William Hague Syrian War
- 27 August 2013 15:55242127#17. I'm older than some people seem to think I'm afraid; 44. If it gets to the point where I get called up things will have gone very wrong indeed!
In fact I'd probably not get called up as I suffer from severe migraines. I was in the Territorial Army for 6 months in 221 squadron, 101 Engr Rgt, Royal Engineers, an EOD/counter IED unit (they figured that as an archaeologist who has used metal detectors I'd be useful for finding IEDs!). But I had to leave because of my migraines, something my wife and most of my friends were very grateful about.
I take the points about possible use of chemical weapons by the rebels. In fact I think it is likely they have made use of them. I'm less convinced this attack was by the rebels though. If it was, I'd have thought the Syrian regime would have bent over backwards to get UN inspectors to the site.
The whole thing is indeed a bloody mess, but I don't think this is the same as Iraq, clearly the weapons exist and are being used and I think there needs to be a proportionate response, which stand-off missile strikes would be. But I'm no more optimistic about the immediate future of Syria, or indeed the whole Middle East, than anyone else.Andrew Richardson - 27 August 2013 16:10242128Syria is not the same as Iraq:
Iraq will look like a Sunday picnic by comparison.Chanters, Drums and Drones Potty Time http://youtu.be/99fMqpjnXYA
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Kent First http://youtu.be/04F3mAP3fV4 Keep banging on http://youtu.be/qYCU_SKmkGQ - 27 August 2013 16:50242135#22 "Iraq will look like a Sunday picnic by comparison".
Potentially, if we went in on the ground. I don't think that option is very likely at this stage. Stand off strikes using cruise missiles is very low risk for our forces. If we have to go a step further and launch airstrikes we will have to take down their much vaunted air defence system. And yes, the US military chiefs have described Syria as a "tough nut to crack".
Nonetheless, if it comes to it and we get engaged in an air war with them, perhaps to establish a no fly zone, I predict our forces (US Navy, USAF, RAF, RN, French forces, maybe others like the Turks) will hammer their air defences and air force into the ground within days. They may have some modern Russian kit, but can they use it properly (and its still a generation behind US gear anyway)? Without air power Assad's ground forces will struggle, especially if also under bombardment from us.
But we should seek to avoid getting dragged in on the ground if at all possible.Andrew Richardson - Bob Whysman
- Registered: 23 Aug 2013
- Posts: 1,940
27 August 2013 17:37242142We all have our own views on how these events occur and 'solutions' are often knee jerk reactions or vote catching ploys.
Don't try to see the Syrians as idealists who are looking to create a democracy. They are not and will probably never be able to stomach Western style democracy anyway. Historically Middle Eastern inhabitants have always been hot headed and follow their tribal instincts which is to exert their physical strength to be the most powerful, as simple as that!
What has helped to fuel their dissent further is others from outside have been plundering their resources, under the ploy of being friends, for their own ends and in doing so have provided instability in the region.
All the major powers have been trying to outwit the Arabs for decades by making, what they consider are the right noises, to get others to fight their corner.
This is made evident by the pontificating and taking sides by the 'major powers' when the outcome gets a little too hot for comfort.
Before the soap box gives way, who provided them with the chemical weapons and continues to provide them with more sophisticated armaments ?
Although Bashar al-Assad spent some of his time in the UK he still has Arab blood coursing throughout his veins and the expression 'crafty as an Arab' has a ring of truth about it and one that we should be wary of.Do nothing and nothing happens. - 27 August 2013 18:16242147Sigh!
You're a hard act to follow Bob.
I see a picture before me of a Cock Pit, a small ring of hay-bales. A place where all can see the action and many can get close in. With children pushed to ring-side, the better to get their first taste of blood, in safety. It was in a place such as this that the natural weapons of the protagonists, although up to the task, were improved for they did not deliver the spectacle demanded by the paying customers so metal Cock-Spurs were attached to the legs, and anyway the more exciting the spectacle the more they spend.Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing. - 27 August 2013 18:55242154Remember also that today's date in the Islamic calendar is 17/10/1434.I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
- 27 August 2013 18:59242156Except we didn't sell the Syrians their weapons. 90% of their kit is Russian (or former Eastern bloc). Saddam Husseins was mainly Soviet and French, but lots of people seem to think that we and the US armed both of them.
If all the violence in the Middle East could be stopped, right now, I'd be as happy as anyone else. But sometimes we are left with little option other than to resort to the military option. if it is done for the right reasons, with clear and achieveable objectives, then that is something I'd support. The aim here is to save lives by preventing the use of chemical weapons against civilian populations.
But time will tell...Andrew Richardson - 27 August 2013 19:22242161disagree andrew any intervention means taking sides and in most cases, especially syria nobody is wearing the white hat. it is not for the west to take the moral high ground and decide what is best for other nations.
peter
re;26
thanks for info i forgot to send any cards though. - Bob Whysman
- Registered: 23 Aug 2013
- Posts: 1,940
27 August 2013 19:50242162I didn't suggest that we sold the weapons to Syria Andrew R, but your assumption serves to illustrate the need to consider every situation carefully before we jump to conclusions! The supplying sources that you suggest only serves to reinforce my comments about major powers taking sides.
Having been involved in operations in the Middle East has helped me to assess situations in a more reasoned way, survival sometimes depended on it.
Maybe specialist action is already underway.
Colonialism should have taught the world valuable lessons, but sometimes I wonder.
.Do nothing and nothing happens. - 27 August 2013 20:59242168Bob, take for granted that specialist action is already underway, that the intelligence information on the ground in Syria comes from rebels of the FSA, who will keep in close contact with the Western Forces should any of these launch a missile campaign.
Syrian rebels will also launch campaigns on the ground to follow up any Western missile attacks, they will likely reverse their current situation, which is one of steady defeat at the hands of the Syrian army, and start taking villages and towns again, amid great bloodshed.
The Al Qaeda terrorists, with all their foreign Jihadists, will also take advantage of Western missile attacks, and exact terrible slaughter, as their leader said they would the other day. He said they - (Jabat Nusra) would exact a toll on Alawite civilians for the chemical attack of 21 August (probably carried out by rebels-terrorists for all we know - unless Chunk Hagel and Kerry Doomsday and Hague Tribunal Candidate can actually PROVE their alleged evidence to the contrary).
As we know, bleating Hague has presented us with NO evidence of where the chemical attack came from.
However, if Jabat al Nusra are bombed into Alawite villages - and bombed to power - in Syria by the US AirForce, they will carry out genocide there, as their leader, a certain Al Golani, has promised (see internet for proof).Chanters, Drums and Drones Potty Time http://youtu.be/99fMqpjnXYA
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Kent First http://youtu.be/04F3mAP3fV4 Keep banging on http://youtu.be/qYCU_SKmkGQ - 27 August 2013 22:16242175Flashman.........son of Blair......
Courtesy Independent....
The heir to Blair: David Cameron makes 'moral case' for attack on Syria in echo of defence
for Iraq war
No sign that Britain will wait for mandate from UN Security Council as PM faces crucial test
of authority with Parliament recall for debate on Thursday
Britain has a responsibility to take action to punish the "morally indefensible" use of chemical
weapons by the Syrian regime even without a UN mandate, David Cameron has suggested. - 27 August 2013 23:27242179Regardless of whether anyone thinks that an attack on Syria is a good or bad idea this issue helpfully brings to a head the futility of turning up to vote at general elections.
It turns out that it's all rigged anyway. Thursday's vote is a whipped vote.
My how it all makes me smile. - 28 August 2013 00:32242180If Thursday's vote is a whipped vote, with Cameron, Clog and Milyband already agreeing, and T. Blair dictating from behind the scenes, does this not further justify the assessment that politics are out, that we are ruled by a dictatorship?
For the record, here is what Jabat al Nusra said:
"For every chemical rocket that has fallen on our people in Damascus, one of their villages will, by the will of God, pay for it," Abu Mohammad al-Golani of the al-Nusra Front said in the recording posted on YouTube. "On top of that we will prepare a thousand rockets that will be fired on their towns in revenge for the Damascus Ghouta massacre."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/25/syria-nusra-chemical-attacks_n_3812732.htmlChanters, Drums and Drones Potty Time http://youtu.be/99fMqpjnXYA
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Kent First http://youtu.be/04F3mAP3fV4 Keep banging on http://youtu.be/qYCU_SKmkGQ - 28 August 2013 00:39242181What might happen, going by my above post, is that Western forces will fire thousands of rockets on behalf of Al Qaeda, possibly for a chemical attack carried out by Al Qaeda, which almost daily plants bombs outside mosques in Iraq, in market places, in cafes, in restaurants and football stadiums.
Are we the fools of Al Qaeda?Chanters, Drums and Drones Potty Time http://youtu.be/99fMqpjnXYA
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Kent First http://youtu.be/04F3mAP3fV4 Keep banging on http://youtu.be/qYCU_SKmkGQ - 28 August 2013 00:47242183"The faces of the victims of last week's chemical weapons attack in Syria are haunting....[we see what we are allowed to see]
...According to the UN, the Syrian conflict is already the worst refugee crisis since the Rwandan genocide,...
...For nearly 100 years, the international community has worked to build a system of defences to protect mankind against the use of weapons of mass destruction ...[has anybody noticed?]
...The First World War exposed the sheer horror that chemical agents inflict...
...The power of these weapons to inflict mass, indiscriminate death shocked the world into banning their use in international conflict...[dig it, in international conflict]
...There have been decades of painstaking work to construct an international regime of rules and checks...[so they don't apply us?]
...With a few horrendous exceptions, including the Iran-Iraq War...[our proxy war]
...We all live under the protection of this global system of arms control...[but not under its jurisdiction]
...Over the past year we have seen evidence of the repeated small-scale use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime...[?]
...This amounts to extensive, continuous and escalating use of chemical weapons by a state against its own citizens....[it's own citizens]
...We strongly support the work of the UN team on the ground in Syria...[as far as we say it can go]
...The team has a mandate to gather evidence about the attack, but they are not empowered to determine who was responsible for it...[the guilty are who we say]
...For five days after the attack the regime bombarded the area with conventional weapons, refusing to allow UN inspectors to visit, during which time crucial evidence would have been destroyed or degraded...[I may not be able to find my arse with both hands, but I know it is covered?]
...We cannot allow the use of chemical weapons in the 21st century to go unchallenged...[we define just what constitutes such weaponry]
...But this is not just about one country or one conflict...[it is about 'them' not 'us']
...This actual, repeated use of chemical weapons in Syria is a moral outrage...[why only Syria, see #12]
...The United Nations Security Council should rise to its responsibilities by condemning these events and calling for a robust international response. But all previous attempts to get the Security Council to act on Syria have been blocked, and we cannot allow diplomatic paralysis to be a shield for the perpetrators of these crimes....[we wont make that mistake again, thanks Tony]
...Tomorrow, Parliament will have the opportunity to debate these issues, and to make its views known. This is a moment of grave danger for the people of Syria, a moment of truth for democratic nations to live up to their values, and a weighty test of the international community..."[total bull]
The above is a c&p of the first statements of each of the paragraphs used by W Hague in this article...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10268360/William-Hague-this-is-a-moment-for-democratic-nations-to-live-up-to-their-values.html
Lots of people are dying every day in Iraq and Afghanistan, and as you can see in #12 many of them are being killed by the stuff we left behind. Birth defects abound, that too could be described as "haunting", more than haunting, but this is what we don't get to see.Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing. - 28 August 2013 09:23242199DANGER! Some more (of the left?) misunderstanding and hand wringing...
Syria and the problem of 'responsibility to protect'
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/27/syria-problem-responsibility-to-protectIgnorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing. - 28 August 2013 09:30242202apparently we can attack without need for the security council to back the move, so what is the point of having a security council?
- 28 August 2013 09:34242206'apparently' yes.
This is not the view of the first two letter writers alluded to in #36, one being Francesc Vendrell,
Former UN assistant secretary-general.Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing. - 28 August 2013 09:40242207Why do people constantly c&p articles rather than express a personal view?
My view is we should mind our own business, who are we to decide if/when force should be used, the Balkans, Sierra Leone, Iraq, Afghan, etc etc massive cost in many respects, its nothing to do with us. - 28 August 2013 09:52242209Maybe because we are not all of the stance that what 'we' say goes?
Do you limit the ideas for the future efforts of the Town Team only to those expressed in a personal capacity by an attendee at your meetings? Is there never any scope to learn from what other towns are doing, from the broader world?
For what it is worth, I totally disagree with your view, (stated in #39) David. "Minding our own business" is all well and good, just as long as the thinking stops when the mouth closes.
With UK Plc. it is often averred that it is very much in our own interests (and therefore very much our business) that it is 'we' who sell arms to this and that 'friendly' nut-case.Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.