Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Tanker.

Not in the way you probably mean.

Since being a student in the 1950s and 1960s and wandering around a small part of Europe have always thought of myself as a European and Internationalist, although remaining a Welshman on rugby international days.

I married a slave who turned out to be a Slav and had small exposure to communist regimes through her family and Hungarian and Polish friends as students.

This left "awareness" of"totalitarian" regimes and the abuses of "authority" by them and some so called "democratic" governments which distort public opinion in order to keep them in position.

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I am not sure what the action should be in Syria, but do detest the hypocrisy which is being spouted by Cameron.

There is a responsibility to interfering militarily in Syria and that includes removal of Assad and his cronies and them protection of the people from the abuse by various extreme parties.

That will be expensive in cash and lives.

where's the hypocrisy?
at least you're honest in one part .... "I am not sure what the action should be in Syria" ..... in common with myself and i suspect many others

its simple let them sort it out its not our problem protecting the uk people is
when you have the two biggest powers like china and Russia on Syria side leave well alone

fred at least you are honest and reading your posts not stupid

commons live Cameron sniggering on a issue as serious as war

Cynic,

Listen to Camorone's speech.

That is the hypocrisy.

The aim is regime change.

(There maybe a hope that stock of chemical weapons will be reduced, but USA,, Russia, China, Britain still have their supplies, as many other countries also have.)

I would like to see the departure of ASSAD as much as I wished the removal of his father.

But an honest discussion of how to do so would be more honest and appropriate.

hmm .... but it seems to me that you want a regime change too!!

of course, one is then reminded of the fable of the frog king, with which i am sure you are well acquainted, for there is an inevitable and considerable danger that the new boys will be at least as bad if not worse than the old ..... have a look at which nasties are allied to "the rebels"

Lord Goldsmith was on Sky News this morning talking about the legal issues involved. From what he said, it is clear that any action taken by the USA & Britain must be done on the basis that it is done to avert another humanitarian disaster and not to facilitate a regime change.

Spot the difference other than in the wording used for justification

Having just watched SKY news It looks like Camoron could lose the vote tonight.


Looks like its ALL ON the Lib Dems and a lot are coming out saying they will vote against the government.

Should be very intereting tonight.

If Camoron loses this vote hes had it. All out war with the lib dems up to the election.

Cynic.

(Regime change and rebel nasties)

That is what I fear maybe the outcome.

I watched the development of this "civil war" and part of me hoped that there would have been more support for the rebels and military intervention before Assad had time to reorganise and distribute his "defences".

Also, attempts to strangle him financially would have been useful, but Russia's and China's would have thwarted this. The latter may have more interests in the M.E. than is apparent, especially long term. (Maybe it is misplaying its cards.)


I thought it might have blunted Assad preparedness to hang on to power at any cost.

I understand "some" of the problems of intervention and wondered what the costs would have been in lives and cash and who foot the bills.

Some of which has been due for mishandling and naivety of ME politics by the West.
(Treating, them as children, rather than delinquents.)

This is one reason I think there should be a revision of the UN or at least a movement to change is the ability to veto proposals of certain members including Britain and giving it a form of policing authority, as well as the responsibility it presently has.

fred - just to pick up on bits of your post .....
military intervention - by whom and on what grounds?
Russia and China - lots and lots of ulterior motive and zero other!
delinquents - and what do you do with delinquents? you give them a "spanking" ..... and the consequences of doing so internationally?
should be a revision of the UN - i don't disagree but as i wrtote yesterday, that is just a pipedream of a pipedream

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does it matter if cameron loses tonight's vote?
not really, but for sure i would like to have seen a free vote, which clearly this is not

would a "no vote" in the commons send out any serious message to assad?
no, but then nor would a "yes vote"

will there be some sort of strike against syria?
must be odds-on though not quite a racing certainty

will it make any difference?
pretty doubtful as it is likely to be little more than symbolic, notwithstanding that it will be targetted specifically

will russia or china do anything?
no; the pair of them will just rattle their sabres a bit for domestic consumption

This all the result of the international community doing too little and too late. The same happened in Kosovo, Lybia etc.

do you mean labia or libya?

Which do you prefer and why?

It is an alternate spelling and also Leebia.

We, using the 'royal we', as a country seem to spend £millions on foreign aid and £millions trying to 'save' other countries. Why? As a taxpayer I give contributions to various charities in this country that I think are worthwhile, as I'm sure most of the posters on this bulletin board do, but I really object to the fact that our politicians take it upon themselves to pump vast amounts of taxpayer's money into trying to sort out other countries problems - for whatever reason. A few more scud missiles here and there and another few more £millions down the pan in Syria and what will that achieve?

Doods,

The essence is when you say 'our politicians take it upon themselves'.

Politicians are democratically elected to represent the wishes of the electorate in both local and national issues. I wouldn't mind too much about Syrian military intervention if the majority of the electorate wanted it, but every survey I've seen suggests that 75% of the people in this country don't want military intervention. So why is the government so hell bent on intervention? They shouldn't be taking matters like this upon themselves when the public clearly aren't interested in what happens in Syria.

Compare that, on the other hand, to the issue of an EU membership referendum which the majority of the great British public do want, but which won't happen before 2017 (if at all), and it's no wonder people are pissed off with the fat slimeball who is PM. He's getting it right on the economy imo, but he really is screwing up unnecessarily on so many other things.

If or when you ever find a person to lead the country who does actually respect the wishes of the majority of the people, then he'll stay in office for a very long time.

.

i hope some of you watched john simpson on the box at about 19:00 ..... here was someone intelligent and non-partisan who had something sensible to say

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separately .....
should a politician only reflect the majority view of those who bothered to vote?

is the average member of the public remotely capable of thinking beyond what's on television tonight and should he have a pizza or macdonalds for dinner (sorry - tea)?

The general public are mostly wrong about a whole range of issues and can be ignored for the most part. The alternative is that we would have capital punishment. In fact we would probably have public executions being shown on TV (after the watershed).