I’d just like to say I haven’t read any of the above.

But in reaction the the news I just heard that states we may be bombing syria by the end of the week, why bring any more trouble to our shores than there already is? Against.
Appreciate why you chosen not to read the thread and I can understand your concerns. It’s a question of balance and many don’t agree with you not least our MPs who are he ones we have mandated to make the decision.

If our MPs are so in favour I am sure all will be allowed a free vote not an anti democratic whipped vote and i am puzzled why Cameron was so desperate to ensure that the pro bombing labour MPs were free to vote in favour as he holds a majority.

No is my vote, they already have enough martyrs for their cause why give them more. I was close to voting yes but I remember Russia in afghanistan, over 2 decades of fighting!!!

Oh for the love of God/Allah HOW THE **** DID WE END UP TALKING ABOUT LEON ****ING BRITTAIN AGAIN?!!!

JHJ – do me a favour will you…? In fact… do us all one…

Just **** off with your ridiculous Jimmy Saville/Westminster conspiracy theories. Because we’re all absolutely sick of ****ing hearing it!!!! Change the ****ing record FFS!!!!!

Back on topic…..

Though I’m sure its all now done and dusted already, and our elected representatives are staggering yet again towards another pointless, costly, futile and ultimately counter-productive military quagmire that we’ll still be stuck in another 15 years from now, wondering how we never thought through all the subsequent consequences before blundering in (AGAIN!)

We cant afford it, remember we are skint billions in debt amd cant afford to look after our own country but will our so called representitives see sense getting us into another expensive futile war, will they heck as.

rone – Member

Victims of terrorism W.Europe and percieved threat with 1970-2015 chart.

http://m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/8670458?ncid=fcbklnkukhpmg00000001

Appears to me terrorism works. Interesting stats, although they do not break down into the source of terrorism; for example IRA in the UK, or Basque Separatist in Spain. It seems clear that single, outlier events – like Lockerbie – make significant statistical differences.

I think the intrinsic issue with present terrorism is the homogeneous nature which , in itself is worrying as it indicates (possibly) greater organisation and motivation, but also a widespread issue that is not being confronted. The latter being, at its crux, the severe disconnect between many immigrant communities and their hosts.

binners

our elected representatives are staggering yet again towards another pointless, costly, futile and ultimately counter-productive military quagmire that we’ll still be stuck in another 15 years from now….

I’m not so sure anymore. Jambalaya has changed my mind on this. Let’s see if I can get my facts straight……

Ok, so we already have the bombs, and they were expensive to develop, and they go stale if we don’t use them, which would mean we’d have to throw them out and replace them with fresh bombs. Also, it’s important to see what these bombs will do when dropped on a goat farmer in a hilux, so these tests are important. Also, there’s some sort of loyalty programme or return customer discount available so if Britain needs to buy more bombs they’ll be cheaper than the first batch, so we’re actually saving money.

And since the money to fund this is all coming from a special pot of rich people’s taxes it doesn’t actually effect the public purse since their tax is specially allocated to pay for the bombs they sell. Right?

And then when you consider that the fighter jets and the pilots and bombs and the fuel and support staff are already over there just pissing about and it’ll cost more money to bring that stuff home there really is no argument for not bombing anyone. It’s simple logic.

Binners, calm yourself, I’m sick of hearing about war mongers profiting from plundering the planet and it’s people for profit, but I don’t get hostile because it is a real situation that needs discussing to find solutions, rather like the other issues I discuss, which all too often, involves the very same people.

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely etc…

Well, the headline in this morning’s Metro – which I happened to see on a Tube seat – is “Corbyn’s Free Vote Leaves UK On Brink Of War”.

So it’s all Jezza’s fault after all.

Nice quote, but you’ve wrongly attributed it….

What’s that rotter done to the lovely Debbie McGee?

Hmm, best not go there…

Chapeau @jimjam

I am firmly of the view that “do nothing” was not an option and Corbyn’s diplomacy suggestions are worthless. Without air strikes in Iraq IS would be in Baghdad. The air campaign to date has stopped their advances and pushed them back. The intensified campaign will further degrade them and allow ground forces to eradicate them as an organised force.

There will be substantial casualties and we will see further terrorist attacks on us. The battle against IS is going to be long and very bloody.

The intensified campaign will further degrade them and allow ground forces to eradicate them as an organised force.

They will piss off anf hide from view whilst bombing us everyone knows this

bombs dont kill ideas

No one credible really thinks us joining in signals the end for ISIS

Pterrorism does not have a homogeneous nature it is just lazy reporting that lumps disparate groups of terrorists who share a religion albeit in a very twisted form as one overarching group.
Imagine how big Christian terrorists as a group would be if every self professed Christian killer from the Basque separatists through IRA,Irish Protestant , Lords Resistance Army,The Anti Abortion murderers , Anders Biervik Timothy Mcveigh etc ad infinitum was lumped into one.

The air campaign to date has stopped their advances and pushed them back. The intensified campaign will further degrade them and allow ground forces to eradicate them as an organised force.

Jammers – Is there even the remotest shred of verifiable independent evidence that that’s the case? I know thats what ‘they’ would like to have us believe, but I think we need a bit more than that thanks.

You not getting that feeling that you’ve heard it all before? Deja vu…

Frankly ‘they’ told us that was the case with the Taliban in Afghanistan for 12 years. That’ll be the same Afghanistan thats still now under the control of the Taliban. Same as it was then.

And Iraq?

Same old, same old….

Did you know that the word gullible isn’t actually in the dictionary?

jambalaya

There will be substantial casualties and we will see further terrorist attacks on us. The battle against IS is going to be long and very bloody.

It needn’t be though. Not long term anyway. There has to be a political, cultural and economic strategy.

@br the top 1% pay 27% of the taxes so let’s assume it’s the rich that are paying for all this military stuff.

Ok, so it’s MY money, rather than just your average UK taxpayers money.

I’m definitely against them spending MY money on this foolhardiness.

Why haven’t the MP’s asked us, the electorate, what we think? I would be happier whether I agreed with the House of Commons vote or not, if I had had the chance to vote which way my MP should vote 😥

I am firmly of the view that “do nothing” was not an option and Corbyn’s diplomacy suggestions are worthless.

In reverse order:

2) air strikes on Syria are a diplomatic initiative, not a military one. There is sod all difference in practical terms between the UK sending half a dozen planes when the U.S., Russia, Syria and France are already banging away at IS. One of your consistent arguments in favour has been that our allies (unsure if you’re including Russia and Syria here) would be bemused if we didn’t.

1) just because “do nothing” is not an option, it doesn’t mean “do this thing” is the only option. Everything looks like a nail when all you have is a hammer…and various other pithy turns of phrase.

Why haven’t the MP’s asked us, the electorate, what we think?

Perhaps they couldn’t find our phone numbers.?
We have a representative parliamentary system so that we don’t have to have a public referendum on every issue.

U.S., Russia, Syria and France are already banging away at IS.

Apparently not..there were 7 strikes last week on IS (a truck and one bloke walking through a field) all carried out by the US, they don’t have anything to drop bombs on.

NO, let Saudi/Iran kill their own kids, keep ours here.

Question for me given the overwhelming No’s on here, why are out MP’s almost certainly in favour?

The pollsters have and the results show public support for the strikes.

You are allowed to contact your MP to express your views, they might even listen to you 🙂

Question for me given the overwhelming No’s on here, why are out MP’s almost certainly in favour?

Perhaps because the chat section of STW is not yet the executive authority of the country…….Nor is it necessarily representative of the views of the nation as a whole.

We hear over and over “do nothing was not an option”. Well why don’t we all dress up as Wizbit and have a foam party in Trafalgar Square? How will that help? Well we can’t do nothing. OK can’t argue with that, unleash the foam cannons. People seem not to want to argue for what’s proposed. Cameron’s entire comment on the long term strategy is “there is a long term strategy”. What is it? Who knows but it is. Trust us.

allthepies – Member

The pollsters have and the results show public support for the strikes.

Some have. The Survation poll showed a minority support the strikes (the largest minority, but still). ORB’s shows a majority but discounted all “don’t knows” and don’t seem to report the numbers- so no way to know if it’s a true majority.

Is there a similar to poll to this on other websites you visit?
What’s the consensus on there?

So Fallon was asked today if air strikes in Syria would reduce the ISIS threat to the UK. His reply was that the UK was already under threat. Which is a fairly circular argument for action.

Does anyone have any doubt ISIS will attack the UK again? Does anyone believe airstrikes will prevent another attack?

So Fallon was asked today if air strikes in Syria would reduce the ISIS threat to the UK. His reply was that the UK was already under threat. Which is a fairly circular argument for action.

As Big_n_daft pointed out on the other thread, we’re already bombing them, the only question is whether we bomb them on both sides of an imaginary line in the sand that they don’t recognise, or just one.

Does anyone believe airstrikes will prevent another attack?

Nope not a chance. Unles of course they are planning to drop bombs on the homes of all the radicals that live in the UK already. I struggle to see why over half of our elected politicians are so stupid they can’t see this.

I’m far from a peace loving lefty, but a vote to start dropping bombs would be a token gesture, and pure madness IMO

Survation’s poll suggested that most people believe that attacking Syria will make us less safe, not safer. That’s probably realistic IMO- terror attacks like Paris don’t need IS to have an extant state, terrorism can and certainly will survive in the cracks no matter how hard we bomb them and it’s not like they’re not dependent on manpower from the middle east- they can (and did) use home-growns.

But, it’s interesting I think because it means people aren’t just saying “Let’s bomb them” out of misplaced self-interest- this is people saying “Yes it’ll make us less safe, but we think it’s the right thing to do”. I reckon that’s a lot more adult than arguments in the past.

Though there’s still a lot of “it’s for our security” in the debate, which I suppose is inevitable. I think it’s pish personally but, hey. It’s not the only argument for doing this.

You are allowed to contact your MP to express your views, they might even listen to you

Tried it last time, she (Tory) did engage but in the end went with Cameron.

Sadly, vote looks like a shoe-in this time

Unles of course they are planning to drop bombs on the homes of all the radicals that live in the UK already. I struggle to see why over half of our elected politicians are so stupid they can’t see this.

They are not stupid. This is a political stunt.

It is extremely useful to those in power to have a perceived threat with which they can cause fear and insecurity among the population.

It is also extremely useful to those in power to then reassure the population that they are dealing with the situation very effectively and that ordinary citizens only need to put their faith and trust in them.

Offering highly simplistic knee-jerk solutions to extremely complex problems, especially when it involves an element of revenge, is politically very effective.

I struggle to see why nearly half of our electorate are so stupid they can’t see this.

Not just on here, the *quite* right wing Pistonheads is overwhelmingly anti extending our operations into Syria.

A totally ineffective opposition is allowing CMD to steam roller this through for purely further political gain.

Alex Salmond asked a very good question the other day regarding bombing Syria: What effect will 11 countries bombing Syria have that 10 doesn’t?

its the first double figure prime number and therefore it will make all foes tremble and lose

Not just on here, the *quite* right wing Pistonheads is overwhelmingly anti extending our operations into Syria.

That’s not in the least surprising imo. When people start to engage in debate and think things through they tend to reject simplistic unthought-out solutions.

As Big_n_daft pointed out on the other thread, we’re already bombing them, the only question is whether we bomb them on both sides of an imaginary line in the sand that they don’t recognise, or just one.

Sounds a bit pointless to bother suggesting it then.

Sounds a bit pointless to bother suggesting it then.

I heard Cameron on the telly this morning claim that bombing ISIS in Syria was important because that was where their headquarters was.

He didn’t explain why the US and the French hadn’t bombed ISIS’s headquarters in Syria though.