To be pissed of at Theresa May deciding to use “military intervention” in Syria?

[Bubblegum89]

She’s decided to not go to a vote on it and is going to start bombing the crap out of the place (not her personally of course, she’ll be tucked up safe in her dungeon).

Not only will there be hundreds, if not thousands, of inevitable civilian deaths and casualties but that money could be spent on our education system, the NHS, helping victims of Grenfell Tower, homelessness, children living in poverty... The government never seem to have cash to inject into public services but can find money for a war that nobody wants?

Maybe I’m overreacting, I just don’t see why we should be intervening by sending effing missiles to blow up somewhere when we have serious issues with our own country. Including a large number of people who complain about Syrian refugees coming here despite the fact we are apparently happy to blow up their home country then become amazed at the fact they don’t really want to live there anymore.

The UN can only deploy forces with the approval of the UN Security Council. All of the five permanent members have a veto. Russia is a permanent member.

That's why the UN can't act.

I hadn't, no. There, I knew it was sensible. And still fairly insignificant then. I guess it isn't used in this instance because 'the EU is not a country', doesn't have a UN seat and military is predominantly still based on France and (at the mo) the UK which are? (Yes I know about the US scary, I mean EU powers)

I do think this is very different to the Iraq question. In that case there was bags of 'intelligence' about suspected WMD that quite frankly sounded dodgy at the time and there was no physical evidence.

In this case there is evidence of chemical weapons use. To answer the question about how do we know its not rebels lobbing stuff out the side of a helicopter? The Syrian government has air superiority and when you see/listen to older children and teenagers doing videos or radio audios, you hear air raid sirens, then fast jet noise or see and hear fast jets, then bombing. Rebels don't have fast jets.

I also second the point that allied military do not 'bomb the shit out of people'. Collateral effect is not a euphemism, its very specifically guarded against by targeteers and whilst not infallible its rare. Collateral damage applies to taking someone's livelihood by destroying their farm or business and not just humans. UK military responsible for missile launches or bombing would be horrified to cause collateral damage.

To answer a previous poster who thought UK mil would not understand how the planning to target Syria would work unless they were very very senior is a bit wrong too. Military operational planners are not covered in gold braid. Conversely though, 20 years as PBI does not automatically make one the font of all knowledge. Its a balance .

DP went to Iraq and they all get charged up and told how important it is, THE TIME IS NOW to help the people! Saviours! Blah blah blah. In the end it was pointless and he lost a lot of friends.

It’s an absolute joke they’re doing it all over again.

Theresa May is a joke. She doesn’t give a shit about this country, our people, or anybody outside of it unless they’re handing her money and power. But let’s slag off Jeremy Corbyn because he wants peace and that’s hilarious

It's simpler than Iraq. EVERYBODY knows Assad is behind this. The military evidence is much stronger.

And it's genocide, at the end of the day.

Yep. We all doubted Iraq but when the balloon went up, it was a case of get on with it and support each other. With regards to very senior officer involvement, the Chilcott Inquiry is a good read about not simply accepting what you are being told by politicians and the knock on effects for military personnel lower down not blindly following orders. Use of appropriate corporate knowledge and own intelligence.

This thread makes me so angry I don't know where to start.

Syria is not another Iraq. There was a popular revolution to get rid of a dictator that has been brutally crushed, killing 500,000 people, with 13,000 killed in prison. Backed by Iran, it's ethnic cleansing to remove the majority of the rural-sunni population into a small part of the north of the country. It is genocide, pure and simple.

Assad used chemical weapons on Douma last week to get the last remaining rebels in the strategic area to surrender. And it worked - they surrendered the next day.

Israel took out half of Assad's air defences the other week after the Syrian regime took down an Israeli plan. It did not cause WW111. It did not lead to any civilian loss of life. You probably didn't even hear about it. Similarly, the US targeted an empty Russian base after a chemical massacre last year. If the US/ UK does anything, it will be very limited targeting of Syrian and Iranian positions. It will also been done with co-ordination with Russia. I don't think very much will be done at all unfortunately.

I didn't see any threads about people being angry at children being gassed to death. But one mention of "military intervention" and people start crying "another Iraq".

It’s totally different to the intervention in Iraq. Corbyn isn’t proposing ‘peace’ he’s proposing an alternative no response ’solution’ presumably to the proportionate response the UK is making in the face of chemical weapon use on children.

The thing is Wrong that the EU already has a military staff, but what it doesn't have is a freestanding set of forces of its own, and arguably, the member states don't want it to. There is no point duplicating what NATO does (the EUMS runs on NATO lines, and the EU piggybacks on the Defence Planning work done by NATO anyway).

See here:
www.nato.int/cps/ua/natohq/topics_49217.htm

Why do you want to pay for things twice?

You wouldn't have had three big players as the European nations are not willing to spend adequately for their defence and have been taking advantage of the US for decades. This is evident by their nugatory spend on defence which doesn't meet the 2% NATO threshold.

Each NATO nation/EU member state only has one set of Forces, so if the UK had a ship that was needed for national/NATO/EU all at the same time, it could only be used for one of those. Tje EU would be dependent upon member states being willing to loan their forces at any given time. Otherwise the EU has to stand up Armed Forces loyal to it, and fully funded by the EU, and I think that is a very bad idea indeed.

I only need to see one kid foaming at the fucking mouth to make my mind up. How many more do you want to see?

Fingerling EUFOR acts for specific ops under the direction of the EUMS which is part of the EEAS. It is NATO that does the heavy lifting in Europe, not the EU. I don't see the EUMS involved in the RAP shape.nato.int/readiness-action-plan

UK military responsible for missile launches or bombing would be horrified to cause collateral damage. They do however, accept that realistically it can and does happen however stringent the targeting parameters are.

Scary Yes I know about EUFor. Never said it did more than NATO or indeed any heavy lifting. I know what its ops are.

YY to accepting collateral damage can realistically happen (still doesn't stop individual crews being horrified when it does).

Fingerling I wouldn't put it as strong as horrified, but certainly sad. Part of the job can be killing people after all.

I live in Qatar. I have lost some staff and many friends. Father goes missing so sons go to find him. No word so in laws go. Never come back. A daughter of a colleague and her 10 year old daughter came to stay. We waves them off and told them we would try to help. Less than 48 hours later they were gassed.

smart/clever weapons aren't. a cruise missile with enough explosive to destroy aircraft/airfield will kill civilians. A smaller charge is wasted symbolism.

the only option is to gather evidence, work out the chain of command, then, when these people leave Syria, whether Russian or Syrian, arrest and try.

In Afghanistan, poor intelligence lead to collateral damage killing civilians. The aircrew were horrified. I have talked to someone with PTSD symptoms who spent his waking nights calculating how many innocent people he may have killed.

Killing as part of the job is killing someone within the laws of armed conflict. That might make you a bit sad. Collateral damage is something else.

I cannot believe some people would just stand by and let an evil despot commit genocide. We should have taken action in 2013. If we dont take action this time we will be giving countries permission to start using chemical weapons in wars again. All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing.

There is no point giving parliament a vote as Corbyn will be against any action on principle, no matter how many children are murdered. I am proud Theresa is standing up for for the weak and oppressed people of Syria.

YANBU. That's the old classic isn't it, they've never got any money.
However they soon find it for weapons of mass destruction, don't they.

Total madness! The last thing our Country needs is another war, and the last thing Syria needs is more bombs. We will only cause more problems not resolve them. We’ve caused enough shit already by prolonging the war when we armed the rebels (many of which are simply terrorists including IS).

Its awful isn't it, horrible old UK spending money on stopping maniacs using chemical weapons to commit genocide. Oh the humanity of it.

I think its an issue of not the conflict, but if we get involved how we manage it afterwards. In recent years we have had a tendency to, in the main, leave a country to their power vacuum (Libya for example). We need to look back at confrontation policy and also post-conflict management and how it can be well done.

I'm reading a lot of heartfelt passionate responses from both sides on this thread. Whatever happens next is unpredictable and it feels as though either way the outcome could be terrible.

We aren't talking about invading Syria or even changing the regime. This will only about trying to stop them using chemical weapons.

I think its an issue of not the conflict, but if we get involved how we manage it afterwards. In recent years we have had a tendency to, in the main, leave a country to their power vacuum (Libya for example). We need to look back at confrontation policy and also post-conflict management and how it can be well done.

I think the example of Libya is important. It's the lack of any civil order in Libya that has opened it up as a route for refugees from every kind of misfortune in north & east Africa to reach Europe.

I want to agree with a poster above about the really informative and intelligent and heartfelt responses on this thread. You are educating many with your insights and responses, and the links to articles are useful too.

I find this thread better than watching the news, as you can take your time to read the different perspectives, and re read anything you don’t understand.

As you were.