In tears

[G1veMeStrength]

Fucking parliament. You utter bastards. You're going to kill people and it won't stop anything.

Even if the bombing is that precise and does indeed limit 'civilian' casualties, it does not negate the fact that an estimated 30% of 'ISIS' fighters are in fact normal civilians who have been forced under threat of death, rape and torture to fight for them. It is not as clear cut as 'goodies v baddies'.

For the sake of fairness, I've had a re-read of your post and you do say, quote 30% of ISIS fighters are in fact normal civilians
So you are right, that does make you come across as someone who sympathises with ISIS. (even if you don't)
Another poster agreed with me.

Possibly you you didn't mean for it to sound like that.
But that's how it read.

It didn't come across like that to me violets.
I know exactly what she means.

Some people may be happy with being led to believe that terrorists are simply misunderstood, but I choose not to buy into that.

If that makes my views too simplistic, I can live with that.

It read to me that a proportion of Daesh fighters are acting under fear and coercion (as are most civilians under their territorial control).

That seems to me to be another argument for tackling Daesh, TBH.

I'm going to get flamed for this, but bugger it.

We need to look at the reason for military action - it should be either to defend the UK or "rescue" the Syrian people in a humanitarian effort. Air strikes in Syria will not defend the UK, they will make us more of a target. "Rescuing" the Syrian people will not be achieved by creating yet another power vacuum. If we decide that the Syrian people do need "rescuing" then we need a firm plan of what we want to happen (i.e. who we want in power) and it needs to be agreed with all other interested parties/allies. Then we need to go in with the full military. Buzzing around doing a few aerial bombings like an annoying bluebottle will not achieve anything positive. Additionally, tactically aerial bombings are just a support role - so who are we supporting?

Therefore the actual question is "Do the Syrian people need rescuing - and if so, from what and to what end?" It also needs to be realised that Daesh fighters do not just appear from thin air. They are largely citizens of their countries, who, for whatever reason, believe wholly that they are doing The Right Thing. In a way, those citizens are deciding their own fate by joining Daesh. At the moment, those citizens are being aided by other countries - this is what needs working on and stopping. The playing field needs levelling (and not by our bombs!). The Syrian people need to take their fate into their own hands.

I would like to see a similar level of resources put into diplomacy, negotiation and humanitarian aid

Diplomacy and negotiation won't work with this lot - they are religious fanatics. It's not like with the IRA twenty years ago when talking did end the troubles (I simplify it of course, but the government and the IRA were in dialogue with each other prior to the ceasefire).

Any humanitarian aid in ISIS territory is a non starter if it involves sending westerners there - they will end up decapitated like others before them. Humanitarian aid should be provided to refugees fleeing the conflict.

For the sake of fairness viiolet, could you re-quote my full quote, including the BBC quote, which provides the full context?

War is a huge grey area, particularly one in which the goodies have supplied arms to rebel groups in a civil war which have ultimately fallen into the hands of ISIS.

Why do the intelligence services work so closely with former terrorists? Because they are able to provide insight into motivations in the hope that atrocities might be prevented in the future. Dropping bombs alone is not going to address the fundamental problems here, is it?

This is not done in my name. I don't support this bombing. However we are a tiny part of it so whether we are in it or not is not going to make much difference anyway.

We should just leave all those people out there sunni v shia etc to kill each other. It seems to be what they like to spend their time doing rather than live in peace. Daesh are sunni and not keen on the shias or Christians or atheists nor jews for that matter and shias are not too keen on the sunnis either. If they could all realise there is no God they would do a lot better.

However never on our planet have we had less violence and war by the way. We are in golden times despite the news and gradually moving towards more and more peace and tolerance so there is much to hope for.

Well, I think now is the time to drop this into the discussion.

I think we are all agreed that prevention is better than the cure. Why has this situation got to the point it has?

Why do we as a relatively civilised world allowing such extremists to exist?

We can cry all the tears we want, but at what point do we start crying?

Diplomacy and negotiation won't work with this lot - they are religious fanatics.

Except most of the available evidence points to them not being religious fanatics, but a mix of ideological fanatics and disaffected young men looking for ways to get power, who are using (knowingly or not) religion as the reason. Even if most "believe", then the details of what they believe are pretty murky. Religion is the cloak and the excuse and the rallying call, rather than the cause.

Maybe we could just take a moment to appreciate how extremely fucking fortunate we are to have the freedom to lobby and criticize and insult our democratically elected representatives? And to be able to discuss the situation freely and publicly like this, disagreeing as much as we like?

I was referring purely to the point a previous poster made about people not being fussed over previous conflicts.

Disaffected young men?

How disaffected do you have to be to do beheadings live and post it online?

How disaffected do you have to be to shoot indiscriminately at people attending a pop concert and then call them immoral?

Can we please stop taking social media as a reflection of public opinion, it isn't. I'm not making the usual accusation of virtue signallers as this is clearly a more serious matter than the usual "look at me aren't I nice" posts and I totally respect the right of OP and others to be upset at this.

But facebook and Twitter are public forums with your name attached, of course people are more likely to publically be anti air strikes than pro.

Didn't we learn anything from the election, if you looked at facebook and Twitter a labour win looked inevitable, but in the privacy of the ballot box people voted with head not heart.

We should just leave all those people out there sunni v shia etc to kill each other. It seems to be what they like to spend their time doing rather than live in peace. Daesh are sunni and not keen on the shias or Christians or atheists nor jews for that matter and shias are not too keen on the sunnis either

It's a bit more than that Deo. Daesh are killing their own people in large numbers; throwing them from buildings, stoning them, crucifying them. They are raping, enslaving and oppressing millions of people.

Strawberry, there's insulting our democratically elected representatives and then there's intimidation.

The latter being decidedly undemocratic.

Absolutely Strawberry but that just makes one wish the same for others all around the world? And there is room for improvement in our democracy being free and fair, for example can be very difficult for smaller parties to make progress however good their policies.

All the local papers here ran opinion polls, the vote against was an overwhelming majority, yet only one MP had the balls to vote no.

And what about the MP (Devon North I think) who admitted that 99% of the emails he had received were against the bombing, yet he still went ahead and voted yes. I highly doubt he was the only one ignoring his electorate.

They are supposed to represent us. They didn't last night.

The middle class professional in Syria are largely unaffected by the actions of the Caliphate. They have the means to escape and the skills to carry on in another country.

If everyone appreciated our democratic freedom a bit more, perhaps tey wouldn't abuse it Elvedon.

I've just been reading a long foul-mouthed diatribe on FB about Hilary Benn. He is a 'war-mongering cunt' who should be forced to 'ie the first missile, Dr Strangelove style'. Apparently Shameful so called 'opinion' about a decent man

ride the first missile...

Obviously, I hope, I was talking about what Strawberry had to say about appreciating our democratic freedoms

Stratter can you give the percentage of the total electorate in the area regarding the 'local papers'?

Local papers might well run polls, they might well be overwhelmingly in favour, but 70 votes does not a democracy make.

most people don't bother with local papers

Absolutely Strawberry but that just makes one wish the same for others all around the world?

Yes, indeed. But Daesh is the big threat, the easiest intervention, the bloodies oppressors ATM.

And there is room for improvement in our democracy being free and fair, for example can be very difficult for smaller parties to make progress however good their policies.

Agree, but that's fine tuning compared to the complete lack of democratic voice the people living under Daesh have.