Syria

[Workingman]

It has gone beyond farce!

"Syria crisis: David Cameron makes case for military action" screams the BBC headline.

Well I watched a lot of the debate and he did no such thing.

The more measured response was in the Labour amendment, (bet you never expected me to ever side with Labour) which basically said: "Wait and see what the UN inspection tells us, then wait for what the UN thinks is appropriate, then have a vote on what to do."

One of the best speeches was made by George Galloway. He noted that the speech given by Cameron was not the one originally intended. He claimed, with some persuasion, that Parliament was recalled so that there could be a vote for 'War' and that missiles would be being readied this weekend. If that was not the case, he argued, then the recall was a waste of time as Parliament would be sitting next week anyway.

If there are any protests against military action being held in the Leeds area I am determined to join in.

[KateLMead]

I also watched the Commons for a couple of hours plenty of waffle. I thought Miliband was Nauseating and weak, saying what he felt the public would like to hear.. I would not trust the man whatever he said.

[TheOstrich]

Breaking news is that the Government have been defeated by 13 votes, and that we will not be going to war. A decision that is going to have quite a few effects; not least will we depart from slavishly following the USA in military adventures (it will be interesting to see how Barry O'bama reacts), and whether or not there will be strong pressure on the warmongerer Cameron to resign.

You can stop making your placard now, WM - well, for the near future .....

[Aggers]

Thank heaven some MPs have got the guts to put the PM into his place.

[KateLMead]

As I have stated the sight of Miliband makes me want to throw up, the man will say Anything just to court the public favour..
The left wing trashers, and the BBC are having a field day, what anyone can expect from the Labour gang," just look at them" Miliband, the Balls, the Harmans, Jowells, Vaz and the rest of the Commie gang I cannot imagine..
Look at the Labour Councils, support this rag bag trash at your own peril, and the peril of this country.

[Kaz]

Thank heaven some MPs have got the guts to put the PM into his place.

Well said Aggers! He didn't like it much, did he? Bully boy tactics not working this time....................

[Workingman]

There is a lot of weeping and wailing from the right wing that the UK cannot now go to war in Syria, but there is nothing in the vote to stop diplomacy or humanitarian aid continuing to take place. Maybe if those things had been ramped up to the max in the last six months or so, and failed, then the vote might have taken a different turn.

It has not killed our relationship with the US and it will not stop us intervening in the future, as some far-right Conservatives are moaning, What it will do is force the UK to look closely and analyse all the alternatives. Those actions could, ironically, increase the UK's standing on the international stage.

[Suff]

Cameron should be glad that the vote went against him.

He was pushed into this by the US and the government of the UK, not the party in power, has said NO, we'll wait and see what the UN, the body tasked with investigating this, has to say about it.

Then and only then, can we look at options to curb any excesses of civilian killing, if, indeed, the Assad regime did do this.

When you think about it, chemical weapons make no sense. They were designed to kill large bodies of troops very quickly, or to incapacitate them during an attack. Later revisions of Chemical weapons were designed to block access to supplies, deny access to areas for a long time or to kill as many troops as possible. Only in the last gasp were these weapons expected to be used against the general population, in the event that the aggressors, or defenders, needed to resort to pure fear.

Now let's put that into context for the Assad regime. Their enemies are small units with little organisation. No large supply dumps and no central organisation.

So the only possible gain the Assad regime could get from this is to frighten the people. Now, in fact, I'm pretty sure the people are already frightened of the fighting and are not particularly supportive of the insurgents. So the regime are going to gain nothing from the this.

Now if we look at the other side, however, what do they have to gain. They're not winning. It's unlikely they will win so long as Russia supports the regime. If they were to use chemical weapons and pass it off as the regime, then they gain the support of the west to destroy their enemy.

The Assad regime has absolutely nothing to gain and everything to lose by doing this. The insurgents have everything to gain and nothing to lose by doing this.

There is no way the military is advising the government that Assad used chemical weapons. It just does not add up. They could not defend it. Intelligence agencies? An oxymoron, they could make utter stupidity sound like sane reasonable action.

I won't believe that Assad effectively committed suicide until the UN brings me categoric proof.

And if they prove the rebels did it? What are they going to do then? Support the Assad regime?????

[KateLMead]

The French are in favour! Nothing has changed since the last war..

[Workingman]

Kate, the French, along with the British, are a sort of old colonial power in the region; before it was carved up by us after WW2. They might think that they have some sort of moral obligation to be militarily involved, but that is up to them.

I had a round-robin email from my MP, Greg Mulholland, informing his constituents that he had received a lot of correspondence re the vote and that he had been persuaded to a) abstain on the government motion and b) vote against the opposition amendment.

One other thing: The BBC, in its attempt to get us on side, carried a map of the eastern Med showing how strong we were with all our carriers, frigates, subs, missiles and air bases and aircraft. What it fails to show, is the port of Tartus and what warships and their types the Russians have in place there. So much for objectivity.

The map has now been amended to remove British forces.