BS: Corbyn, Labour and ISIS

Subject: RE: BS: Corbyn, Labour and ISIS
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Dec 15 - 04:00 AM

It gets better.

I might just nominate it for Private Eye's "Pseuds Corner"

Subject: RE: BS: Corbyn, Labour and ISIS
From: akenaton
Date: 01 Dec 15 - 03:48 AM

The notion that Putin is more interested in supporting Assad than destroying ISIS is laughable.

After Isis has been pushed back or hopefully eliminated, Assad will be re-elected with a huge majority.
Russia is arguably the prime target for Islamic terrorism and no nonsense Putin is the man to deal with it......unconstrained by "liberal" niceties.


If we have sense we will give up our cold war posture and assist....that can open many doors to many other types of co-operation......Power has shifted in the last ten years, time to realise it.

Subject: RE: BS: Corbyn, Labour and ISIS
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 01 Dec 15 - 03:34 AM

So a couple of years ago, Cameron asked parliament for support in kicking Assad out. Now he wants support for kicking opposition to Assad. (Throwing in with Russia is tantamount to exactly that.)

No wonder those politicians who think before they vote are between a rock and a hard place. Military intelligence cannot be trusted to help form a view and the only certainty is that this isn't a leadership cult. You can kill every leader and cell in ISIS and it will take all of a couple of years to get them replaced by the ideology that you can't fight with toy soldiers. In fact, bombing them merely acts as a recruiting sergeant for the next lot. Plenty of fertile hiring fairs around too, after the West's interference to date in Middle East and Africa.

Me? I'd turn the tap off to Saudi Arabia. We speak of the intelligence they give us to help crush extremists but ignore their promotion of the cancer it is spawned from.

They use their right and left hands for different purposes if you hadn't noticed.

Subject: RE: BS: Corbyn, Labour and ISIS
From: Teribus
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 07:41 PM

Gnome's magic wand suggestions are no solution at all:

1: Help Turkey close it's borders to ISIS volunteers

Any indication at all from Erdogan that they want the border closed? NO
Turkey joined the coalition against IS and then promptly started bombing Kurdish Peshmerga positions.
Turkey is one of IS's main customers for their smuggled oil.

2: "Stop the supply of arms to ISIS"

With what they have taken from Iraqi and Syrian Army arsenals I do not think IS at the moment have any weapons supply problems.

3: Help cut the funding that ISIS are getting

IS are considered to be the richest terrorist group in the world, the territory they hold generates income for them so the only real way to cut their funding is to shift them out of the territory that they control. Their major source of income was from oil but airstrikes on oil related targets have significantly reduced this stream of income.
Support moderates in the area - so much for bombing having been proven a failure.

4: Support moderates in the area

Easier said than done - the time to have done this was months ago but Parliament rejected the idea. Whatever happens now will be too little, too late. The Kurds will be helped but they will only clear IS from Kurdish areas apart from in Iraq where they might try to regain control of Mosul.

When action against IS with the US supplying advisers and air power Obama stated quite clearly that it would take time - putting boots on the ground in any significant numbers will be counterproductive - better the Arabs do this moderately well than us going in and doing it perfectly (To paraphrase T.E.Lawrence)

Only real game in town is to back Putin and Assad, the refugees we've got until something happens to Assad, they won't be going back home while that man is in power.

Subject: RE: BS: Corbyn, Labour and ISIS
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 07:00 PM

If it looks like a troll and writes like a troll - you should ignore it.

Subject: RE: BS: Corbyn, Labour and ISIS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 05:30 PM

No, guest of 0515, you are totally wrong. Series after series of Islamic scholars have lined up to explain why Daesh are unislamic and your assertions about the Koran are wrong.

I am worried however that Akenhateon agrees with me. I may have to reconsider.

The situation about a "free vote" seems to be confused. I last heard anything pretty directly from the House of Commons at about 1400 UK time and it is now 2230. Even then statements from Labour party spokespeople were inconsistent. I think the situation then was that Labour shadow cabinet members were freed from ministerial responsibility so they could speak in favour of bombing, and even vote in favour of it, without being thereby obliged to resign or be sacked from the shadow cabinet. They and all other Labour MPs were still however under a 3-line whip to vote against bombing.

The consequence of failure to observe ministerial responsibility is loss of the ministerial post (and if one is in government the extra salary that goes with it).

I ought perhaps to re-check but I think the only consequence of defying a 3 - line whip may be that the whip may be withdrawn. This does not require the MP to take the Chiltern Hundreds (resign as MP) but would normally mean that the MP could not at the next election stand as representative of the party whose whip he or she defied - so possibly losing their seat.

If anybody has accurate and definite more up-to-date news it would be appreciated.

Subject: RE: BS: Corbyn, Labour and ISIS
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 05:15 PM

one that has the fundamental tenets of Islam badly wrong

ISIS, in fact, apply the teachings of the Quran and the Hadiths, as codified in Islamic jurisprudence to the letter (which is, of course, the problem). Arguing that ISIS isn't "Islamic" in a normative sense is false and misleading.

Subject: RE: BS: Corbyn, Labour and ISIS
From: GUEST,achmelvich
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 04:59 PM

grand coalition - like the united nations.

Subject: RE: BS: Corbyn, Labour and ISIS
From: akenaton
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 04:53 PM

"where the individual MPs can vote with their conscience rather that their party".........Shurely shome mishtake Ed.   this is the Labour Party you are talking about, some of the people who took us into Iraq are still there.
The whole thing is a shambles, a recipe for disaster, there is already to many countries bombing without proper co- operation.

We should support Putin and Assad, I agree with Richard.
A Grand Coalition is required.

The US government are still demanding that Assad must go.....who do they think they are?   Democrats?

Subject: RE: BS: Corbyn, Labour and ISIS
From: DMcG
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 04:42 PM

To quote Kipling on your land idea (though it was gold in his poem):


It is always a temptation
To a rich and lazy nation
To puff and look important and to say
Though we know we should defeat you
We have not the time to meet you
We will therefore give you cash to go away.

"And that is called 'Paying the Dane-geld',
But we've proved it again and again
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane"


No, I'm afraid the historical precedents for that approach are not good either. As you say. Hellova puzzle.

Subject: RE: BS: Corbyn, Labour and ISIS
From: GUEST,#
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 04:06 PM

'So history teaches that a military "solution" will fail.'

What history teaches is that this type of military solution fails. Unless allied countries are prepared to send soldiers who in turn are told to take no prisoners and willing to carry out that order, the second way is diplomacy of a less violent nature. That will likely fail unless some country is prepared to offer up a pile of land for the Daesh fighters to live in. The third option is to ignore them and I doubt that will work because they hate being ignored. Helluva puzzle.

Subject: RE: BS: Corbyn, Labour and ISIS
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 03:52 PM

Help Turkey close it's borders to ISIS volunteers
Stop the supply of arms to ISIS
Help cut the funding that ISIS are getting
Support moderates in the area.

Bombing has been a proven failure which cannot target the right people and only creates more radicalisation where it has happened.

All that being said, I think a free vote for all parties, where the individual MPs can vote with their conscience rather that their party, is the right way to go in the circumstances.

Subject: RE: BS: Corbyn, Labour and ISIS
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 03:19 PM

Possible solution - errect the biggest sound system ever assembled and blast the daeshos with recordings of Bob Davenport - I guarantee surrender within 24 hours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Corbyn, Labour and ISIS
From: DMcG
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 03:07 PM

As was I. But I admit to having to spend a long time thinking about it, since it seemed to be about picking the least bad out of awful alternatives

Subject: RE: BS: Corbyn, Labour and ISIS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 03:02 PM

I was one of the 75% who responded to the survey against bombing.

Subject: RE: BS: Corbyn, Labour and ISIS
From: GUEST,achmelvich
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 02:48 PM

i read the other day that bombing would be like - imagine there is a mass brawl in the car park of a pub while 12 people who don't like each other throw in huge fireworks in an attempt to calm the situation down.

however, in syria -a large circle of UN troops should surround the conflict area. just behind them are nurses, doctors, therapists, musicians, artists, cooks and teachers with the engineers and builders etc. and no priests or politicians

Subject: RE: BS: Corbyn, Labour and ISIS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 02:36 PM

It's a problem. It seems to me that a self-declared theocracy (and, worse, one that has the fundamental tenets of Islam badly wrong) is a bigger danger to the world than the entrenchment of a Russian client state in the Middle East, so on balance I'd favour working with Putin to remove Daesh, even if that also removes other opposition to Assad.

To my mind the problem is how to achieve that goal. Raining bombs did not work in Vietnam. Boots on the ground and the creation of an even more failed state area has gone badly wrong in Afghanistan Iraq and Libya.

So history teaches that a military "solution" will fail.

Is the best bet to keep pumping fleshly propaganda for a secular (and better still atheistic) political model in the best forms to reach the smartphones that now seem universal?

Subject: BS: Corbyn, Labour and ISIS
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Nov 15 - 02:28 PM

I have to say that I really don't know what to think.

I can see it from both sides in some ways. Whilst I disagreed with a great deal of what he said, I wish Fred McCormick was here...