to think the UK should not get involved militarily with wars in the middle east?

[DecisionsDecisionss]

Controversial subject, but I don't understand why the UK is getting involved again militarily in the middle east. I'm not expert, but Afghanistan seems to be a corrupt mess even after the war there and Iraq is looking awful. I understand that Christians and other religions are being persecuted and killed by Islamic State, but isn't bombing them just making it worse? Islamic State are despicable, but I don't see more war as a long term solution, is it not better to focus on diplomacy and sanctions and dropping aid to those in need? Also decent deterrents to UK jihaddists like life in prison?

I don't think any more UK servicemen and women should be sent to war, perhaps if we were less involved then we'd be less at risk of jihaddists in the UK too. Aibu and maybe I'm not understanding it fully, please enlighten me.

Oil.

If the development of water powered engines had not been suppressed over the last century, we probably wouldn't be in this pickle now.
But the likes of Henry Ford wanted to capitalise on the oil reserves found in Florida and the Gulf around the time the internal combustion engine went commercial.

So now we need to an uninterrupted supply of oil, no matter what the cost.

I don't think this is about oil. In a way i would sleep better if it were just about greedy governments. I think it's much more worrying than that. The world is a small place these days and IS have the potential to shape a significant part of it.

The reason that the West are not beating down the doors of Tibet or other countries is because their actions are not directly threatening to us. Britain and the States can't police the world, but they have to act in a way that best secures their future. IS poses a real and significant threat if they are left to grow unchecked. I agree that our government is scared. With good cause too, in my opinion.

I agree with BoF

If it was about oil, why do people thinking bombing and invading is the best way to get it? Surely if all we care about was oil, then we'd just cosy up happily to The Syrian government (or in the early 2000s Iraq) who would love to sell us all the oil we wanted in return for some nice weapons to help them oppress their people. Instability is the worst idea for maintaining a steady oil supply.

ISIS want a global caliphate at all costs.
What exactly is there to discuss with them?

They are perpetrating atrocious crimes against humanity and raking in $2million a DAY from oil revenues to fund themselves.

I really do not understand how people think - oh well those human beings live a long way away from me so I'll opt not to give a fuck about their slaughter and suffering because of random demarcations of national borders or regions.
Humanity is humanity. We are all in it together. And ISIS are recruiting jihadists from all over the world.

I was furiously opposed to the Bush/Blair wars and campaigned vigorously against them. But this isn't the same. ISIS make Al Qaeda and the Taliban look comparatively reasonable.

Do a tally of Islamic extremist crimes over the past decades. The murder in the Belgian Jewish museum, the killing of the French tourist in Algeria, Lee Rigsby, the massacres in Kenya, Mumbai, China, Bali. It goes on and on, year after year all over the world and it is escalating in size and ambition all the time.
We thought 9/11 was the showstopper but I truly believe that the worst is yet to come if these fuckers get access to chemical/nuclear weapons.

There are over 50 nations involved in this coalition to suppress ISIS. I am glad we are one of them because it is not the time to play "little Englander" and batten down the hatches.

We have also played a substantial role in poking this hornet's nest and cannot walk away now.

ISIS were well funded already due to the fact that they had secured vast amounts, billions of dollars in fact, from overrunning stocks of Iraqi govt dollars earlier this year, as well as direct funding from Saudi and Qatar backers.

And yes, they have made a significant amount of money producing oil, which is why we have targeted their infrastructure in that respect. But that wasn't the thrust of your argument, was it? Your initial point was that tired old claptrap about the West 'bombing for oil' when of course the West's oil needs are not only perfectly well served by existing suppliers outside of the Middle East but the United States is poised to exploit absolutely immense reserves of its own (as well, of course, as bordering equally immense Canadian reserves) thus making its interventions in places like Iraq and potentially Syria (which, famously, has no oil) about rather more than energy security. Because what exactly is the point in kicking off another war over some poxy wells in N. Iraq that produce an infinitesimally small amount of oil in global terms? If you were to extend the argument to saying that IS might capture Iraq in its entirety and thus secure that country's entire reserves then that's a different dynamic, but you still wouldn't be bombing them to secure the oil for yourself, because the world economy has functioned perfectly well for years (1991-2008) without Iraqi oil. Indeed, had the US been desperate for Iraqi oil it wouldn't have invaded the country initially. It simply would have bought oil from Saddam. Much much cheaper than an invasion, and more reliable too.

We intervene in the Middle East today because of a host of political, moral, ideological and economic reasons. To keep bashing out this puerile mantra of 'it's all about the oil' is just lazy. As for why we haven't intervened in Tibet, for example? Er, I dunno, maybe because in the adult world of international politics Tibet doesn't matter. But if you think the World would benefit from the West charging into what is to all intents and purposes a province of China, then I don't think you have your head screwed on particularly tightly. Same goes for Burma, which borders China. And here's the thing. What IS is doing has the potential to cause an entire region of the world to disintegrate, if left unchecked. What's happening in Tibet and Burma doesn't. Simple.

Thanks for the informative responses! I think any UK jihaddists should be dealt with very firmly, life in prison etc as they pose a threat to us. I don't see the ideology as a threat as most people in the UK are not Muslims and would be hard to convert, just look at opposition to halal, burka etc.

I had thought it must have something to.do with oil as if not, why choose that war? Why not bomb Zimbabwe as Mugabe has a horrendous regime there?

Thanks radical, I x posted with you, you answered my question

Our people are being kidnapped and murdered.
Our people are being radicalised then going to fight with these murderers then returning to the UK to continue spreading their messages of hate.
Other European nations have also said their people are fighting alongside IS too.
It is only a matter of time before there is another terror attack in Britain from IS.
IS have made it quite clear that they will exterminate anyone who doesn't agree with their particular brand of fanaticism and have executed huge numbers of people already and are now forcing children to fight their sick campaign of terror.
Of course it's our problem!

What IS is doing has the potential to cause an entire region of the world to disintegrate, if left unchecked

You can aggressively carry on ranting, but the region you are talking about has massive oil reserves.

And you convienently ignore who one of the world's biggest importers of oil... The US.

I don't remember the West running with any great speed or in such numbers to try try to stop the slaughter in the Yugoslavian civil war or Rwanda.

The thing you have to remember is that the terrorists only need to get things right once in order to carry out an attack on British soil. Our security forces have to get it right every time in order to thwart an attack. Just because there hasn't been much on the news, don't assume nothing has been happening. Do you really think that no one has tried to carry out a major terrorist attack in this country since 2005?

I can't imagine diplomacy will work with ISIS. They seem like total loose cannons.

I think that's the problem meglet!

Chipped, the US imports the vast majority of its oil from local countries - Mexico, Canada and Venezuela. But imports are dropping as its own oil production increases massively. Ergo, its actions with respect to ISIS are about more than just oil. By the logic of your argument, the US would long ago have invaded Nigeria, one of the most significant global oil producers, in order to prevent Boko Haram from gaining control. It just doesn't work like that.

Your argument with respect to when the West should intervene in any given situation is bizarre. You appear to be proposing that it either intervenes everywhere all the time (because it must respond to every humanitarian crisis lest it be accused of hypocrisy) or nowhere (because you are not allowed, as the West, to pick and choose, due to the limits of your power, the degree of national interest at stake, and the level of public support, when and where you intervene. That's cynical and nasty and it means that its only about oil, obviously)

As for Yugoslavia, the West did go in in the guise of the UN. It went in again in 99 to protect Kosovar Albanians. In neither case was it about oil. As for Rwanda, you may find that the reason the US didn't intervene in the latter is because the previous year it had intervened in Somalia to avert a humanitarian crisis and ended up with lots of dead soldiers and a deteriorating situation. Tends to concentrate the mind when someone then asks you to get involved in something 100 times worse. Oh, and Somalia didn't have any oil either.

Blow them up. They deserve it.

FrankelandFilly I think a lot of people do. It's kept quiet so people don't get scared. I think it's the wrong approach, I think people need to be told what's going on so they appreciate that actually, this is our war. People need to know just how many terrorist attacks are averted all the time, here, in the UK, in the cities we are living in.

It's a fine line to walk though, on the one hand you want to let people know what is going on, but on the other we don't want to give away how we are doing it. We may have undercover agents working within these sleeper cells, or may have hacked their computers/phones. You never tell the enemy you've cracked their code!

I wasn't suggesting anyone saying how it was done, just that it had been done.

Mind you, it's probably better to have people saying 'it's not our war' and 'let's just talk to them' than it is to have them quaking in their boots about the terror attacks that have been averted, just.

err we did leave the nazis to it until they actually threatened us and our neighbouring countries

Im not sure what bombing places ever solved

I wasn't criticising you Chipping, I was hypothesising how we could go about it.

With regard to the Nazis, like it or not they were a democratically elected government. We don't go starting wars just because we don't like another government unless they have threatened us, hence why we didn't get involved with the Nazis until they started invading other countries. With hindsight of course we should have stopped them from ramping up their military capabilities and taken action when they invaded the Sudetenland, but that is very similar to the Russia/ Ukraine issue at the moment in that many of the people living there were ethnically German and wanted to be reunited with the Motherland.

Branleuse that's the thing though, they are threatening us and our neighbouring countries already!

Bombing their supplies of arms is going to help.
Bombing their 'fighters' is going to help.
Keeping them in a smaller area is going to help (the ground forces can be more effective)

I hate it. I hate that it's happening and I hate that we are involved, but sadly, sticking our heads in the sand wont make it go away.

I think the UK needs to stop trying to take charge in battles in other regions, even those regions where the UK is partially or largely responsible for the current state of affairs like many parts of west Asia/middle east.

I think it says a lot that many parts of west Asia have been fighting with ISIS for quite some time, but it only came on to UK/US attention when one of our own was attacked even though both have been in the region for over ten years. This isn't help by the current media systems that seem to ignore what other countries in the area are doing about them.

It would be far better if the UK/US supported and promoted what the countries already involved are doing rather than talking of trying to start/head a war against a group they've chosen to ignore for so long when they were everyone else.

*when they were harming everyone else.

Yes to what ChillieJeanie has writen. The Iraqi government have asked for us to help them. We are not sending in ground troops (so hopefully no risk to our soldiers), only the Airforce, as Iraq cannot provide that themselves.

I hate the thought of war and airstrikes too, but ISIS are not to be reasoned with. They have to be stopped by force. It is only a matter of time before they attack us here in the UK. They have already killed British hostages. They are burying women and children alive FFS. We cannot sit back and do nothing.

The long term solution? I wish we knew the answer.