The post you are reporting:
What I make mention of in #12 does not touch upon arms sales, but on the continued chemical poisoning of a civilian population as a direct result of action taken by US and UK forces.
The issue I have with arms sales is that, at present, this trade is treated the same as burgers and lemon drops. The direct link between sales and foreseeable and detrimental outcomes is never the business of the seller, this is never more wrong than with the sales of arms. 'We' as an arms exporter must bear some responsibility for how those weapons are deployed;in Iraq and Afghanistan as in Syria. To heap the blame only upon the end-user, to steadfastly ignore out own shortcomings in this regard and so argue that we are above such things is also gravely wrong.
To argue that we should do nothing or that we should use 'surgical' strikes, while keeping ourselves safe, is to let the war-mongers off the hook entirely.
Far better now to dismiss what has happened in Syria (the deployment - or not - of chemical weapons) as simply a sad fact of all modern warfare that we as a world have yet to come to terms with, and make moves to address this whole matter in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan, and to reaffirm the absolute need for a cease-fire and for all-party negotiations.
Hague's piece in the toady-Telegraph is no more that imperialist clap-trap, and perhaps if it was not for the financial cost implications, would have a ready ear with those here who so glibly trot-out the basest racist stereotypical dehumanising of much of the population of the Middle East.
It IS NOT how we die that matters, but how we (we ALL) live.
