I am proud of our MPs. I never thought I’d write that but in voting not to go to war 285 of them did the right thing. And at so many levels.
At a practical level we do not have definitive evidence that it was the Assad regime rather than the Islamofascist/Al Qaeda inspired opposition that used chemical weapons. If I was a betting man I’d bet heavily that it was Assad but there is no proof. Waging a war without proof, relying on Dodgy dossiers is oh so terribly Tony Blair and it is wrong. That is why Blair is a war criminal and brought shame on the UK. To his credit Cameron did not behave in that fashion.
And at another practical level what will missile strikes achieve? They will kill people but will they knock out the portable carriers of chemical weapons? No. Will they cause regime change? No. Will they suck others into a wider conflict? Possibly yes. Will they kill people innocent & guilty? Yes. Will they stop massacres? No. What, I ask the appalling John Kerry will missile attacks achieve?
Whose side should we be on in Syria? That of the butcher Assad or Al Qaeda? Bother are appalling and evil. John Kerry and David Cameron might feel up to playing God but I don’t.
As the great Ron Paul has been pointing out for years, Western intervention in other countries never helps. We are not thanked for it in the end. Please can those who wish to rain death from the skies upon Syria please point to any Western intervention in the Middle East since 1950 that has generated a desirable result and seen the West thanked? We are simply resented as imperialists. And as it happens we are financially stretched imperialists. We cannot afford yet another (pointless) war.
We have no moral right to intervene in some countries to stop massacres when we opt not to intervene in others when massacres occur. We have no moral imperative (or right) to intervene at all.
The West (and Russia) should both stop supplying ever more efficient means of killing people to BOTH sides in Syria. Even if Cameron/Kerry does produce evidence that Assad is using chemical weapons we must leave Syria’s problems to the Syrian people.
The war mongers say such a view means I do not care about kids getting gassed. I do. It sickens me. But so does genocide in Zimbabwe via rape camps, so does the persecution of Christians in Southern Sudan, etc, etc, etc. We cannot afford to fight every fight and as such the only morally defensible