Should parliament vote before there is an air strike?

If I knew that Bridgeit, I wouldn't be sitting here on Gransnet.

We may pontificate but it is all hot air.

All war is disgusting and all weapons are terrible
We all know that, but if I had a gun and someone was threatening my little DGC I would talk first, shoot after rather than see my darlings raped or killed.

And I would spend the rest of my life in prison if that was what it took.

Mrs May is evil every day in her vile treatment of the poor ,the sick the vulnerable and the disabled .You dont have to be evil on the scale of Hitler to get the label .
So the poor, the sick, the vulnerable and the disabled would probably be better off living in Syria then?

What a load of bollocks.

Paddyann, I don’t think any one Politician or PM can be blamed in the way you have described. Many , many factors contribute to the overall state of a country.

paddyann Sat 14-Apr-18 16:54:27

The UN have announced that victims say it was Syrian rebels who used the chemical weapons NOT Assads government.

I think this was at best a lie but happy to be corrected.

Paddyann, the poor, the sick, the disabled and vulnerable were targeted under the Labour government 12 years ago, in order to reduce benefit pay outs. I was one who suffered. So Labour is evil too, by your reckoning.

A sense of proportion is needed. It does not matter WHO used chemical weapons in Syria : two choices were available to forces ready to stop this contravention of international law. They could target the manufacturing bases and means of transportation in order to save lives and impress upon the monsters unleashing death and destruction that it was unacceptable and would be resisted, or they could talk about it and allow inhumane barbarians to continue to flout international law and manufacture as much deadly poison as they liked and use it with impunity to threaten mankind and world peace.

Normalising the use of WMD cannot be tolerated imo. I am relieved the strikes were carried out successfully.

One would like to hope that is the end of it, but if course it won't be. Persistent vigilance protects us. We have much to be thankful for even if we rue what is happening in the middle east. That is one side of the coin we have to accept.

Paddynan, to put TM in the same category as Hitler, though slightly lower on the "evil" scale seems plain daft to me. I disagree profoundly with the governments austerity approach. I am distressed at the wrecking of our public services and the way people with disabilities/mental health problems are suffering as a result. The fact I disagree with the policies of this government doesn't put them in the same category as Nazi's imo. Mendacious, selfish, ill informed, unkind, stupid and many other descriptions but to call them evil diminishes the power of the word imo.
Sorry, that's off the OP - I still believe that yes, Parliament should have been consulted.

Parliament was consulted in 2013 , voted against, no getting all countries sitting around a table followed

Yes I'm another who thinks describing TM as "evil" is a ridiculous, over the top, even hysterical use of the word in the context, as Iam has stated above it diminishes it's power. As far as political figures in the UK are concerned, it's a description I'd attribute to the late Cyril Smith. I'm not happy with some of this government's social policies but lets not forget that social mobility went back under the last Labour administration.

Regarding the original post I am inclined to agree with Chuka Ummama on Robert Peston this morning who said he did support TM, but thought she should have recalled Parliament first. However, Nadine Dories went on to explain the difficult logistics of that given the urgency.

I wouldn't describe TM as evil either. She is doing (albeit badly) the job she was elected to do. As leader of the CONSERVATIVE Party she is supposed to conserve/maintain the status quo, i.e. ensure that the rich and comfortably off are able to keep their privileges and status, while throwing the odd crumb to the poor and struggling to salve consciences. As my dear old Dad used to say 'You can trust the Tories to do what it says on the Tin'.

On the other hand Labour, once it was overrun by 'silver spoon socialists' and careerists, betrayed the people they were supposed to represent by abandoning their principals in pursuit of power and personal wealth, at any cost.

I do a lot of "work" volunteering with the people of the communities hardest hit by Mrs Mays policies,disabled wh've had their only means of transport taken off them..leaving them housebound,cancer patients told they have to go back to work when it takes them all their strength to get out of bed some days ,young families sanctioned and having to live off fresh air ..often for the most ridiculous reasons ...in their eyes and in mine these actions are pure evil ...ANY person who thinks its how folk ,who are in these situations through no fault of their own, should be treated can add themselves to my list of evil doers .Especially those who insist they are christians as the PM does !

Tell that to the people of Syria, Yemen, Iraq Venezuela, Sudan, the list is endless. Given the choice, compared to their governments ours is next door to Paradise! I wonder where they'd rather be?!!! I'm just thankful that I wasn't born in any of the above and even more thankful that I was born in evil old Britain instead of Hitler's Europe, but perhaps I'm mistaken on all fronts!!!

Comparing one bad apple with other bad apples doesn't make the bad apple good you know.

No one has suggested that it does, but one bad apple maybe much more palatable than the alternative!

But it is still a bad apple.

In your opinion trisher T May is considered a ‘bad apple’
( is Corbyn a lovely juicy one?)
We all have our own views on politicians, and no two opinions will be the same no doubt.

One frequently has to chose between two alternatives, neither of them ideal, sometimes both undesirable. Hence the much used phrase 'between a rock and a hard place'.

I do a lot of "work" volunteering with the people of the communities hardest hit by Mrs Mays policies
Well done paddyann, I can tell that you speak from the heart.

My friend works extremely hard running a charity for Syrian refugees, with other volunteers who put their lives on the line to deliver sacks of flour so that they can at least make bread to live on - that's if the bakers' ovens have not been bombed so that the people starve.
She also runs a drop-in centre for people who have escaped over the border, distributes clothing, walks the streets finding families with new born babies sheltering in doorways.
That is as a result of Assad's and Putin's actions - do you really equate Theresa May with them?

All benefits paid in Scotland were managed by the UK Government until April 2013, when Council Tax Reduction and the Scottish Welfare Fund were devolved to the Scottish Government.
beta.gov.scot/policies/social-security/

In answer To the post title, I would say Dammed if you do Dammed if you don’t, but preferable in my book than dithering .

It is strange that the US, France and the UK are the actors in this action. Do no other countries care about chemical weapons? I am sure they do, but they do not take the decision to get involved - I wonder why? I am sure they have good reasons for that decision, ones that could equally apply to the 3 protagonists here.

Too fearful Luckygirl ?
‘All it needs for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing.’

Sometimes, lemongrove, sometimes ... it is best not to do anything- when you assess that it will possibly make things much much worse than they are. Anyone who weighs in all guns blazing before the assessors have had time to assess- is just acting irresponsibly and putting 1000s, and possible 100s of 1000s, including our troops and our grandchildren- at massive risk.

'When in doubt, Do nought

Spot on Granny23 except I would have spelt it 'nowt'.

One again an American President has said "Jump!" and we have replied "how high?"

There was no direct threat to this country so no need for any urgency. Waiting until today and asking our representatives whether or not they agreed, would have been far more democratic. And it should have been a free vote.

I believe Mrs May did it because Trump and Macron had backed her position over the nerve gas poisoning, so she felt obliged to back them, but she should not be blindly following them, particularly president Trump, as goodness knows what he would want us to do next.

I think Luckygirl makes an interesting point about other nations and why they are not getting involved, they must have reasons, it would be interesting to know a bit more about their thinking.

he did support TM, but thought she should have recalled Parliament first

That would have been in vain. I was listening to a military bod on radio this morning and he said there would be a lot of sensitive and secret intelligence given to the PM and her military advisors (any PM...Corbyn or Cable too, if they held the post) therefore any vote in Parliament would have been meaningless. They would not have been privy to the intelligence which was available and would not have had all the information.

As I said on another post, keyboard warriors are having a field day if they don't support the government. Everything has to be PM May's fault, even though the USA, France and much of the western world supported military intervention in the chemical weapons crisis.

The decision to strike against bases and means of transportation of chemical weapons was not a UK one. It was a decision taken in conjunction with France, America and with the agreement of the western.
world.

It was an isolated incident and was successful. It achieved its aim.

I am sick of the attitude of some that we should not protect ourselves, our country, our families, our lives, or back the decisions made by our government. No one has foresight, no one can predict what may follow, but to do nothing would be to legitimise the breaking of international law and the use of WMD.

No military intervention would have been great, what we'd all have preferred - IF sanctions, IF diplomacy and IF talking had worked. They didn't. The peaceful means of trying to stop chemical weapons being unleashed on innocents had not worked.

It is done, and the message has been delivered. We will not normalise the use of chemical weapons. There can be no fence-sitters in such a crisis.

One has to be grateful there isn't a certain fence-sitting pacifist in Number 10 offering only tea, as he would be playing right into the hands of enemies of the western world, yet again.

The pacifist's approach was tried and rejected and action was the only resort.