Syrian Rebels.

[pdq1]

Haigh said today we are not given them weapons and goes on to say the UK is supplying them with armoured cars and body armour. What does he think armoured cars are used for? It turns out Arab countries are supplying the guns. Why are British politicians so dishonest and why can't we keep our noses out?

[Gromit]

The Syrian Rebels are Islamists.

The British Government does not support Islamists.

But the British Government does not like the Assad Baathists.

So we support them but pretend we don't.

[sandyRoe]

Could the UK Government be supporting the wrong side? Islamists would like to export revolution, something like the Trotsky faction in the early days of the USSR, while the Assad family would like nothing more than to consolidate their hold on their own country.

[ichkeria]

(Haigh? Wrong war surely!)
Arab nations have been supplying weapons for some time.
Armoured cars technically are "weapons" I suppose but essentially you can't fire them or detonate them so they are less deadly than guns or bombs.

The rebels in Syria are not all islamists as a matter of fact. The war started off essentially as a sectarian one.
We did used to support Assad and did not want to destabilise Syria - however it was Assad who fouled his own patch by engaging in mass murder, precipitating a human catastrophe in the region with an estimated one million displaced persons and hundreds of thousand dead.
He is unsupportable, even if we wanted to follow Marine Le Pen's noble lead and stick up for him against the Islamist menace :-)

[ludwig]

Armoured cars and body armour? I seem to recall our own troops had to make do without those until halfway through the war as well.

It's not that we're pretending not to support them. We've been saying all along Assad should go. It's just a way to give them help without actually helping to kill anyone. Armour is just defensive so saves lives.
That's the thinking behind it anyway.

I don't know why we're getting involved to be honest. If the rebels win I doubt they'll be any friendlier to us or less brutal rulers of their own people than Assad is, so you do wonder what the point is.

[emmie]

whilst listening to Jeremy Bowen on the news he remarked that the rebels are thousands of separate groups, and that if Assad goes this will spark an inter tribal war, if so how can you arm them.. surely humanitarian aid for those caught in the middle would be better than arms to these Islamist disparate fighters.

[honeydip]

How do we actually know it was the syrian government responsible for the early deaths of protesters? We do not know. We only have accounts of what happened from people who were so scared they are not 100% sure what happened or who shot the people stood next to them.
We do know however that there are a lot of terrorists in the Syrian rebels. What do Terrorists do to get what they want? Yes thats right they kill innocent people just like what happened to the early protesters. With a few early shouts of 'the government are shooting us'then civil war has started with the chance of the terrorists gaining control of the country.
The syrian government has claimed all along it was terrorists responsible for the killings.

[anotheoldgit]

Another typical example of our government's obsession with looking after foreigners instead our own folk.

It was announced that they needed to cut the defence budget, Historic regiments disappeared or were amalgamated with other regiments, and some troops were even made redundant almost as soon as they finished their tour of duty in Afghanistan, a war that has cost us £billions, all in the defence of a foreign country.

All this in a bid to save money, then we hand back what we have saved, once again for the benefit of some more foreigners.

[jake-the-peg]

I think Honeydip there have been plenty of well documented murders and massacres on both sides of this conflict.

If you think there are good guys and bad guys in wars it's time to grow up!

and yes armoured cars and body armour is a bit of a fine distinction but then we're past masters of such weasel words - remember our mandate in Lybia to protect civilians? We decided that the way to do that was to bomb one particular side!

[honeydip]

Grow up indeed.

[honeydip]

Also may I just add that just be ause something jhas been well documented doesn't mean it happened. Don't believe me? Read the bible.

[whiskeryron]

// some troops were even made redundant almost as soon as they finished their tour of duty in Afghanistan, a war that has cost us shores, all in the defence of a foreign country.// and now we learn that the T/A will be replacing some troops to police foreign countries. Are we now going to have a ' civilian army' on the cheap ?

[whiskeryron]

Where did shores come from? itwas supposed to be £billions

[pdq1]

///and yes armoured cars and body armour is a bit of a fine distinction but then we're past masters of such weasel words - remember our mandate in Lybia to protect civilians? We decided that the way to do that was to bomb one particular side!///

Couldn't agree more! Who did we think we were fooling in Libya about protecting civilians. The same with Syria. We're more worried about regime change and the Islamic militants who we're supporting are currently on the losing side.

Proxy wars are now the done thing. Just give rebels the means to overthrow governments we don't like. However look what they're replacing them with.

[ichkeria]

We aren't worried about regime change per se.
We are worried about the escalation of a conflict that has so far proved a humanitarian disaster (and could almost certainly have been prevented in its current form if certain non-violent methods had been used earlier but it's too late for that now). Much of the fragmentation of the opposition and attendant bitterness and extremism is born out of a feeling that they've been let down by "the west" although admittedly there was no way that "the west" was going to come to their aid in the way some of them wanted.
From what I can ascertain, the government has identified and backed a main arm of the rebellion and has chosen to support it with diplomatic support and now, hopefully very limited, military aid.
Backing (or at least not working against) Assad, a known war criminal from his earlier actions, was always going to be a sensible option until as I said earlier, he over-reacted appallingly to the initial peaceful (well-documented) protests and insurrection by basically bombing the bejasus out of civilians (no one seriously disputes that) and, critcially, unleashing a tide of sectarian bitterness that has threatened to have the conflict spill over into neighbouring countries.
Wiser people than me have concluded that this is a state of affairs that it would actually be in our interests to restrict as far as possible. The only people arguing against it seem either to be people who support Assad for whatever reason and refuse to believe in his crimes or those who, perhaps because of Iraq and Afghanistan, think that at the very mention of "foreign involvement" we are about to repeat past mistakes. An understandable view perhaps but maybe a short-sighted one. I certainly don't want to see the UK beconig embroiled in this conflict but I believe there are things we can do to help without that happening, and we should do them.

[ludwig]

// remember our mandate in Lybia to protect civilians? We decided that the way to do that was to bomb one particular side //

We'd probably be doing that if Syria didn't have fighter aircraft. Libya had no air force to speak of.

[pdq1]

So you think Icheria governments are worried about civilian causalties. If only that were true. In Iraq over 1,000,000 civilians were killed by the conflict. In Syria the main aim now is regime change and if we get further involved many more civilians will get killed. Its just that the UN doesn't favour that route otherwise we would be entering another full scale war. In todays paper we are sliding towards that with the talk of more arms to follow later.

[ichkeria]

The actual Iraq War didn't produce anything like the casualties its aftermath did. Had those responsible for starting it known what would happen then I doubt they would have embarked upon it. But even the war's fiercest critics didn't predict the mayhem which ensued.
As I tried to make clear before regime change per se, and the limiting of casualties per se, are not the objective. It's trying to stop the conflict spreading. I don;t know if you;ve noticed but an all-out state of war alreadty exists in Syria and has done for some time. The problem is how to help bring it to an end. Otherwise why would anyone bother? There is no reason to support or not support Assad other than based on his actions thus far, and the reasonable calculation that he's dead meat.