Rebel Tories could torpedo Cameron’s Syria air-strike plans. Why are they seldom mentioned?
Why is all the attention on Labour when David Cameron’s bloodthirsty plan to bomb Syria indiscriminately could be blocked by his own MPs?
Almost all the media attention has been focused on whipping up public opinion in favour of the rebels in the Parliamentary Labour Party who want to support Cameron’s wafer-thin argument for military action.
We all know there are stronger reasons not to go to war again, don’t we?
Just off the top of This Writer’s head, I can tell you that Cameron’s precision-technology missiles won’t do any good while he doesn’t know where to point them. His claim that there are 70,000 native people who can be equipped as ground troops against the terrorists neglects to mention they are in 150-250 separate groups who spend most of their time fighting each other, any one of which may become the next terrorist threat. And the plan to spend £178 billion on weapons and ammunition over the next ten years could cost the UK at least £1 trillion in lost economic growth.
Corbyn’s plan – to isolate the terrorists by cutting off their supply of weapons and funds – is much more useful. Couple this with intelligence-led operations to identify the terrorists’ hideouts and eliminate them, and the UK could play a far more useful role than the knee-jerk nonsense Cameron is proposing, which will only perpetuate the terrorist nightmare for decades to come.
Cameron’s own rebels seem to know that. But the only coverage they have received is a few words in The Guardian, it seems:
The whips are hoping for fewer than the 30 rebels who opposed the prime minister in 2013 when he last tried to get a vote on Syria military action through the Commons, although the make-up of the party has changed since then.
[The foreign affairs] committee had earlier this month written a highly sceptical report questioning the justification for joining the bombing campaign.There are thought to be at least 15 who will still not back the government. Some of the sceptics have been particularly questioning Cameron’s claim that there are 70,000 rebel ground troops ready to occupy territory held by Isis. The doubters include former army officer John Baron, Sir Edward Leigh, former cabinet minister Peter Lilley and Julian Lewis, the chairman of the Commons defence committee.
Source: How the parties at Westminster would vote on Syria airstrikes | Politics | The Guardian
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More of Cameron’s lies about 70000 rebels willing to be boots on the ground against ISIS. That is until some of them get captured and are beheaded. So if they are really a cohesive force not fighting each other, what is their motive for fighting fellow Muslims at the behest of the West! Bit stumped with that one.
I have urged my local MP to vote against Cameron. But as he is an ex soldier I am not holding my breath.
There are not 70,000 men or women willing to fight ISIS. Nearly a month ago, 1,000-1200 SFA surrendered and handed their weapons in to the SAA in exchange for an amnesty on their activities. Since then, nearly half the ranks of the FSA have also surrendered and now pledge allegiance to Assad and many are fighting in brigades with Hezbollah and Iranian army regulars. They have also helped Syria’s government by offering information on weapons caches and the whereabouts of al Qaeda, Shabhat al Nusra and various other extremist cells, which has sent many of the European divisions scurrying home across Europe back to Chechnya and Serbia and elsewhere. The remaining FSA each have their own allegiances to various IS kingpins and many end up killing each other.(All’s well, that ends well) so in fact, the remaining terrorist organisations are now “extremist” moderates, in that they still torture, rape and kill moderate Syrians (whether Sunni or Shi’ite) but don’t chop off their heads – they tend to line their captives on their knees and shoot them in the back of the head. This being said, the IS uses the FSA by threatening to torture them if they try to leave, so as the SAA moves into IS held territory, the FSA will and do surrender in the hope of a reprieve. Many of the FSA went into battle with their eyes wide shut and are genuinely sickened by what they have become embroiled in, others not so much. Each time the SAA routs IS held positions, they not only reduce the number of “non-moderate” terrorists, but can usually add to the numbers of those fighting on their side, the rest return to camps behind the lines where they assist with the governments war effort.
Why are the war mongers made out to be in the right? Do the likes of Murdoch stand to make a fortune from Syrian oil deposits?
I hope you are correct in your perception of the Tory members lack of support for Cameron’s warmongering, and it could help Corbyn’s case in organising a much more selective and productive alternative to the terrorist situation. Thanks for the article, it offers a glimmer of hope.
Hear Hear, mohandeer. I echo your thoughts.
Since perpetual war would suit the arms industry very well and enable them to collect even more ‘grants’ than they already have, the rush to big bombing etc does not surprise me at all. The big boys do so love their newest most expensive toys. There again I am old enough to be very cynical indeed!
Well the media want us to got to war it gives them something to report on instead of making stories up.
I can’t comment for the national right-wing media, but I can assure you that when I was working in regional newspapers we never invented stories.