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Topic: Re:Re:Re:Re:Ruth Cadbury voted no on Syria
Posted by: Francis Rowe
Date/Time: 03/12/15 15:40:00

Think you are mistaking over-simplification for coherence. If you look at the region through a prism that predetermines that every thing the West does is wrong then you might feel able to make trite judgments but the reality is much more complicated.

Ruth Cadbury deserves respect for her decision which given that she a Quaker I'm sure it is one she would have made if Hilary Benn was leader of the opposition.

There are very strong arguments on both sides of this although the better ones are often drowned out by people who form their views on the Middle East based on their view of domestic politics.

The strongest argument to me is that the French have asked us to do this in times of national crisis and, while singing Les Marseillaise at football matches is all very well, we will have times of national crisis in the future when we will want French support.

To those that object to the human cost of air strikes it is worth bearing in mind that Syrian and Russian missile technology is about 20-30 years behind ours. Independent estimates are that 600 civilians have been killed by the 30,000 bombs dropped in the area by France/US/UK since August 2014 - the figure was quoted on the radio this morning. This compares with 1000 A MONTH currently being killed by Syrian air strikes and 200 a month by Russian.

There is therefore a very strong argument that the greater the involvement of western military forces in the conflict the less civilian casualties will be because of the sophistication of the targetting equipment. Of course this assumes that the conflict comes to an end at some point. 


Entire Thread
TopicDate PostedPosted By
Ruth Cadbury voted no on Syria03/12/15 12:57:00 Ken Munn
   Re:Ruth Cadbury voted no on Syria03/12/15 13:12:00 Brian Coyle
      Re:Re:Ruth Cadbury voted no on Syria03/12/15 13:18:00 Richard Greenhough
         Re:Re:Re:Ruth Cadbury voted no on Syria03/12/15 14:50:00 John Connelly
            Re:Re:Re:Re:Ruth Cadbury voted no on Syria03/12/15 15:40:00 Francis Rowe
      Re:Re:Ruth Cadbury voted no on Syria03/12/15 13:38:00 Andy Rooney
         Re:Re:Re:Ruth Cadbury voted no on Syria03/12/15 14:00:00 Brian Coyle
            Re:Re:Re:Re:Ruth Cadbury voted no on Syria03/12/15 15:14:00 Julian Pavey
               Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Ruth Cadbury voted no on Syria03/12/15 15:48:00 Richard Greenhough
   Re:Ruth Cadbury voted no on Syria03/12/15 16:14:00 Basil Finnis
      Re:Re:Ruth Cadbury voted no on Syria03/12/15 17:44:00 Claire Moran

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