Who said anything about negotiating with IS? They have thrived following the destabilisation of a region where countless other parties are all vying for influence; Russia, Turkey, Iran, Saudi, Israel, the Kurds, hundreds of clans and tribes. Get that lot round a table and IS will soon whither.
There you go. The plonker cannot find it within himself to do it. He doesn't realise he becomes the bigger person if he can.
Unfortunately, I have to agree with this. I say unfortunately because I am no warmonger and I would absolutely hate the potential escalation of bombing into "boots on the ground" which is quite feasible. IS will never negotiate because their stated intent is to destroy non believers and even other muslims who don't follow their doctrine. The only way to beat them is to destroy them, negotiation is not on their agenda.
So once we've bombed a few more cities to the ground and there are another 2 million homeless refugees I expect you'll be happy to put a Syrian family up at your place?
I'm not sure what air strikes will actually achieve, what can our pilots do that the French Russians US etc. can't? To me it strikes of being symbolic - to make it 'look' like we're still a major power etc.
Just because a feasible alternative hasn't been publicly aired, it doesn't mean that the bombing should happen. As I said early this morning on this topic, it is so far from a black and white decision and I am glad I don't have to make it. A friend said to me this morning that some people are saying "It's better than doing nothing" and I said to him, that my view may be similar, but worded differently as "Something needs to be done"... but I don't know what should be done and I am not comfortable with us bombing being the right thing to do. After all, a few other people are already doing that. For once, we could actually see what the short and medium term results of the others carrying out bombing is and then decide.
But to what Archers? (genuine question) IS are an established fighting force that will have to be eradicated from the area. I totally agree it would be better if the countries in the middle east were the ones who dealt with them rather than western countries.
All the issues that have plagued the Middle East for decades essentially date back to the Sykes-Picot Agreement drawn up 1916, and which were implemented on the defeat of the Ottoman Empire. The whole region was parcelled up into spheres of influence between Britain and France, borders were drawn on maps which had never had borders before, and puppet monarchs like Faisal of Arabia were installed. What IS have done, in declaring the caliphate, is to attempt to return to the situation prior to Sykes-Picot, with one Islamic country with no borders. That's their aim, and they are gathering support, funding, and territory all the time. We could kill every member of the IS leadership but the idea would still be there. Escalating the war footing, whether by bombing, troop movements, or both is playing EXACTLY into their hands, because their whole aim is to bring about a climactic battle in Eastern Syria and Northern Iraq. As someone once said, better jaw-jaw than war-war. Maybe IS couldn't be brought to the table, but the people who support their aims by funding them and supplying their weapons surely could, as long as we in the West embrace some of the issues at the root of all this. Something has to be done, but bombing innocent civilians who are being oppressed by IS, and thereby creating more martyrs and from that, more jihadis, certainly isn't the answer.
I partly agree with your last statement. The absolute critical question is "how do you defeat them?" Not damage them a bit, or put a bit of a dent in their armour, but defeat them and stop them. I only hope that all the western nations involved here have had a proper tactical discussion that we don't know about and there is a proper plan.
How is bombing a feasible alternative? They've been bombed for 4 years without any positive effect, only death and destruction. More bombing will only make it worse. The US is only doing 7 bombing runs a day because they have no idea where to bomb. Where will we bomb? There are no spotters on the ground, or not enough, to find out where to bomb!
I agree with you that bombing for the sake of it is pointless. However, if UK intelligence discovered an area where they knew key IS personnel were located then bombing the site would be the best option available.
There are a lot of comments on here both for and against. Having read some of the comments it's a pity that people don't have the time to hear the actual facts being put forward in Parliament from both sides as it would clear up some of the misunderstandings and answer some questions.
Whilst I'm against this particular bombing, to answer your question, it is my understanding that Britain is being asked to bomb in areas requiring extreme high accuracy because our Brimstone air to surface missiles, fitted to RAF Tornado aircraft, are by far the most accurate weapon system, greatly reducing collateral [I hate that word] damage.
This is correct and apparently there have been no reports of civilian casualties whilst we have been doing this in Iraq which is over 1 year.
