Ubik
Nothing happens until something moves!
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2010
- Messages
- 19,133
Yeah sorry. Came across like I was arguing with you, and I actually wasn't trying to![]()

Yeah sorry. Came across like I was arguing with you, and I actually wasn't trying to![]()
Nah, this doesn't really wash. People who vote for inaction aren't responsible for costing lives; the people who take those lives (ie the terrorists we're fighting) are responsible. To suggest otherwise, and blame people who support inaction, is a deflective tactic. If people feel the cost of life that bombing will bring is necessary to sort out the problem, then fair enough, but the idea that those who don't support these airstrikes have some level of responsibility over the loss of lives is absolute shite.
In fact they have exactly the same amount of responsibility for lives lost through inaction as those who advocate action.That is why it is a choice, and you can make either one but you can't pretend you didn't make one.
The road to hell versus all it takes for evil to succeed.
No, they don't. The people who have responsibility for deaths in conflict are those who kill people. Not those who don't.
I like Andrew Neil's insistence on calling Cameron "Call Me Dave"
And could Corbyn's brother be any different to him? What an episode this weekAnd the Gordon Brown Websphere![]()
I don't think any war is ever a clean job and as for the WMD once the evidence was put forward that they weren't there I believed it.
So you admit you were misled. So why are you quick to choose to believe the very same elements that are encouraging us to go to war again?
I didn't say I believed there were WMD.....I didn't know one way or the other until it was proved there weren't.
I didn't say I believed there were WMD.....I didn't know one way or the other until it was proved there weren't.
Obviously it is not an exact science when it comes to counting bodies during a military campaign so that's why the figure is a nice round 23,000 and why caution has been expressed. And "purely anecdotal" was never said. Personally I am encouraged that the 23,000 figure includes 3,000 since October and hopefully the figure will continue to grow. I am also encouraged by the positives in that article that will be drawn from intelligence sources and drone footage.
Warren cautioned that evidence of Islamic State manpower shortages was largely anecdotal.
He's such an odious prick. Love seeing him seethe.Farage is pissed off on Twitter, for anyone who wants some amusement.![]()
I loved the "veteran of 30 by-elections" - looooser!He's such an odious prick. Love seeing him seethe.
Jim sounds like he's going to be an excellent MP, seems exactly the kind of person you'd want as your representative.
He's such an odious prick. Love seeing him seethe.
Jim sounds like he's going to be an excellent MP, seems exactly the kind of person you'd want as your representative.
Had the result given you any optimism for Labour going forward?The most ridiculous thing is, even if every postal vote was for Labour, take them away and they'd still have won by 3k+. Would love to set Hilary Benn on Farage.
Indeed, Jim is a fellow Liz voterHad the result given you any optimism for Labour going forward?
If only the people that always voted for inaction would accept that their decisions cost lives, too. They never do, so understandably those who are trying to do something about it get irked when the self-anointed moral arbiters of twitter start grandstanding.
Because its a bullshit argument that counts no cost for inaction. I'm against the decision but I am not saying everyone who differs is some kind of immoral butcher because that really would be childlike reasoning.
Because comments like "blood on your hands" isn't healthy debate, or really in any way related to the actual choice being made. People that voted for the action clearly believed that doing so would save lives and prevent people being tortured, kidnapped and raped, each of which Da'esh would undertake with abandon were they not checked. I genuinely dread to think how hard it is to make a decision where your vote directly affects whether action is taken to stop that kind of thing, knowing full well civilians may be at risk. It's like being given a button where you know if each time you pressed it, there'd a high chance of saving hundreds of lives, but also a small risk of taking some innocent lives at the same time. Millennia of philosophical debate haven't given us a foolproof ethical solution to such a thought, so I'd say to reduce the debate to facile "bloody hands" pointscoring is deeply beneath the issue. You could say MPs should be thicker skinned, yeah maybe, but I'd certainly not begrudge them being able to call anyone making the argument tosspots.Voting no wasn't necessarily a vote for inaction...the main argument against was that no one had been given any detail or argument as to how or why air strikes would actually be effective, or what exactly the plan is in the longer term. If I was going to vote to bomb another country it certainly wouldn't be in a circumstance where absolutely no plan at all had been presented to demonstrate the bombing would do more good than harm. When even the Prime Minister has to resort to imature, half witted slander tactics rather than put across a constructive argument, I doubt I'd be persuaded. "No" can mean "come up with something better first" rather than just plain no.
In anycase, if you're voting on a matter that could cost lives, either way you should have enough conviction in your belief/decision not to start crying like a baby because people get angry about it. Are Labour MPs just going to start whining now every time they make a diffiicult/unpopular decision and some angry people turn up on twitter? Is anything anyone's said even any worse than Cameron's "terrorist sympathiser" comment?
If you don't like accepting the consequences of making decisions, being an MP isn't a particularly well suited career choice.
You can't vote to drop bombs and expect some people not to be angry with you about it...even if it's a completely clear cut situation (which this isn't). It's part of the job of representing a country of people...you have to be prepared to accept that difficult decisions will anger people, and be prepared to stand by your decision to those people. If you can't do that you're not fit to be making such decisions in the first place. I don't envy people having to make such decisions, but the fact is if you vote to carry out air strikes, you should be ready to take the part of the responsibility that comes with that, because you should actually believe it's the right thing to do. The crying and whining suggests MPs are happy to make decisions but don't want the responsibility that comes with them.
All a fair number of this Labour lot have done since Corbyn came in though, is whine and bitch about having to do their jobs. It's embarassing. They've shown themselves up as a party riddled with childish idiots.
And again, it's somewhat pointless crying about people attacking the morality of MPs based on their vote, when the Prime Minister himself already claimed anyone who voted no would be a "terrorist sympathiser" ...Cameron brought the childlike reasoning wand into the debate, waving it around like a complete fecking idiot, and now MPs are complaining because twitter got it's hands on the wand. Give me a break
I've wrestled with this one quite a lot of late. I was against action then on the grounds of uncertainty as to who would be the beneficiaries in the long run. I look now at the death toll rising above 300,000, the displaced in the millions and quite literally dying to reach safety, and wonder whether we could have lowered those figures. The counter-case of Libya can be given with good reason, but I similarly wonder what would've happened to those in Benghazi had the no-fly zone not been put in place. I also found it deeply annoying during the debate when people used that vote in 2013 to bring up the argument of "we're now voting to bomb his enemy", which is at the very least a wilful distortion of the facts.The war has been raging for nearly five years now, with the last Commons vote in 2013, so it is in my opinion quite unacceptable for either side of the chamber to be advocating no plan at all or one of such limited scope. We've attempted to keep the conflict at arm's reach due to the uncertainty of the situation and past mistakes, and whilst understandable the policy has cost many lives. The Corbyns and Stop The Wars of his world care more for the blood that might appear on their own hands, than taking actions to prevent less on the ground.
At least Cameron is focusing on Islamic State in this instance, the inadequacies of the plan carried far greater risks when Assad alone was the target (which why he couldn't even convince his own party two years back).
I've wrestled with this one quite a lot of late. I was against action then on the grounds of uncertainty as to who would be the beneficiaries in the long run. I look now at the death toll rising above 300,000, the displaced in the millions and quite literally dying to reach safety, and wonder whether we could have lowered those figures. The counter-case of Libya can be given with good reason, but I similarly wonder what would've happened to those in Benghazi had the no-fly zone not been put in place. I also found it deeply annoying during the debate when people used that vote in 2013 to bring up the argument of "we're now voting to bomb his enemy", which is at the very least a wilful distortion of the facts.
What even with all the bombs the Yanks have been dropping? Good thing our 8 jets are going to join the fight. That should stop them
IS will be stopped when there is a settlement to the Syrian civil war. They won't survive a united Syrian people. In the meantime we police internaly to stop any attacks within Britain
I totally agree we should continue policing internally to stop attacks here.
I disagree that we should abandon the people of Syria until there is a settlement in the civil war. Those very people are being tortured, raped, burnt alive, crucified, buried alive every single day and for us and the other 12 countries in the coalition to stand aside and simply wait is completely wrong. Can you imagine how quickly ISIL will spread across the region if unchecked? There must be a continued military, diplomatic and humanitarian course of action action to achieve the coalition aim to unite Syria under a moderate leader.
not sure whyNigel Farage is raging.
not sure why
even if all the postal votes were not included they still would have lost
I agree that postal voting does not seem the best solution and personally Id favour some online system.
He has a conference at 10 - wonder if he will wind his neck in a bit by then or if he still calls the result "bent"
Are you for UK ground troops being deployed out of interest?
Various Syrian groups have been saying our bombing isn't enough, will give greater cause to terrorists and bemoaning our unwillingness to actually take the necessary action with ground forces.
There's a lot of talk about the responsibility of inaction in the last few pages so presumably all those posters believe by not going in on the ground that we're responsible for the further lives lost?
I can't quite make sense of the half measure here that people half come to peace with.
Which story - the army saying don't use a precise figure as people will only remember the figure and hold you to it?
I can see the issues of having non Muslim troops on the ground so no, I'd be against our troops being sent in. Bombing is only part of the solution.
See I don't understand your viewpoint here. There's well discussed issues with bombing too, does the moral imperative to aid those in danger evaporate because we'd then be putting our troops at risk?
If Assad gave us permission would you be okay to go in on the ground?
IMO the bombing is part of the process to weaken the enemy and ultimately reach the goal of helping those in danger. To simply parachute our troops into the area without bombing ISIL would be to the advantage of those who are well used to fighting in those conditions and lengthen even further the conflict.
Not sure we would take much notice of such an Assad invitation.
This war cannot be won with bombing alone and will require coordination with ground troops. Currently the only coherent ground troops right now are regime soldiers, bolstered by Hezbollah and some Kurdish militias.
Who are we supposed to coordinate with? Cameron's phantom militants on the ground are made up of Islamists, some including Al Nusra and other AQ elements who are more interested in fighting Assad and themselves in instead of ISIS, that's if they mostly exist and assuming that even a fraction of them are interested in working with us.
So how are we to succeed without any coherent ground forces to coordinate with?