Jeremy Corbyn - Not Not Labour Party(?), not a Communist (BBC)

sun_tzu said:
All valid points - I dont know about the rest of you though but if was driving down the road and I saw somebody beheading a guy or raping a child I personally wouldn't drive on by - I probably wouldn't think of too many of the consequences either - I'd just do whatever I could to stop it
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That's a weak analogy. This isn't a humanitarian thing at all, it's just wargames.
 
Ubik said:
Didn't Cameron pledge £1bn towards that? Aren't we also already supporting refugee camps? One of Cameron's least popular and most pilloried policies is the 0.7% foreign aid budget, so I think attacking him on that is shaky ground.
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Use the money to increase that budget, then. It'll do more good that blowing people up.
 
Kaos said:
I meant in Syria, and as I mentioned above, helping secure the Syrian Kurdish onslaught in the North means you essentially block out ISIS's passage into Syria from Turkey.
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In that case, wouldn't air support be a good thing? Do we know that this is off the table?
 
Given Corbyn's mealy-mouthed contributions to the debate, he is no position to preach to anyone. The man wouldn't lift a finger even if the Government had put forward a more sustainable proposal, whether it be to attack those who have killed British dozens of British nationals, or help stabilise the bloody mess that Syria has become since 2011.
 
Ubik said:
In that case, wouldn't air support be a good thing? Do we know that this is off the table?
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Its off the table because the Turks are bombing the Kurds who are fighting ISIS, and Cameron isn't about to step on his Ottoman friends' toes.
 
sun_tzu said:
All valid points - I dont know about the rest of you though but if was driving down the road and I saw somebody beheading a guy or raping a child I personally wouldn't drive on by - I probably wouldn't think of too many of the consequences either - I'd just do whatever I could to stop it

Given that we have a lot of cruise missiles and drones / planes that can deliver firepower with a reasonable amount of accuracy then you know what I think we either do something (and accept it probably wont be perfect and live with that on our conscience) or we do nothing (and accept that these people will carry on and there will be more beheadings and rapes and we live with that on our conscience)

Take your pick from two less than perfect scenarios but personally I'd rather regret something I had done than not doing something.
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But we'll be doing little to stop the flow of the barbarians you want to stop. We'll, at best, stop them for brief periods in very small numbers. Cameron will continue being all pally with the Saudis and Turks who are doing everything they to make sure the civil war continues.
 
sun_tzu said:
well that depends if you count assad using chemical weapons / barrel bombs against civilians as extreme?
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Of course it is (if true), there are no good guys in this conflict. But given the choice between a secular dictator or a bunch of doomsday cultists who regard everyone outside of their sect as heretics flagged for death, I know which choice I'd be inclined towards. Unfortunately Cameron doesn't share those sentiments.
 
Kaos said:
Of course it is (if true), there are no good guys in this conflict. But given the choice between a secular dictator or a bunch of doomsday cultists who regard everyone outside of their sect as heretics flagged for death, I know which choice I'd be inclined towards. Unfortunately Cameron doesn't share those sentiments.
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Is Assad not is the cause of all this? If he weren't such a flagrant war criminal all the foreign powers could unite behind the remnants of the Syrian government and do whatever was needed in the region with a proper legal and moral basis. Isis is a symptom but Assad is the root cause.
 
bishblaize said:
Is Assad not is the cause of all this? If he weren't such a flagrant war criminal all the foreign powers could unite behind the remnants of the Syrian government and do whatever was needed in the region with a proper legal and moral basis. Isis is a symptom but Assad is the root cause.
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The US and her allies have been trying to force regime change in Syria for almost a decade. This has nothing to do with humanitarian ethics - the Saudis are comitting atrocities in Yemen as we speak and yet they've been awarded a $2billion arms contract, the difference is which side you bat for and Assad just happens to be on the wrong side.
 
Kaos said:
Comrade Corbyn's buddy is pretty much the only major power thats refusing to ally themselves with extremists in the region.
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Out of pragmatism, not principle. The Assad regime is a long-standing ally who buys their arms and provides them with a base. So not really refusal, more the most pragmatic course for Russia to take (although in this case it might be the lesser evil anyway). As for Corbyn, he comes from a long line of British middle-class useful idiots.
 
MoskvaRed said:
Out of pragmatism, not principle. The Assad regime is a long-standing ally who buys their arms and provides them with a base. So not really refusal, more the most pragmatic course for Russia to take (although in this case it might be the lesser evil anyway). As for Corbyn, he comes from a long line of British middle-class useful idiots.
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Of course its all pragmatism, as is the case with all other major nations. I'd be concerned if Cameron was allying himself with Jabat Al Nusra out of principle.
 
Kaos said:
Of course its all pragmatism, as is the case with all other major nations. I'd be concerned if Cameron was allying himself with Jabat Al Nusra out of principle.
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Agreed. My point was that Corbyn does not do so. He acts from instinctive, ideological anti-Western feeling rather than by reference to the particular circumstances of the situation.
 
Kaos said:
The US and her allies have been trying to force regime change in Syria for almost a decade. This has nothing to do with humanitarian ethics - the Saudis are comitting atrocities in Yemen as we speak and yet they've been awarded a $2billion arms contract, the difference is which side you bat for and Assad just happens to be on the wrong side.
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To imagine that Saudi Arabia and Syria can be seen as equivalent problems ignores the realities of global politics. But thats another argument altogether.
 
Adebesi said:
Surely "the realities of global politics" is a phrase that you can churn out to justify anything. The realities of global politics is precisely the problem.
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As is all political non-speech.

Orwell said:
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question−begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine−gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.
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Anyone else just get an email from the Corbster regarding a Syria "consultation"? Given he's made up his mind already, not sure what the consultation is entirely for. Okay, I lie, it's obviously to make rebels look bad.

Ironically I'm not even a member any more, but I shall respond with some choice views...
 
Ubik said:
Anyone else just get an email from the Corbster regarding a Syria "consultation"? Given he's made up his mind already, not sure what the consultation is entirely for. Okay, I lie, it's obviously to make rebels look bad.

Ironically I'm not even a member any more, but I shall respond with some choice views...
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Yeh I did too, as above.
 
Ubik said:
Anyone else just get an email from the Corbster regarding a Syria "consultation"? Given he's made up his mind already, not sure what the consultation is entirely for. Okay, I lie, it's obviously to make rebels look bad.

Ironically I'm not even a member any more, but I shall respond with some choice views...
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Yep. It's a tactic. Just as *some* of the rebels are more interested in using Syria as a tactic to reinforce the division between the PLP and Corbyn rather than thinking seriously about the consequences in Syria.
 
Ubik said:
Anyone else just get an email from the Corbster regarding a Syria "consultation"? Given he's made up his mind already, not sure what the consultation is entirely for. Okay, I lie, it's obviously to make rebels look bad.

Ironically I'm not even a member any more, but I shall respond with some choice views...
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Yup same email
I quoted Mao at him
War can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun
 
sun_tzu said:
Yup same email
I quoted Mao at him
War can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun
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:lol:

I should probably make the effort to reply. I spend enough time in this bloody thread.
 
Desperate times call for desperate measures! Barmy way to come to a fecking decision.
 
http://www.theguardian.com/politics...deline-this-matter-of-utmost-importance-syria
One present at the shadow cabinet meeting on Thursday says: “Yes, there was a spat between Diane Abbott and Lucy Powell, and Diane should not have mimicked Lucy’s accent, but overall there was a very serious discussion and it was completely clear that a majority are in favour of airstrikes. At the moment there are four against and a similar number undecided.”
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The feck is Diane Abbott doing in the shadow cabinet :lol:
 
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