Hillary Benn

Nir

What a post,friend,and Hilary Benn may be in touch,as he seeks a writer to keep his standards so high.big man.

I agree with your well thought out analysis,covering every angle,and moral quandary for us all in 2015.

Hats off.

We had to confront the facists in the past,be they from Germany,or the red wan's in the USSR,and now we witness facists using and abusing islam,killing in the name of.

Watching evil spread and take innocent life is not an option,and I am not a big bomb them fan,or putting western troops in.The UN,arab states,Turkey,FSA rebels,yazidi's,kurds and local Iraq and Syrian Christian's even,are there,ready to remove isis.
The millions of refugees in neighbouring lands and Europe can also be trained to take their homes and lives back.
If so called western forces go in ,we get called infidel crusaders,so we require cross community,multi-national and multi-faith troops on the ground there,and in Africa,Pakistan,and now Afghanistan again,as daesh are taking Taliban roles,as we type.

tbbab

Always considered myself to be left leaning in my values, but you have to look at the situation objectively before you form an opinion. It's ridiculous how many people are more worried about fitting the problem to their predetermined left/right wing argument rather than thinking of ways to deal with it.

Especially in Scotland we're going to end up like the boy who cried wolf. Yeah, Cameron's a cant but people are acting as if he's worse than Assad/ISIS

He made a decent speech but it doesn't make him right on the issue, his speech was too emotional and basically saying 'we have to attack them because they attacked us', we need to take emotion out of it. Cameron used the emotions after Paris to win the vote, in reality our air strikes will achieve little but he doesn't want to be on the sidelines while the other big boys are dropping the bombs.

There's too many political games going on which is why we're not close to making any real progress. USA and others have been bombing Syria for a long time with little effect so what are our air strikes gonna do that theirs aren't, we all have shared intelligence anyway. We can drop precision bombs from thousands of feet and tap into anyone's phone and internet communications so I can't believe we don't have the slightest clue who IS are selling oil or getting funds and weapons from (our 'allies' btw)

Things are gonna get worse before they get better and once people realise that then Corbyn's popularity will start rising.

Nir

I know how the posh Dave and tories are regarded in Scotland,and here too....the poll tax,indy debate,hunger strike and Anglo-Irish diktat has angered Scots,socialists,nationalists,republicans and unionists/loyalists.

As you point out,there is a far left agenda,focusing more on hammering Cam,than the mass murderers in daesh,and Assad.The far left are way beyond socialist left leaning thought,imo,and seek to twist everything,to suit their hate.

Salmond,and the SNP do seem to hate the tories so much they are prepared to ignore assad and isis evil.How will they save lives,as this has gone on for years,and just because Labour,Blair and Scot,John Reid messed up initially,logical thought can distinguish between other events,even if they occur in the same areas.

8bit

Fatal line in your post was,things are gonna get worse,before they get better,and then Corbyn's popularity will rise..........so this is your take on the rise of evil daesh,and assad killing his people.

I think you have highlighted what Nir and I were saying,with regards to this being used by the Corbyn left to bash tories,rather than saving innocent lives in so many parts of the world.
You need to think outside the far left box.

For example,we are told this is a rich man's war for oil,yet we are bombing isis oil targets this very day,and I do not agree with our bombing role,btw.

Trying to raise who buys oil from whom is pedantic,when placed alongside the mass genocide from assad,and extremist muslim's,who use and abuse islam,to kill,land grab and rule.

8bit

I am sure we know who is buying oil from daesh,and that includes Assad,so what is your point,and how can we stop isis taking oil revenue from people,if we are not involved,on the ground?That makes us infidel invaders,of course,so how do you suggest we stop isis selling oil to bad people,you do not like?Will corbyn and abbott phone daesh leaders to fix it?

We all know isis is funded in part by muslim extremists in Saudi,Kuwait and Qatar,and wahibbi hate preachers have spawned the fundamentalist death cult,but what do you suggest we do,on that front.
Russia are not nice,but we may be allied with them too,as well as Turkey,who let Kobane fall,and held kurds back,as isis killed their people just over the border.Should we shun Russia and Turkey,our Nato chum's?

The kurds take on isis everyday,and I salute them,but kurd nationalism will demand a homeland,and this could see kurd terro,ala PKK ,against our so called allie,Turkey,so yea,it is complex,messy and horrible,but goes beyondwhat helps the corbyn leftists,and local tory hate mobs,imo.

tbab I don't doubt the intentions of people supporting air strikes, it's a complicated problem and there's no simple solutions. But some are also driven by the war mentality or revenge instead of a long term peaceful solution. Cameron says there's 70,000 ground troops which is half true, they're part of different factions, some fighting each other and most of them more interested in fighting Assad rather than IS. Why does Cameron need to mislead us making out there's a 70,000 strong army ready to support us on the ground.

We need to get real and figure out who's on our side and who's not, confront countries who are funding/supporting IS in any way. Swallow our pride and cooperate with Russia. Kurds have been the most successful in fighting IS but Turkey wants to eliminate them, but we don't hold them to account. We need a coalition who all have the same aims and doing the same thing which we're nowhere near to, and if countries like Turkey don't want to do that then we take a hard line with them. And we need to understand this is a war about ideology and you can't defeat an ideology with bombs alone. I'm not against air strikes as long as it's part of a bigger plan and the plan isn't in place yet.

Fair points 8bit,and cameron tried it on blair style,with that 70 k FSA troop propaganda,as they are factional,fighting assad,and not all near daesh,so that annoyed me too,as we have been lied to enough.
Cameron will not face daesh face to face,but ordinary people will.

I agree about russia and turkey and kurds,and outlined the real politik involved,whereby we ally alongside less bad guys,to counter worse one's.

The complex nature of the conflict confuses me,and it will not be a clean moral battle,or outcome,as humans muddle through,as in our daily life.

We need to dump political hias though,for humanity to progress,and radical islamism needs sorting,as does big business dictating foreign affairs.

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Then of course with calls coming from the Tories that he is more credible that Corbyn, one wonders why.
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On the contrary, the Conservatives are extremely keen to keep Corbyn as Labour leader, it is their best chance of being re-elected - anybody that thinks Hilary Benn would be less popular than Corbyn is delusional.