Author Topic: UK & "Islamic State"  (Read 7776 times)

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Offline Colwyn

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UK & "Islamic State"
« on: September 26, 2014, 14:23:23 PM »
Cameron is currently addressing the House of Commons appealing to MPs to confirm the decision to join the US and France in bombing supposed IS positions in Iraq. The BBC World correspondent advised that MPs are likely to vote the way the PM hopes. I wonder what people think about this now and what they will think about it in ten years' time if Britain is still fighting IS.



Offline scorcher

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Re: UK & "Islamic State"
« Reply #1 on: September 26, 2014, 19:39:44 PM »
Quite some time since your post Colwyn. I can only assume that people sense that Mr Cameron is in that old rock and hard place scenario. What would the boys from the valleys advise now we are off and running?

Offline tinkerman

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Re: UK & "Islamic State"
« Reply #2 on: September 26, 2014, 19:45:51 PM »
We are damned if we do and damned if we don't
If we don't support the fight against terrorism, we stand and watch.

Offline Lotty

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Re: UK & "Islamic State"
« Reply #3 on: September 26, 2014, 20:37:38 PM »
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. (Quote from Edmund Burke.) 

Offline stoop

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Re: UK & "Islamic State"
« Reply #4 on: September 27, 2014, 19:57:03 PM »
No option really. IS have to be stopped.

Offline KKOB

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Re: UK & "Islamic State"
« Reply #5 on: September 27, 2014, 21:21:31 PM »
The problem is that it's not going to reduce the terrorist threat in the UK, or anywhere else for that matter. It could well increase the likelihood of attacks. But, doing nothing, isn't an option.

Offline Colwyn

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Re: UK & "Islamic State"
« Reply #6 on: September 28, 2014, 08:11:35 AM »
Only a few people have commented on this but those that have seem to be of a similar view - doing nothing is not an option. I find this rather surprising given the track record of the UK joining with the USA in military actions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. They didn't turn out very well and they certainly didn't make the world a safer place. They didn't even make the UK a safer place. I also find this "no option" view a rather dangerous way of thinking. It suggests that, really, there is no political decision to make; it makes itself; there is nothing to debate. However, I am not clear why the UK has no option. Countries such as Germany, Sweden, Spain, Russia, India, Japan and Turkey do, it seems, have an option; and, up to now, they have opted to stay out of the aerial campaign. Why do they have a choice but the UK doesn't? Is it because our country is more important than theirs, wealthier, more moral? Is it a legacy of our more recent imperial past; a form of dangerous nostagia of a once "great power"? Whatever, there was a decision to be made; there was an option; doing nothing - i.e. not bombing supposed IS positions - was always a possibility (as the Foreign Secretary said barely a couple of weeks ago). I suspect we will, again, in hindsight, come to regret this decision. I regret it now.

Offline nichola

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Re: UK & "Islamic State"
« Reply #7 on: September 28, 2014, 08:55:06 AM »
Me too Colwyn; perhaps people don't comment because of the seeming inevitability of it all.

Ken O'Keefe sums up pretty much everything I think about the War on IS - and where he says US he could just as easily be saying UK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESZN_YDE-TU

And here is another favourite of mine on the origins of the IS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMjXbuj7BPI&app=desktop

Offline scorcher

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Re: UK & "Islamic State"
« Reply #8 on: September 28, 2014, 09:06:49 AM »
You might well be right Colwyn in your preferred non interference option. Perhaps these IS fellows will see the error of their ways and return to more peaceful ways of making their views known without the abhorrent blood letting.

Offline nichola

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Re: UK & "Islamic State"
« Reply #9 on: September 28, 2014, 09:14:51 AM »
Going to war won't make them change their attitudes and ideology - its interference and wars in the Middle east that got us to this place to start with. If anything it is exactly what these extremists want and creates a justification for their actions in their minds and the minds of others who will join them.

We funded and armed these people and they are driving around in American tanks and using the weapons supplied to them by the Western governments to carry out their atrocities.

I really recommend watching the video above on the origins of the IS.

That said I am now off to the beach   :)




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