Beefy's Corner - The Off-Topic Chat Thread

Well it looks like the States are going to take action and they have far too much for Syria if they go in.

 

George Galloway spoke well on Syria today. Just seen it on BBC Parliament.

[video=youtube_share;I0jp1-mzPHg]http://youtu.be/I0jp1-mzPHg[/video]

 

Why? Because of a moral obligation to be the world's police? We have neither the money nor resources to be going into every country run by a tyrant.

I know what's going on there is wrong, but we've already learnt once that meddling with Middle-Eastern affairs isn't straightforward, and the families of soldiers downed in war bear the scars of interference.

 

This is a debate made for Galloway.

 

He raises some good points, this topic is really right up his street.

 

He certainly did. I wouldn't have minded hearing the two speeches he referred to either.

 

And this is a conversation made for me!

On Syria, I really don't know how anyone can have any idea as to whether military intervention would make the situation better or worse. I don't know, you don't know, MPs don't know. What we should all know is that it's not about what's best for the UK; this is about what is best for the Syrian people. If we can make the situation better, we should intervene. If we can't, we shouldn't. The last thing we should be discussing is whether it's in our best interests to be getting involved. This isn't about our cushy, first-world interests. It's about minimizing human casualties in a country that needs help.

 

It does seem like a lot of people are suggesting that British lives are more valuable than Syrian lives.

 

Sadly, that's what a lot of people believe.

 

Yeah, it's a recurring theme in the topic of foreign affairs. I just hope none of the votes cast today were for that reason. I think Galloway makes a very good point and I'm inclined to agree with him anyway, so let's just hope we made the right call.

 

I'm genuinely embarrassed that we still use the whole "special relationship" line with the US.

 

We've been involved in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the last 10years resulting in the deaths of over 600 British military personnel. Perhaps for once we should be discussing whether it's in our best interests to get involved in yet another conflict.

 

Galloway is a bit weird though...

 

Well Joe, the same argument could have have been given for the wars against Iraq, and the final successful attempt to end the Saddam Hussein regime. The majority of the British public were against that, and it put the skids under Tony Blair in the end, but I happened to agree with him on that occasion. There were the majority of Iraqi people who had wanted an end to Saddam but had been too scared to say, whatever GB's reasons for going in.

In this case, from my understanding, it isn't as straightforward.

 

600 is a pretty small number when you put it next to 100,000 dead Syrians.

 

"Special relationship" makes me think of the US as Jimmy Saville and the UK as an adoring innocent child.................

 

Whether or not Iraq would have been worse off had we done nothing is a hypothetical we will never know the answer to. I supported it at the time (I was 13, but yeah) and I still have a hunch that it was the right choice, but we can't ever know.

 

I take it that you don't have any relatives in the armed forces that you are willing to sacrifice.

 

I take it you're not related to any Syrians, and I think you're doing a good job of justifying Dan's last comment.

 

Oh I'd take a good guess that Iraq are better off without Saddam Hussein. My fear at the time was that without Tony Blair's steadying talk on George Bush, the scenario could have been a lot worse than it turned out to be, bad enough though it was. I still think we did the right thing back then. This is far more muddled, in my opinion.