British military intervention in Syria

"With Michael Gove’s Justice Ministry still pressing ahead with a highly controversial commercial arrangement to provide UK prisons expertise to the Saudi authorities, with an apparently similar "memorandum of understanding", and with Foreign Office ministers like Tobias Ellwood showing far too little concern over fears that Saudi Arabia may be using UK-supplied weapons that are killing thousands of civilians in Yemen, it is clear the UK-Saudi relationship is intertwined in some extremely disturbing ways.

On Yemen, what Andrew Mitchell calls the UK’s "self-negating" attitude - allowing Saudi Arabia's often indiscriminate aerial bombing across its southern border to stand in for a more active and constructive approach from Downing Street - is a ruinous one. And the UK's lack of interest in possible Saudi war crimes in places like Sa'da is shocking and infinitely depressing."

Amnesty agree with you, Luckygirl.

That is unbearable to read - we just do not learn the lesson of not interfering in others' cultures. We simply do not understand the mindset, and banging on about democracy falls on deaf ears. We have to learn to stand back.

This is what is happening in Libya, after the last intervention.

stopwar.org.uk/index.php/news/the-catastrophe-in-libya-no-one-wants-to-talk-about-least-of-all-david-cameron

What a bloody mess.

I heard that most people in the camps are malnourished.

Yes, I agree jen. Is it even possible to make hose camps decent, sustaining, places to live in? I guess that's why DC says he wants to take immigrants from the camps.

It is all horrific.

But the scenario I just mentioned would, of course, be VERY hard on the 'good' rebels. (The ones we should have helped in the first place) But still inevitable now.

Quite worried last night when I saw Syrian families in Jordan thinking that their only choice is to go back to Syria, because they have no money left, have no opportunity to get work as refugees are not allowed to, and if they go back they will not be allowed back into Jordan. Benefits are also being stopped.
Not religious at all, but I do hope they have their faith to sustain them, because they are going to need it.

Putin says he is working to protect Russia from being over-run by any of the rebel groups. That is a reasonable arument given the geography.

We should probably let Russia take Syria back to the status quo of four years ago (IYSWIM) and then get to work on the Assad government by political means.

Jingl, I think you are right, in any case all Governments do what they consider is in the interests of their own country.Putin has been waiting in the wings to see how things went, then acted quickly.They Will wipe out all opposition to Assad, and then wipe out IS.We here, and the U.S. Must be very careful.

It might well have worked four years agao. But sadly we were all warred-out then. Now the best thing probably is to leave it to Putin. Again, sadly.

Legal profession criticise the government over its policy towards refugees.

How will further bombing help the situation? Don't they understand that the only ones able to protect themselves against this hell are IS, anti- Assad groups and Assad. Civilians are being killed and maimed, their houses and living destroyed. The ONLY choice for these civilians is to flee to try to save their families.
We are considering further destruction without the moral backbone to assist those suffering the result.

But we never do have a government that will "keep well out of it" - when will they learn?

I agree whitewave, that we seem to be heading for an absolute disaster, I'm not sure we're sleepwalking into it either. Cameron's speech to conference referred to getting rid of Assad. This at the same time that Putin is winding up for full scale support of Assad. I'm no fan of Putin and I fear he's dangerous but honestly, taking up a position against his support of Assad doesn't seem appropriate to me.

This country's involvement in Iraq and Lybya did nothing to help those countries it seems and we're left being blamed for making bad situations much worse. Cameron says get rid of Assad - who is to take his place? I'm not defending Assad on any level but my problem is, why is it our business/responsibility to move for regime change. I don't get it. I abhor what Assad does to his own country and its inhabitants but I'm not convinced that we (and our friends the US) could get rid of him anyway and I've no idea who would take his place.

Keep well out of it, other than via diplomacy is my simple approach. I'm open to influence from those who know more about this than I do.

Yes a plan for the future is almost certainly something we won't have.

I just feel that we are sleep walking into an absolute disaster.

Our media seems to be hung up in trivia like Corbyn meeting the Queen, but isn't looking at what is really important like Syria.

Parliament voted against strikes in Syria, Cameron sent British airmen to America to assist in air strikes on the qt, but there you go, there's democracy for you

Not in Syria only in Iraq! We've got to get parliamentary permission to extend air strikes into Syria. Putin doesn't have to adhere to these niceties, so he can forge ahead and do exactly what he pleases when he pleases, wherever he pleases and there is not a darn thing anyone else in the world can do. But there you go, that's socialism for you.

I don't know the answer, whitewave, but can only hope that diplomacy works in the end. However, Putin seems to do what he likes (and is very well supported in his own country) so I don't hold high hopes. He seems to me to be the biggest threat to world peace. I just hope that if we do intervene in Syria with troops on the ground (we are already mounting air strikes, aren't we?) that we have a good plan for what happens when/if the baddies have been defeated.