FionaK |
|
| I see that we were discussing Syria in 2011, so I re-read this thread in light of recent events.
In 2013 the UK parliament defeated a government proposal to bomb Assad's regime in Syria. The proposal was based on the idea that he was a dictator, killing his own people with chemical weapons and more conventional ones. As with the genesis of this thread, support for the insurgent opposition was presented as humanitarian intervention. The defeat of the motion shocked our government, because the UK can normally be relied upon to vote for any old war at all.
Since then the story has changed. Now, we are told, the opposition in Syria is actually ISIS, and to a lesser extent Al Qaeda. These are the people we have been supporting and to whom the US were giving the shadow internet access which was the topic of this thread. And now we are being pushed to bomb the very people we were encouraged to support way way back in ...2013. There is reason to believe that the UK and US governments knew this at the time, though the public were not informed. But the upshot is that if the proposal had passed we would have been fighting on the same side as those who bombed Paris.
Perhaps if we had done that they would not have bombed Paris. I have no way of knowing. Nor does anyone. But it has been noted that the BBC have very recently attempted to rewrite history by claiming that the proposal in 2013 was to bomb ISIS: that is opposite of the truth.
I entered this thread with a kind of bedrock scepticism about foreign intervention, on the basis of Westphalia and our sheer ignorance of the real situation overseas. What applied then, applies now. I feel somewhat vindicated because the story has changed so radically, yet the proposed solution is the same: we must intervene and we must supply/bomb somebody
This, to me, is a very clear illustration of why Westphalia must be upheld, in spite of the warm propaganda about humanitarian imperatives so readily prayed in aid of military action. Yet that aspect is not to the fore in this discussion, at least not in this country. All we hear is that war is necessary, to keep us safe. This dog always returns to its vomit.
|
| | |
