Forum House of Commons vote on air strikes in Syria – which way will you vote?

Cameron is a contemptible, spineless, ham-faced **** of the highest order. And the moronic sheep who blithely followed him are worse – they’re clearly brainless too.

Sorry, I’m annoyed so I just thought I’d get that out of the way. I don’t doubt that someone’s already raised this salient point up there ^^^

Cameron’s argument is we need to bomb to protect the UK, but at the end of the day, most terrorists are domestic, perhaps go to middle east training camp and then return to plot. If our domestic situation wasn’t conducive to radicalisation it would happen far less. Better welfare and better integration of minorities would be better for UK security than bombing oilfields.

Ferral well said. There have been similar thoughts/arguments presented by Arun Kundnani in his book The Muslims are Coming.

the Koran gives them the right, indeed the obligation to wage Jihad against apostates.

WOuld you be able to point out this part of the Loran or will you be unable to do this due to fear of death 🙄

the KoranTorah gives them the right, indeed the obligation to wage oppressive war against apostatesPalestinians as Israel is theirs.

Convincing innit.

So the RAF has bombed some oilfields, in order to reduce Daeash’s income, that they couldn’t have bombed yesterday due to being the wrong side of an arbitrary line in the sand.

So we also appear to have redefined the meaning of the word “civilian” to exclude drivers, oil workers, engineers,…

They kill our non-combatants, we kill their non-combatants.

bencooper

So we also appear to have redefined the meaning of the word “civilian” to exclude drivers, oil workers, engineers,…

They kill our non-combatants, we kill their non-combatants.

The Geneva convention doesn’t extend to henchmen of evil I’m afraid.

“The vote was nearly 2:1 in favour, an overwhelming collective decision of our Parliament” Not really the party with the majority was so split it had to issue a three line whip so it was much more a “dragooned” decision than a collective one and even then some Tories had the backbone to rebel.

I doubt the saps we are killing driving the trucks and running the oil fields are henchmen of evil much more likely to be forced labour.

I don’t consider those oil workers and families held under threat of death to be henchmen of evil

Is this all true?

Ah, you see, it had to be down to the Israelis somehow didn’t it?

Just another tentacle of that worldwide Jooish conspiracy they’ve all been warning us about…

Sssssshhhhh!! You’re ruining the simplistic black/white good guy/bad guy Hollywood narrative

Agreed. They are, in essence, victims murdered by Dash with many others. What a horrible situation.

It’s the henchmens families I worry about:

Ninfan thanks, I was channeling a bit of Austin Powers. I don’t consider them henchmen of evil either, although I’m sure plenty of people see them as fair game.

So we also appear to have redefined the meaning of the word “civilian” to exclude drivers, oil workers, engineers,…

Well USAF dropped leaflets first, then flew over and fired warning shots, before going in and hitting the targets. They didn’t just fire a missile from 50 miles away with no warning.

Agreed. They are, in essence, victims murdered by Dash with many others. What a horrible situation.

ahhh… the “Stop Hitting Yourself” defence.

Personally in spite of being on the “no” side I think some civilian deaths are inevitable and even acceptable but to try and whitewash them as not being our fault is utterly cowardly.

dragon

Well USAF dropped leaflets first,

I wonder what the wording on those leaflets was.

” Dear Henchmen of ISIS,
On behalf of the coalition of the willing we hereby issue you with a notice of fore-bombing. Please hand in your letters of resignation to your murderous, genocidal, child raping jihadi death cult leaders stating that you wish to terminate your employment with immediate effect as we will commence bombing you withing 48hrs. We wish you luck in your future career, the middle east is a flourishing warzone and we have every confidence that you will find other sources of evil employment.

We sincerely hope that your employers will release you from your contracts without any undue decapitation or crucifixion.

Best Regards
‘Murica XOX “

Well USAF dropped leaflets first, then flew over and fired warning shots, before going in and hitting the targets. They didn’t just fire a missile from 50 miles away with no warning.

This is just so much shite, I can’t believe that you even think this is true. Please do tell us that they do this when using drones on civilian locations….

They didn’t just fire a missile from 50 miles away with no warning.

They do, you know

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

The Geneva convention doesn’t extend to henchmen of evil I’m afraid.

Like the people who worked on the Death Star when Rebel Alliance destroyed it.

So those above arguing that the risk of civilian caualties means we should not conduct airstrikes are comflcited in the same was as Corbyn is about the existing campaign in Iraq. Without airstikes there many 1000’s more Yazidis would have been murdered and Baghdad would have fallen, in parts at least. Daesh is co-ordinating attacks, recruiting drives and fund raising from Syria. Not to be part of the international effort with the backing of the UN made little sense.

As for “public opinion” if you used this thread it would suggest it’s 90/10 against – representative ? A poll showing a contrary result to the parliamentary vote makes good headlines and leads to more polls being commissioned. Also the polls show substantialy more people in favour of strikes than against, the ones I’ve seen are something like 50 for, 25 against with 25 unknown. that 2:1 ratio is similar to the vote last night.

I have absolutely no idea what any of you are talking about. I just heard the news this morning and thought ‘oh we’re bombing someone again’. Happens every few years.

Bombing oilfields, eh? Hmm. That’s going to be a problem if/when ISIS are defeated..

So those above arguing that the risk of civilian caualties means we should not conduct airstrikes are comflcited in the same was as Corbyn is about the existing campaign in Iraq.

We all know you have no issue with civilians dying in bombing campaigns and blaming the victims for this unless of course is jews being moderately inconvenienced by Palestinian rockets in which case its a diabolical abomination that deserves overwhelming non proportional response.

This must be the seeing other sides appeal you were going on about and I enjoy the way you fluidly apply principles to every issue.

So those above arguing that the risk of civilian caualties means we should not conduct airstrikes

D’you remember a few weeks ago when Cameron stood up in Parliament and condemned the Russian entry into the air war in Syria? He said it would lead to “Further radicalisation and increased terrorism”

as for “public opinion” if you used this thread it would suggest it’s 90/10 against – representative ?

No one has said this thread is representative of UK public opinion.

Has anyone said that the MPs’ voting pattern is representative of UK public opinion?

D’you remember a few weeks ago when Cameron stood up in Parliament and condemned the Russian entry into the air war in Syria? He said it would lead to “Further radicalisation and increased terrorism”

We’ll file that one along with his promise not to cut tax credits, being the greenest government ever, and no top down re-organistion of the NHS

Public opinion was for bombing according to YouGov[/url] – caveat all polls but certainly more representative than this thread.

So all those advocating bombing and accepting there will be civilian casualties presumably would be fine with been killed (along with everyone in their street) because their neighbour happened to be a suspect?

Or maybe we should’ve done this in NI and ‘solved’ the Troubles, far easier than diplomacy…

I’m more concerned about Daves 70,000 willing Syrian allies, chomping at the bit to uphold our values in the region. What if we take some of them out by mistake?

@tuskaloosa – I will look into tat book, thanks.

@jimjam – I agree it is not the entire solution, but from a ‘money well spent’ point of view…

After all the boasting about our amazing Brimstone missiles which are so polite they ask if someone is a terrorist before quietly killing them and then redecorating, what’s used in the first airstrikes?

Paveway laser-guided bombs.

This is just so much shite, I can’t believe that you even think this is true.

Why wouldn’t it? Dropping leaflets is a fairly standard tactic going back to WW2 and before. Both the US and Russians have dropped them already this year, so why not this time? I think it’s more believable than not TBH.

Ben the use of which is fully explained on the BBC website.

I’m more concerned about Daves 70,000 willing Syrian allies, chomping at the bit to uphold our values in the region. What if we take some of them out by mistake?

Simples. If we bomb them they’re Isis – that’s how we tell.

“So those above arguing that the risk of civilian caualties means we should not conduct airstrikes”
to be honest i could easily stomach a few civilian causalities if it was to archive a clearly defined attainable beneficial outcome .

No one has yet indicated what our joining in a bombing campaign will actually achieve nor how they expect it to work .

We asked to accept a policy that Cameron himself has said will be counter productive on the vague notion if we do step 1 (which has royally failed for the past year) some unidentified group will do step 2 and this will lead to the defeat of Isis which will lead to a as yet undefined desirable outcome that will be better than our current position. Not actually a sound basis for killing innocents in my view.

dragon – I have a rich Nigerian uncle who is a senior figure in the government. He has recently had his bank accounts frozen, and needs someone who’ll believe anything a suitable person who would allow him to transfer his millions into their account. They would be very handsomely rewarded

Email address in profile if you’re interested. Just send me your bank account details. I’ll do the rest. We’ll use the proceeds to start a leaflet printing business in Syria. We’ll be quids in!

dragon, you mean the bit where it says “The use of high precision Paveway bombs, rather than the Brimstone missile, suggests they were hitting static rather than moving targets.”

Oil refineries aren’t known for being fast-moving, yes. Do the Paveway 500lb high explosive bombs wait for anything that can move to get out of the way before they explode?

Or do they just blow up, incinerating anyone who happens to be in the large blast radius?

Are you suggesting that some SNP MPs might have voted in favour of bombing otherwise and that it needed a whip to get them all voting the same way?

I’d remind you that all the Scottish Labour MPs voted against and all the Scottish Tory and Scottish LibDems voted for.

scotroutes – Member

I’d remind you that all the Scottish Labour MPs voted against

Even the scottish labour party can’t quite arrange a split with one person.

I think with the Lib Dems, it went like this:

“So Cameron, what are our votes worth?”
“A blow job”.
“You’ll give us a blow job if we vote for you?”
“No, I’ll let you give me a blow job if you vote for me”
“Deal”

Well USAF dropped leaflets first, then flew over and fired warning shots, before going in and hitting the targets. They didn’t just fire a missile from 50 miles away with no warning.
This is just so much shite, I can’t believe that you even think this is true. Please do tell us that they do this when using drones on civilian locations…]

They did, you know. Why wouldn’t they? I know STW groupthink says the military are mindless bloodthirsty thugs, but even taking the humanitarian argument away from it, it’s not in the interests of western militaries to kill non-combatants. Page 1 of counter-insurgency doctrine, the support of the people is required for success. Sorry to talk about RoE and targeting again, but words like carpet bombing in this thread show a lot of ignorance of same. Lots of posters should consider whether their picture of how the planning and decision making cycle that leads to weapons release is the product of actual knowledge or their own biases and preconceptions.
The assumption that the military response is the only show in town is flawed too. Doctrine again, but google “Jackson’s Rope”. The military is just part of the solution, but it grabs all the media coverage. There is a lot of work from other govt deps going on too. Bombing IS, or indeed anyone, is clearly not an ideal solution, because there will always be innocents killed. It might just be the least worst option here though.