aibu to wonder why we are doing nothing about syria

[ThatVikRinA22]

why are we doing nothing?
labour clearly sitting on the fence because of iraq as are the rest of the jittery gvt....

ive heard all the "its not our busniness" arguments - the same was said in WW2 until it was too late.

i cannot comprehend why we would advocate doing nothing - rwanda all over again.
m sickened tbh that people feel so able to wash their hands when people - children - are being napalmed and gassed.

what about what is morally right? forget politics - are we really just going to do nothing??
because its not us?

im not advocating another iraq war - but surely we cannot stand on the sidelines and watch this without doing anything?

TheSpork yes we do, without outing myself totally, I work for a company that has attemtpted to establish business in many of these countries, however, as we have a stirct anti corruption policy, we have been forced to pull out of many locations as you cannot get anywhere without bribing officials every step of the way, corruption is inherent in most of these places, and we have had issues with staff not being able to leave these countries on occasion because they have refused to pay a bribe, so their paperwork is deemed 'inefficient' etc.

Yes, some aid is tied to specific projects, however too much of it is not, as with the 30% in Nigeria simply attributed to 'Other'. That is a lot of money, and as I said, if they can afford to fund a space program but not vaccinate, educate or feed their people, something needs to change, and other countries bailing them out is not a practical long term solution.

It is very complicated so there is no easy answer.

Vicarina you are right usa have already started drilling for oil in the golan heights. ... what does that say? Obama cares for the innocent people in syria? Yeah right... last year many innocent people were killed in palestine by israel and the u.s and obama declared the victims as "collateral damage" so we know if the u.s enter syria thousands of people will die and what will obamas excuse be???? I wonder

Kungfutea george galloway is a great man he speaks out for palestine not like most of the mps in uk who support u know who

No, I don't know who.

Ruby
Why don't you tell us how many people were killed in Israel and Palestine over the last couple of years? It's not hard to find out. Then compare to Syria.

I don't see what the problem is with developing the Golan heights. It's not going anywhere in the near future. Who is Israel going to give it back to exactly? The Syrian druze inhabitants certainly are very glad negotiations failed 10 years ago!

www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=9655

This is all about Assad threatening earlier this year to take back the Golan Heights which Israel captured after the 1967 waPr

well at the heart of this there are people who are suffering indescribably - i freely admit i dont give a rats arse about politics, nor do i particularly understand it.

i dont mind getting slated.

i dont feel im "whining about it on the internet" (thanks for that btw) - i feel we are discussing an issue that should be discussed. I dont see anyone with a gun to the head of anyone who doesnt want to discuss it. I was amazed that during the pictures that were appearing on the news that no one was asking any questions on here.

i am perfectly willing to be educated on why we should be doing nothing about chemical weapons being used.
its just that so far, ive not seen one decent argument as to why we should do diddly squat.

i see the US have given the green light to limited action.
Im not saying this is not complex. im not saying we should deploy troups. but i cant see how we can simply do nothing. I believe we are doing nothing because of past conflicts that bit politicians on the arse - and i think that is the only reason.
i do not think we should be doing what we did in iraq by any stretch of the imagination - but it feels like the world is scared to condemn Assads actions because of the previous political fall out and for no other reason than that.

the thing with living in the UK is that we have the luxury of free speech, so i am big enough and ugly enough to have started this thread with knowledge that not everyone would agree - but i am also entitled to an opinion.
so i will continue to "whine on the internet" which to my mind means "discuss the issue" .

We are not doing nothing. What we have done is rule aout milatry intervention at this time.

We are still pushing for a diplomatic solution and a proper road map to peace. Peace will only come via proper discussion and a diplomatic solution no peace ever comes via a cruise misile.

This conflict is not new. Over 100 000 have died in the last 2.5 years which is a 100 times the number who died in the one chemical attack of last week. But suddenly we are expected to "do" somthing. No one gave a shit a month ago but the 100 000 already dead are just as dead as the 1500 of last week.

mimishi

What was the point of that article?

You do realize it's all bluster - along the lines of Assad running for president in 2014. Yep, that's definitely going to happen

oh righto then.

i, (and my opinions) will bow out.

But Vicar what do you want us to do?

If you believe there is enough evidence for doing 'something' what exactly is that something?

You can't just say we shouldn't do nothing without suggesting a viable alternative to nothing.

The politicians were bit on the arse as you say because what we did was wrong, better to do nothing than the wrong thing is the current thinking.

Mimishimi

I'd also be grateful if you could explain what you meant by this comment:
" That they invoke the Holocaust as reasoning for their war crimes make me feel like vomiting, particularly since the families of not a few are known to have collaborated in that (reasoned correctly it would shock Europe into establishing Israel with battered, impoverished and traumatised survivors as the new population)."

Who is they? Who is invoking the holocaust as reasoning for their war crimes? Who reasoned that what would shock Europe into establishing Israel (BTW, Europe didn't 'establish' Israel, the UN voted for partition of Palestine, Israel established itself). You sound very confused to be honest.

Mimi

The Balfour Declaration by the British government in 1917, enshrined in a League of Nations mandate in 1920, had said that a "national home for the Jewish people" would be founded in Palestine long before the second world war. It took until 29 November 1947 when the United Nations General Assembly voted (resolution 181) to partition Palestine between a Jewish and an Arab state, with Jerusalem under an international regime. The Jews agreed but the Arabs did not. And so it started.

There was also the Zionist movement which developed in the 19th century and meant that in 1948 there was also a state in waiting when the British withdrew.

Look up the Judenrat and evidence of their collaboration. Prominent Zionists, like Ze'ev Jabotinsky, were predicting a catastrophe in Europe months before Kristallnacht occurred and before anyone knew anything of the gas chamber plans (if they had actually been drawn up at that stage) and he made this statement in August 1938

"and what else I would like to say to you in this day on Tisha B'Av: whoever of you will escape from the catastrophe, he or she will live to see the exalted moment of a great Jewish wedding: the rebirth and the rise of a Jewish state. I don't know if I will be privileged to see it; my son will. I believe in this as I am sure that tomorrow morning the sun will rise."

www.ou.org/chagim/yomhaatzmauth/jabo.html

It is true that the U.N voted on the establishment of Israel because of the great shock of what happened to Europe. Not that this has anything to do with the current situation with Syria except that preventing another Holocaust is nearly always referred to when making justifications for the past decade ofpre-emptive military actions in surrounding countries (for which German military officials were correctly tried for war crimes because it is) which have later been found to have dubious or outright falsified claims about the threat (eg Saddam's weapons of mass destruction). People in the West are being taken for and regarded as mugs and if enough people get pissed off about that, it is dangerous for Israel, not beneficiaPr

A few more palestinians were killed compared to israelis.... you know thats true.... and thats down to an oppressive regime that the u.s supports...

The UK is not doing nothing, the amount of aid given to Syria so far is the largest we have ever given to a single country / conflict. More details here.

But Parliament has ruled out direct UK involvement in a military intervention, mostly because insufficient MPs (reflecting the views of their constituents) were convinced that the case had been made to intervene.

vicar I am glad you started this thread as I have found it very illuminating.

No one has the answer but talking is always good.

Omg! Mimishi - are you trying to suggest that Jewish zionists were complicit in the holocaust? I had a feeling that's what you were saying but its something I'd expect to see on stormfront not mumsnet!

You really are scarily bonkers.

Ruby
Trying to compare the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to Syria belittles the suffering of the Syrian people.

Mimi the persection of jews started long before Kristallnacht so it wouldn't take a cystal ball to know that things were going to get a lot worse.

Hilter didn't come up with his final solution until 1941 until then he had all sorts of mad plans to annex them somewhere in africa. At one time he favoured using madagasca but as britian would have had to agree you can see why that option was dropped.

Your take on history is truely worrying.