David Cameron's plan to bomb ISIS is based on "fantasy"

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A veteran reporter of Syria says the case for going to war against ISIS is no more credible than Tony Blair's argument for invading Iraq

David Cameron's case for military intervention in Syria is like that old Groucho Marx joke: “We have to have a war. I've already paid a month's rent on the battlefield”.
Cameron wants us urgently to sign up to his war effort.
But on the basis of what?
He claimed this morning that he had "a credible military strategy" to defeat Islamic State.
The more he spoke, the more apparent it became that he has nothing of the kind.
Worse, he has learned nothing from the mistakes that led us into Iraq more than a decade ago.

Syria exists as a united entity only on the maps.
On the ground, it is fractured between competing interests.
Syria's Russia-backed secular dictator, Bashar Assad, controls a significantly shrunken territory.
The Kurds, who are bravely fighting Islamic State, dream of self-rule in the north.
Then there is ISIS itself, and an ensemble of overlapping opposition groupings whose ideological leanings are virtually impossible for us to determine.
Cameron wants to enter this mix.
He wants to bomb ISIS from the skies and hopes to use "moderate" rebels as ground forces.
Simultaneously, he wants to rid Syria of Assad and install a representative government that can finish off his fight against ISIS.
This is an ambitious plan. It is also fantastic.

First, Cameron's claim that there are 70,000 "moderate" rebels is extremely dubious.
The source of this claim is the joint intelligence committee - the same source which warned us that Saddam Hussein could bomb British bases in 45 minutes.
Western governments have been struggling to vet the identities of refugees who have been flooding Europe over the last several months.
Can we seriously believe that it is possible for us to vet the ideological complexion of 70,000 rebels in a war zone?
What was the methodology used to arrive at this number?
Did intelligence officials collate this figure from the estimates given to them by commanders of local rebel units?
If so, how reliable are those commanders and what was the criteria used to assess the fighters?
We could benefit from the experience of the United States, which spent more than half a million dollars training rebel forces – only to lose control of them later.
As General Lloyd Austin told a Congressional hearing earlier this year, out of the hundreds of rebels it trained, the US could track down only “four or five” fighters.
The rest either bolted or defected to other factions.

Cameron offends the intelligence of his colleagues, and the British public, when he bandies this figure: "70,000 moderate rebels" is the new 45 minutes .
Second, Cameron let loose his belief that "the best ground troops" against ISIS "should be the Syrian army".
This demonstrates a worrying ignorance of Syrian realities on Cameron's part.
For nearly half a decade, western experts have been predicting Assad's demise.
Yet he remains in power.
Tens of thousands of Syrian Arab Army troops have laid down their lives in his defence.

It is absurd for Cameron to believe that they will switch their loyalty to a Western-backed government once Assad is deposed from power.
When I reported from Syria in 2012, non-Western diplomats were openly scornful of what they saw as Western naivety - even after the experience of Iraq - about Syria.
As the ambassador of a major Asian country told me, "the French, British and Americans have no understanding of what's happening here".
Many decent people are justly appalled by Assad.
But outrage is not policy.
There exists no force in Syria capable of reconstituting the country if Assad goes.
And as we have seen in Libya, actions driven by good intentions can produce deadly results.
Cameron has no workable plan.
Instead, he is attempting what the French call on s'engage, puis on voit : first engage, then figure out.
But there is no reason to believe that Syria's miseries will be relieved - or Europe's security enhanced - if Britain started a bombing a country that's already being pounded daily by multiple powers.
It would inexcusable to enable Cameron to ignore history and plunge Britain head first into this homicidal cauldron.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/david-camerons-plan-bomb-isis-6907507#ICID=sharebar_twitter


Utter madness and will take us to hell.

Raggamuffin wrote:Anyway, Cameron needs to decide what the motive for getting involved in Syria is. We don't want another scenario where the motive keeps changing do we? We had all that with Iraq.

Is it to save the people from Assad? Is it to stop ISIS in their tracks on humanitarian grounds, or to prevent them growing in strength and becoming a threat to British people? Is it to support the French and get revenge for the Paris attack?

I recently watched a clip in Aleppo, people interviewed claimed that there is no isis that anyone has seen but they are being attacked. We cannot deny Assad and Russia have been ethically cleansing. Cameron has shown no morals as yet and a done nothing but lie, so I don't trust his motives on entering this war. There will be even more bloodshed of innocents. These guys just want to watch people fight and murder for them, that is how it looks from what I am picking up.

Cap Jane have you got a link to this clip? Would like to see it please

captainJane wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:Anyway, Cameron needs to decide what the motive for getting involved in Syria is. We don't want another scenario where the motive keeps changing do we? We had all that with Iraq.

Is it to save the people from Assad? Is it to stop ISIS in their tracks on humanitarian grounds, or to prevent them growing in strength and becoming a threat to British people? Is it to support the French and get revenge for the Paris attack?

I recently watched a clip in Aleppo, people interviewed claimed that there is no isis that anyone has seen but they are being attacked. We cannot deny Assad and Russia have been ethically cleansing. Cameron has shown no morals as yet and a done nothing but lie, so I don't trust his motives on entering this war. There will be even more bloodshed of innocents. These guys just want to watch people fight and murder for them, that is how it looks from what I am picking up.

I've seen those sorts of claims before, and I've also seen reports that abandoned ISIS sites have been bombed. Syrian rebels say they have recaptured villages from ISIS in Aleppo, so ISIS were clearly there at some point. The US were also bombing that area not long back. If ISIS have been driven out, there might not be any there now, but it's no secret that Assad and Russia don't want rebels who are hostile to Assad there either, so they may well have been bombing them.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/11/21/uk-mideast-crisis-syria-villages-idUKKCN0TA0S420151121

What are your grounds for saying that Assad and Russia have been ethnically cleansing rather than attacking rebel forces which are hostile to Assad?

Raggamuffin wrote:

captainJane wrote:

I recently watched a clip in Aleppo, people interviewed claimed that there is no isis that anyone has seen but they are being attacked. We cannot deny Assad and Russia have been ethically cleansing. Cameron has shown no morals as yet and a done nothing but lie, so I don't trust his motives on entering this war. There will be even more bloodshed of innocents. These guys just want to watch people fight and murder for them, that is how it looks from what I am picking up.

I've seen those sorts of claims before, and I've also seen reports that abandoned ISIS sites have been bombed. Syrian rebels say they have recaptured villages from ISIS in Aleppo, so ISIS were clearly there at some point. The US were also bombing that area not long back. If ISIS have been driven out, there might not be any there now, but it's no secret that Assad and Russia don't want rebels who are hostile to Assad there either, so they may well have been bombing them.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/11/21/uk-mideast-crisis-syria-villages-idUKKCN0TA0S420151121

What are your grounds for saying that Assad and Russia have been ethnically cleansing rather than attacking rebel forces which are hostile to Assad?

From what I observed, it has continually been all out attacks on defenceless people from the beginning, these atrocities by bombs being dropped directly onto defenceless family homes, you can hear babies screaming, terrified parents, their animals whimpering. All heard and seen on videos out there to prove all I have written.
How many meetings and talks has there been, costing how much?? Without ever happened to finding a peaceful solution.  
People should not be used for war games! I would like to see everyone directly involved with creating these states of unrest and all out murder facing the consequences or their evil part.
So which side is right? You tell me... Assad is not losing anyone; Putin is not in any danger as for David Cameron, less said about him the better. Not one of these leaders stand to lose anything personal in their lives, none of them has a single risk of being killed or a chance of losing any of their family members. It is always the innocents that do no harm that has to suffer ALL because of a few greedy fools say so.

captainJane wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

I've seen those sorts of claims before, and I've also seen reports that abandoned ISIS sites have been bombed. Syrian rebels say they have recaptured villages from ISIS in Aleppo, so ISIS were clearly there at some point. The US were also bombing that area not long back. If ISIS have been driven out, there might not be any there now, but it's no secret that Assad and Russia don't want rebels who are hostile to Assad there either, so they may well have been bombing them.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/11/21/uk-mideast-crisis-syria-villages-idUKKCN0TA0S420151121

What are your grounds for saying that Assad and Russia have been ethnically cleansing rather than attacking rebel forces which are hostile to Assad?

From what I observed, it has continually been all out attacks on defenceless people from the beginning, these atrocities by bombs being dropped directly onto defenceless family homes, you can hear babies screaming, terrified parents, their animals whimpering. All heard and seen on videos out there to prove all I have written.
How many meetings and talks has there been, costing how much?? Without ever happened to finding a peaceful solution.  
People should not be used for war games! I would like to see everyone directly involved with creating these states of unrest and all out murder facing the consequences or their evil part.
So which side is right? You tell me... Assad is not losing anyone; Putin is not in any danger as for David Cameron, less said about him the better. Not one of these leaders stand to lose anything personal in their lives, none of them has a single risk of being killed or a chance of losing any of their family members. It is always the innocents that do no harm that has to suffer ALL because of a few greedy fools say so.

So which ethnic group do you think they're trying to get rid of? Civilians are generally caught up in these things and get bombed by accident.

Which side is right? Well that depends on who you ask doesn't it? There seems to be an assumption that the rebel groups are right, but I'm not convinced of that.

If Putin, Cameron, and anyone else do nothing, what do you think will be said? It will be said that the world stood by and did nothing whilst people were being killed. The problem is working out who's doing the killing.

The ongoing wars and terrors attacks are orchestrated to turn people on each other.
Unrest is good for the rich and powerful

No one has ever won a War by Bombing. In WW2 Bomber Harris" said we can win by bombing them round the clock, America by day Britain by night,it did not work. You must have "boots on the ground" to win.

nicko wrote:No one has ever won a War by Bombing. In WW2 Bomber Harris" said we can win by bombing them round the clock, America by day Britain by night,it did not work.   You must have "boots on the ground" to win.  

Absolutely right.  Which emphasizes the complexity of this situation.  How do you "win" a war, not against a nation, but against a belief system??  In case it escaped anyone's notice, we haven't been doing a war in just Iraq, but Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, with opposition in Iran, the Arabian Peninsula, Pakistan, Gaza, most of Africa, and the Persian Gulf.  The 'boots on the ground' would have to be endless...in other words, permanent war.  There is no endgame to such a war.

What is even more ridiculous is that we have no purpose in the region (except perhaps oil, which makes us the bad guys).  We seem to be involved merely for purposes of revenge--someone cut off somebody's head, and we must respond, or some such thing.  It's pointless.

veya_victaous wrote:

A greenie for that. Outstanding.