Miliband To Claim Refugee Disaster Was Partly Cameron's Fault

[Zacs-Master]

Barrel scraping tactics?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32441968

[Zacs-Master]

Svejk. Agreed. The vote losing fulcrum. Hopefully.

[Khandro]

naomi;// We can keep out of it - but 'it' won't ignore us.//
You are correct, but if we have to fight 'it', we should fight it within the UK,
- unless you want to see even more British 'blood in the sand'.

[bazwillrun]

"How can anyone in their right minds vote for Miliband? He is a joke. "

nevertheless millions oif mugs will.....theres people on here who will...just saying

[naomi24]

Khandro, //if we have to fight 'it', we should fight it within the UK,
- unless you want to see even more British 'blood in the sand'.//

I never wanted to see anyone's blood spilt anywhere. Nevertheless it is spilt and it will continue to be spilt. How do you suggest we fight it from within the UK? Can you think of an effective strategy?

[Svejk]

Do you think we should be arming/training 'rebels' in Syria, Naomi? Because we are.
I know you watched the documentary about persecuted Christians in the M. East. How they pray for Assad. I know it's only one film, one point of view but I've been reading similar tales for years. AFIC, we should keep out or, if we feel we must interfere, support Assad.

[naomi24]

Svejk, I don't know what the answer is. The whole thing is a nightmare. I only know that left to their own devices IS will expand and spread - and I fail to see how we can prevent that from the comfort of good old Blighty, as Khandro suggests.

[Khandro]

naomi; //I fail to see how we can prevent that from the comfort of good old Blighty, as Khandro suggests.//

I didn't suggest we could 'prevent' what is happening in the middle east, from within the UK. I took your comment, //"it" won't ignore us// that radical Islam would (and already has) spread into the UK and Europe.

We should concern ourselves with the prevention of any further escalation at home, by bringing back and strengthening the military, by using additional territorial recruitment, the intelligence services and the police. Many Muslims say they find radicals abhorrent, well let them prove it by reporting anything untoward happening within the community, whether it be in the Mosques on the street or the internet.
What happens abroad in their own mad apocalyptic sectarian battle, we should, as Nigel Farage has wisely said, keep well out of.

[naomi24]

Khandro, //We should concern ourselves with the prevention of any further escalation at home.../

How long for? Forever? And when IS expands into more and more territory, then what? Where does it end?

[Hypognosis]

@Naomi

//How long for? Forever?//

The worst wars are the ones which drag on and on, to no clear conclusion.

Thanks largely to a computer based wargame series, of all things, I have come across snippets from Sun Tzu (ca. 500BC). One quote which really sunk in was that you should not start wars unless you have a reasonable prospect of not just winning but winning quickly.

Obviously, it is bad to be the defeated nation but, at least, losing quickly means minimal pain and casualties. That is provided that the conqueror is chivalrous and/or wants to keep their captives alive, to work the land. This wasn't always the case, of course but victims of atrocities either never saw it coming or, if they did, had no choice but to fight, to the death, anyway.

At the moment, I don't think we would lose (on their ground) but our manpower and resource levels are such that we wouldn't overwhelm them and it would just drag on, for years, as per Iraq & Afghanistan. Also, we would be aiding and abetting a despot (Assad) who a major business client of ours is not well disposed towards.

We certainly can't engage Assad and IS simultaneously, so I think we should stay out of the fight until a stage is reached when both are weakened from fighting each other. Not at all humanitarian of us but there seems to be no good course of action for us and events like this have, presumably, played out through history. The difference is that with modern mass media, we can't avert our eyes or pretend it isn't happening.

Life is being a bit of a ***t sandwich, at the moment.

[Khandro]

Well put Hypo. but re. //aiding and abetting a despot (Assad)// Well, one person's despot isn't necessarily another's - some US Presidents could be viewed as despots, and Assad is not exactly a 'camel-driver'; a London trained eye-surgeon should be someone we could talk to, notwithstanding his wife who was raised and educated in the UK, and graduated from King's College London in 1996 with a bachelor's degree in computer science and French literature.
The person who really understood the whole Syrien/Irak situation was the great Peter Scholl-Latour; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Scholl-Latour who died last year. He can explain why Assad can never surrender, because his army is almost entirely comprised of Alawiten and they would be slaughtered to the last man if he did so.

[naomi24]

Hypognosis, this won’t drag on for years – unless it’s stopped it will drag on forever because for IS there is no compromise. I can see no alternative to all-out war ensuing – sooner or later.

[Hypognosis]

@naomi,

Alternatives… hmmmm. How about we round up a couple of dozen imams, a backpack each, full of the necessary literature and parachute them into IS territory, to preach the RoP to the "J's who say AK", until the violence stops?

Or would that be culturally insensitive? (Twice).