking.
Frumious B.
Well-Known Member
Why? Just because bombing is unpopular? Could this finally be the payoff for public opposition to the Iraq war? The shitsacks are scared they'll end up like Blair, with a life sentence of being hated in his own country.
The vote is a matter of record, who voted for what etc, its near impossible for me to put myself in an imperialists shoes but i thought Al-Qaeda was the enemy ?, now it seems the imperialists want to be on the same side as them but there again i suppose in the past they are sometimes on their side and sometimes not.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Well the strong and simplistic message of the 'war on terror' years was always going to slide messily into that aspect sooner or later.
In any case, there are more than two sides in Syria.
I know there are several sides and that's part of the problem, who's the goodies and who's the baddies ?, are there any goodies ?
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
Yaaaaaaawn.
ENGLISH MP's seem have voted not to fight at all, you racist pig-fucker.
I wonder what you'd have posted had the vote gone in favour of a strike.
teqniq
DisMembered
nothing would surprise me
What did the majority of English mp's vote for then ?
Yeah that's true, but there's a lot of right-wing Tory backbenchers with UKIP snapping at their heels worrying about the next election. If they were in safer seats or in cabinet they might have a different take on things. The government tends to always go along with USA, it's a regular feature of British post-war policy, and that's true of both Labour and Tory governments. Now it appears parliament has the ability to stop a PM from going to war alongside the US, so that might change a bit. With the prerogative undermined like this will the PM ever be able to go to war without a vote in the HoC again? We'll have to see, I suspect they'll find a way.
The royal prerogative isn't just some relic it's one of those handy bits of feudal constitutional vaugeness that gives the executive and PM a lot of abritrary power, and subsequently it's one of the things that makes the US-British relationship so "special" ie utterly one-way. The ability to act without constraint in this area is one of the things we use to sell ourselves as not just any American puppet, but the leading American puppet, just how the City of London sells it's status as feudal autonomous zone with specific ancient privileges to global banks. These thing's aren't just leftovers or anachronism they're crucial parts of our post-45 role in the western system of power.
Frumious B.
Well-Known Member
My prediction: the US will send cruise missiles this weekend and they will be judged not to have diminished chemical weapons stockpiles much, if at all. In a few months when Assad is on the ropes there will be another call from the US for a bombing campaign, this time a much, much bigger one to destroy the weapons so Al-Q don't get them. We'll have another vote which Cameron will win easily and we'll assist the US with all the cruise missiles and bombers we've got.
J Ed
Follow Back Pro Expropriation
Jon Simpson on the news was saying that Britain has fallen out of the premiership. Yeah because bombing people is fucking football
We don't have a goal in place and if we've learned anything it should be that intervention ought to involve a specific outcome. We have absolutely no idea what or who is going to replace Assad and it could be something far worse. One of the awful outcomes of the invasion of Iraq was the lack of a clear post-investigation strategy or even a means of coping with that vacuum. You could multiply that several times in Syria. I think most people have become very disenchanted with the state of British politics, but it is refreshing that the general will of the population has prevailed in this case. That may be a stopped clock telling the right time twice a day, but there was no cynical reason to vote against military action.
Similar threads
- Poll
- Poll
- Poll
