To bomb or not to bomb....

Now the decision has been made...........all we hear from those opposed to bombing Syria is that it will 'radicalise' more people. Whilst that conclusion could be argued for or against where is the actual evidence? How many are we talking? Hundreds? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Proof?? It is supposition and NOT self-evident. Many in Germany in WW2 did not fall for the propaganda but 'went along with it' through fear and intimidation.

How many of these people caught up in the ME situation actually REALLY truly support IS (or whatever we now choose to call these nut-cases)? How many in the region believe the rhetoric, and buy into the ideology as opposed to those who, again, have to go along with it through the fear and intimidation? After all, IS use the 'you are either for or against us and if the latter you die' , (and probably in an horrific way). Your family will also suffer a similar fate and end up in a mass grave somewhere.

There is a possibility that if IS is hit hard enough in its stronghold it may actually put off as many young men as it currently attracts. We already know many suicide bombers are actually reluctant victims)often young women forced to wear explosive vests which are detonated remotely.
Furthemore, weakening/ destroying their stronghold makes people wishing to travel and train to be Jihadists think twice.

Dead terrorists cannot train others. Dead terrorists cannot kill and intimidate local people. Dead terrorists may be one man's martyr but certainly cannot be 'role models' for many others.
Like any criminals, if you think you can get away with the crime then you are more likely to carry it out rather than go to certain death (we already know most who travel from the West do NOT travel with the intention of becoming suicide bombers).

Bombing or not bombing Syria will have little impact on the so called home grown terrorists but eradicating IS from the ME would allow many people and refugees to return home PROVIDED we have a recognised exit strategy which involves the rebuilding of Syria (and not for the benefit of American companies trying to make a fast buck out of construction projects and Oil contracts). For me the oft quoted 'failure' of the Iraq War was NOT the bombing but the lack of follow up afterwards leaving a vacuum and a sense of abandonment of the Iraqi people. this must NOT be repeated.

As for killing innocents in bombing sorties. The civilian losses resulting from precision bombing in this modern era of warfare , whilst highly undesirable, are miniscule compared to the losses that occured in The Spanish Civil War, the Japanese / China conflict (scorched earth policy which resulted in millions of civilian deaths) , WW1 WW2 Korea,Cambodia / Vietnam. The list goes on.
Whilst any deaths are tragic, War is hell, War is evil and no-one can deny it should not happen but whilst ever we have evil in the world (and no sane person can describe IS ideology and methodology as anything except evil) we have to confront it. Hundreds are dying at the hands of IS anyway as they did under Pol Pot in Cambodia and Saddam in Iraq and ....the list goes on.

As for those who describe the IS leaders as intelligent I suppose it depends on how you judge intelligence. Is manipulating naive, impressionable people true intelligence? Following an ideology that states anyone who does not believe in an unseen, all powerful 'being' who cannot be proven to exist should be killed does not, in my view, indicate an ability to reason and apply any common sense (which is my measure of true intelligence). I have encountered highly qualified and educated people who display a total lack of common sense.

Finally those, frankly 'idiots', who say bombing Syria makes us no different from IS are totally wrong. As Hilary Benn said. Allied forces do NOT go out with the intention of targeting civilians which is EXACTLY what IS do.

I am not accusing those opposed to the bombing of being pro IS or pacifist and I respect their humanity, compassion and beliefs. I do, though, think they are wrong as we live in a **** world where **** happens and there is nothing we can do about it except fight fire with fire.

I await the usual brickbats.

 

My opposition to bombing is based on the fact that it won't end in the ultimate defeat of ISIS. It will weaken them but not defeat them. To defeat them there has to be a military alliance of a lot of countries willing to put troops on the ground, defeat ISIS and then help with nation-building. However that wasn't a runaway success in Iraq and Afghanistan and so even an invasion force may not sort things out. I don't see any countries queuing up to land troops there.

Bombing is just tokenism. It doesn't solve the problem.

 

It doesn't solve the problem BUT it puts a huge dent in whatever atrocities they plan to do next!

 

Isn't the key point that virtually everyone believes it should be no action or a full land offensive with strong views either way, and some are open to be convinced either way on these options, but no one believes the pointless tokenism parliament have voted for is of any use at all?

 

I agree with all of what you have said but I would add that I am slightly disappointed that the airstrikes aren't there to back coalition ground troops because to completely eradicate Daesh, which I hope is the ultimate goal, I think boots on the ground are needed.

 

I'm opposed bombing syria alone will not defeat isis USA France Belgium and Russia are all already bombing is targets in Syria is it really necessary for us to stick our nose in? And why didn't we do it earlier when our tourists were getting shot on the beaches or our aid workers beheaded? Would have been nice for a public vote on the matter to decide. All we have heard for years is the deficit and we are cutting police armed forces ect but yet we have money to bomb Syria. It isn't going to defeat isis they will just regroup and come back it is going to make us more susceptible to a terror attack. I don't know what the answer is to defeat isis I don't know if world leaders do but I'm not sure bombing alone is the way forward time will tell.

 

But it won't stop them. They'll keep on committing atrocities. Bombing will reduce the number of atrocities but it won't stop them.

And you've no idea whether the dent will be huge or not. You're just guessing.

ISIS will carry on until ground troops wipe them out. Even ground troops may not succeed unless they go in on a massive scale.

 

How do you know? Doesn't seem to have occurred so far with bombing being undertaken by other countries.

Worse thing about this whole escapade is that I've genuinely no idea whether bombing is the right thing to do or not. All I've heard for the last two weeks is endless unevidenced arguments for and against. It feels like we're being asked to sign up based on a gut instinct, rather than having a clear view on what happens next - that's not an ideal position to be in.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

 

Not as much a dent as stopping the oil revenues getting to them.
Which is why the Russian jet was allegedly shot down as it was scouting the source of the oil pipes from raqqa.

 

Dead terrorists can do much but one intent on dying can do untold damage.

I'm against it.

 

Against it is a pointless futile exercise that will probably expose us to more danger than looking for a peaceful solution. To me it was either a converted international effort with ground troops and consensus between the US and allies and China and Russia or nothing. Bombing various oil rich states has made terrorists stronger not weaker. If you really wZnt to tackle terrorism you have to look at the sweaters that complicity supported and fund them particularly Pakistan and Saudi.

 

Cameron said this a few weeks ago, regards the Russian airstrikes..




"It's going to make the region more unstable, it will lead to further radicalization and increased terrorism. I would say to them 'change direction, join us in attacking ISIL'."

 

I guess we had better bomb Belgium then. Anyway won't belong now before we have eradicated the threat, A week, Two maybe?

 

I agreed with the RAF joining the bombing campain, even though its mostly symbolic.
A bigger question is why is Turkey allowing/facillitating the streaming of weapons through its territory and onto IS?
Is it something to do with the cheap oil yhats coning the other way???

 

There are so many countries already bombing them I don't know what we're hoping to achieve. I can't say I'm opposed to it, I just don't see the point, aside from symbolic support for France. Were they already using our airbase in Cyprus? If we had an aircraft carrier I'd say let our allies use that.

 

Bomb 100% enough is enough

Sorry to sound blunt but that's my thoughts


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

A public vote, your governments will work for you,they know better,have gathered intelligence,not just listened to some stroker on facebook talking ballax, a public vote

 

You lost me at 'all we hear from those against bombing is it will radicalise more'.

That's simply not true, there's lots of reasons to not bomb them. I've never used that particular argument & there's plenty others that haven't.

I'm against it for several reasons -

Firstly I think it's pointless bombing them when they're still been funded by Turkey & other Middle Eastern countries buying oil. While ever they're raking in money they'll attract people & increase in numbers.

Another reason is I follow the Raqqa is been slaughtered silently Twitter page & a few other middle eastern journo's & it's clear that there's plenty of innocent people been killed by air strikes. Unless we've got significantly better technology than the Yanks then I can't see us not doing the same.

I also believe bombing them will just lead to more ISIS members leaving the country & coming to Europe or going to Libya where they also have a stronghold in Sirte. Until the border situation is sorted with Turkey they'll keep coming.

And lastly let's pretend we wipe out ISIS in Syria with these air strikes what happens then? It's still a country at civil war, the ordinary people are still at risk. What happens with the Kurds, FSA & Government forces & the land? We could be left with an even worse situation with each of the above been supported by one each of USA, Russia & Turkey & still at war.

The big issue is sorting the Turks out. They need to stop buying from ISIS & need to halt the flow of ISIS members in & out of Syria. Until that happens we're pissing into the wind.

 

Honestly, I'm probably in favour of military action against IS. I just want it to be well thought-through, part of a long-term strategic plan, done with the support of the people already fighting in the region, and likely to succeed. I don't think that this is any of those things.

Just bombing people because they're horrible and we can't think of anything else to do is idiotic.

 

Where are the terrorists most likely going to come from to attack us though, Syria or Luton? Iraq or Bradford? We're not going to start bombing those towns are we?

Plus Cameron showed he knows nothing about Islam when he said IS had hijacked a peaceful religion, there is almost nothing in the Koran promoting peace but there are 109 verses urging war against infidels. The majority of Muslims may be peaceful but it's not due to their religion, it's in spite of it.