The govt’s reasons for action are available. It is a long document; although page 11 onwards is “Response to Questions in the Foreign Affairs Committee report on “Enabling the House to reach a decision” ” and is effectively an appendix; but much of page 1 is blather, and page 2 begins That is why I believe that we should now take the decision to extend British airstrikes against ISIL [in Iraq] into Syria, so we deduce that there’s one key paragraph on page 1 to read. It is:
We need a comprehensive response which seeks to deal with the threat that ISIL poses to us directly, not just through the measures we are taking at home, but by dealing with ISIL on the ground in the territory that it controls. It is in Raqqa, Syria, that ISIL has its headquarters, and it is from Raqqa that some of the main threats against this country are planned and orchestrated. We must tackle ISIL in Syria, as we are doing in neighbouring Iraq, in order to deal with the threat that ISIL poses to the region and to our security here at home. We have to deny a safe haven for ISIL in Syria. The longer ISIL is allowed to grow in Syria, the greater the threat it will pose. It is wrong for the United Kingdom to sub-contract its security to other countries, and to expect the aircrews of other nations to carry the burdens and the risks of striking ISIL in Syria to stop terrorism here in Britain.
That contains a number of arguments not clearly separated; probably because they’re weaker when clearly and distinctly made.
1. Increase the UK’s security. Arguably a somewhat selfish attitude, but also part of the government’s core responsibility. But the applicability of this argument seems implausible to me; indeed, the reverse seems more likely to be true. The govt’s doc has a longer section on “The Threat from ISIL”, with stuff like We know that ISIL has deadly intent to strike us at home too. In the last 12 months, Britain’s police and Security Services have disrupted no fewer than 7 terrorist plots to attack the UK. All 7 plots were either linked to ISIL, or were inspired by ISIL’s propaganda. Whether you find that “undeniable” evidence of a threat to the UK is perhaps a matter of judgement; mine is that it doesn’t, and that I don’t trust the govt’s judgement.
2. “It is wrong for the United Kingdom to sub-contract its security to other countries” is a two-part argument. The first is the “altruistic” quasi-moral part: we shouldn’t let other people do our fighting for us. And this is true, if we believe the fighting is a good idea; but it doesn’t help decide if said fighting is good. The contrary – we shouldn’t bother, since our military contribution is small and neither here-nor-there – isn’t very believable either; its along the same lines as those who argue that we shouldn’t trouble about our CO2 emissions, because on a global scale they are small. The second, implicit, part is that we shouldn’t undermine other’s efforts by hanging back. But again, that doesn’t help you decide of the efforts are good.
3. What we’re doing in Iraq argues that we should do the same in Syria. But there’s a key difference: in Iraq, we’re acting on behalf of and with the cooperation of an at least nominally friendly government. It seems to be that concentrating any military efforts there would be more fruitful. The previous, notoriously sectarian and incompetent Iraq government, bears a large share of the responsibility for the rise of ISIS; if it hadn’t let so much of Iraq get taken over, ISIS wouldn’t have got its early boost (note: I’m willing to be corrected on the details of that). But we-the-West also bear our share, for propping up such a disastrous government. Having done my best to consider this carefully, it seems likely that the most useful route to removing ISIS begins by fixing Iraq’s government. That’s a long term process, liable to be tedious and difficult, and involve things like supporting and enhancing democracy. And in the short term, doing our little bit to help the US support the Iraqi’s astonishingly incompetent army. The govt says By inflicting brutal attacks against his own people, Assad has in fact acted as one of ISIL’s greatest recruiting sergeants. We therefore need a political transition in Syria to a government that the international community can work with against ISIL, as we already do with the Government of Iraq. However, I can’t see any signs of such a transition actually happening, so that crucial part of the govt’s strategy is broken.
4. “The longer ISIL is allowed to grow in Syria, the greater the threat it will pose”. This is almost believeable. It might be true; or it might not – since any concentration of ISIS is vulnerable to air attack, its hard for them to grow such concentrations.
Arguments against bombing include “the Iraq war was a disaster”. And indeed it was; and you can make a decent case that disaster has lead directly to this one, albeit with many other mistakes along the way. But that argument is something of a logical fallacy, in the way its usually presented; somewhat along the lines of “but you were all predicting an ice age in the 1970’s”. In another way, in that the same kind of people who made the same kind of mistakes will be in charge again, its not a fallacy.
The recent attacks on France are why the French are so hot and why we may get involved; effectively, something so close to home provides motivation. What prevents similar here? Mostly, I’d guess, the difficulty of getting hold of Kalashnikovs. We’re probably not short of nutters; but the nutters are (thankfully) short of guns. This strongly suggests to me that doing more to get rid of the guns would be a good idea. While we’re here, I’ll note that the total death toll on French roads in 2013 was 3250; not-at-all-to-anyone’s-surprise, this hasn’t provoked horror or outrage.
Another argument against bombing might be the cost, if only I knew what it was. This piece says that 7 months in Libya (which I supported) cost ~$380 million; perhaps for the purposes of discussion I could guess that Syria would cost the UK £500 million a year. That’s not large enough to be a convincing argument against (but for comparison, we say we’ve donated £1.1 billion “providing assistance to ease the suffering of the Syrian people”). But I argue that the bomb money would be better spent on helping Syrian refugees in Turkey, and similar matters; not just in terms of bread-not-bombs being better for the world, but in terms of security.
Another item is that govt’s, and the press, and the public, can only focus on a few things at once, with enough pressure to get things done. Pushing so hard on bomb-Syria means other things can’t be pushed.
Not having Russia in Syria deliberately targetting non-ISIS opponents of Assad would help a lot; but I can’t see any way to avoid their presence; Russia as elsewhere is just being malignant.
I don’t like the govt’s degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL, including through Coalition military and wider action because I’m suspicious of the “degrade”. It is such a vague term; used by the US too; it amounts to “well, yes, we blew some things up and killed some bad guys but really we don’t have much of a plan beyond that”.
What would you do, then?
The obvious question, which I’ve partially answered above: help in Iraq, and provide aid. Another element, which I’ve referred to before, would be to end our obsession with border lines drawn on maps many years ago; and to support a Kurdish state.
Another possible question is “what would the people inside Syria like us to do?” I find I have no idea at all what the answer is.
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1NicVH6
The govt’s reasons for action are available. It is a long document; although page 11 onwards is “Response to Questions in the Foreign Affairs Committee report on “Enabling the House to reach a decision” ” and is effectively an appendix; but much of page 1 is blather, and page 2 begins That is why I believe that we should now take the decision to extend British airstrikes against ISIL [in Iraq] into Syria, so we deduce that there’s one key paragraph on page 1 to read. It is:
We need a comprehensive response which seeks to deal with the threat that ISIL poses to us directly, not just through the measures we are taking at home, but by dealing with ISIL on the ground in the territory that it controls. It is in Raqqa, Syria, that ISIL has its headquarters, and it is from Raqqa that some of the main threats against this country are planned and orchestrated. We must tackle ISIL in Syria, as we are doing in neighbouring Iraq, in order to deal with the threat that ISIL poses to the region and to our security here at home. We have to deny a safe haven for ISIL in Syria. The longer ISIL is allowed to grow in Syria, the greater the threat it will pose. It is wrong for the United Kingdom to sub-contract its security to other countries, and to expect the aircrews of other nations to carry the burdens and the risks of striking ISIL in Syria to stop terrorism here in Britain.
That contains a number of arguments not clearly separated; probably because they’re weaker when clearly and distinctly made.
1. Increase the UK’s security. Arguably a somewhat selfish attitude, but also part of the government’s core responsibility. But the applicability of this argument seems implausible to me; indeed, the reverse seems more likely to be true. The govt’s doc has a longer section on “The Threat from ISIL”, with stuff like We know that ISIL has deadly intent to strike us at home too. In the last 12 months, Britain’s police and Security Services have disrupted no fewer than 7 terrorist plots to attack the UK. All 7 plots were either linked to ISIL, or were inspired by ISIL’s propaganda. Whether you find that “undeniable” evidence of a threat to the UK is perhaps a matter of judgement; mine is that it doesn’t, and that I don’t trust the govt’s judgement.
2. “It is wrong for the United Kingdom to sub-contract its security to other countries” is a two-part argument. The first is the “altruistic” quasi-moral part: we shouldn’t let other people do our fighting for us. And this is true, if we believe the fighting is a good idea; but it doesn’t help decide if said fighting is good. The contrary – we shouldn’t bother, since our military contribution is small and neither here-nor-there – isn’t very believable either; its along the same lines as those who argue that we shouldn’t trouble about our CO2 emissions, because on a global scale they are small. The second, implicit, part is that we shouldn’t undermine other’s efforts by hanging back. But again, that doesn’t help you decide of the efforts are good.
3. What we’re doing in Iraq argues that we should do the same in Syria. But there’s a key difference: in Iraq, we’re acting on behalf of and with the cooperation of an at least nominally friendly government. It seems to be that concentrating any military efforts there would be more fruitful. The previous, notoriously sectarian and incompetent Iraq government, bears a large share of the responsibility for the rise of ISIS; if it hadn’t let so much of Iraq get taken over, ISIS wouldn’t have got its early boost (note: I’m willing to be corrected on the details of that). But we-the-West also bear our share, for propping up such a disastrous government. Having done my best to consider this carefully, it seems likely that the most useful route to removing ISIS begins by fixing Iraq’s government. That’s a long term process, liable to be tedious and difficult, and involve things like supporting and enhancing democracy. And in the short term, doing our little bit to help the US support the Iraqi’s astonishingly incompetent army. The govt says By inflicting brutal attacks against his own people, Assad has in fact acted as one of ISIL’s greatest recruiting sergeants. We therefore need a political transition in Syria to a government that the international community can work with against ISIL, as we already do with the Government of Iraq. However, I can’t see any signs of such a transition actually happening, so that crucial part of the govt’s strategy is broken.
4. “The longer ISIL is allowed to grow in Syria, the greater the threat it will pose”. This is almost believeable. It might be true; or it might not – since any concentration of ISIS is vulnerable to air attack, its hard for them to grow such concentrations.
Arguments against bombing include “the Iraq war was a disaster”. And indeed it was; and you can make a decent case that disaster has lead directly to this one, albeit with many other mistakes along the way. But that argument is something of a logical fallacy, in the way its usually presented; somewhat along the lines of “but you were all predicting an ice age in the 1970’s”. In another way, in that the same kind of people who made the same kind of mistakes will be in charge again, its not a fallacy.
The recent attacks on France are why the French are so hot and why we may get involved; effectively, something so close to home provides motivation. What prevents similar here? Mostly, I’d guess, the difficulty of getting hold of Kalashnikovs. We’re probably not short of nutters; but the nutters are (thankfully) short of guns. This strongly suggests to me that doing more to get rid of the guns would be a good idea. While we’re here, I’ll note that the total death toll on French roads in 2013 was 3250; not-at-all-to-anyone’s-surprise, this hasn’t provoked horror or outrage.
Another argument against bombing might be the cost, if only I knew what it was. This piece says that 7 months in Libya (which I supported) cost ~$380 million; perhaps for the purposes of discussion I could guess that Syria would cost the UK £500 million a year. That’s not large enough to be a convincing argument against (but for comparison, we say we’ve donated £1.1 billion “providing assistance to ease the suffering of the Syrian people”). But I argue that the bomb money would be better spent on helping Syrian refugees in Turkey, and similar matters; not just in terms of bread-not-bombs being better for the world, but in terms of security.
Another item is that govt’s, and the press, and the public, can only focus on a few things at once, with enough pressure to get things done. Pushing so hard on bomb-Syria means other things can’t be pushed.
Not having Russia in Syria deliberately targetting non-ISIS opponents of Assad would help a lot; but I can’t see any way to avoid their presence; Russia as elsewhere is just being malignant.
I don’t like the govt’s degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL, including through Coalition military and wider action because I’m suspicious of the “degrade”. It is such a vague term; used by the US too; it amounts to “well, yes, we blew some things up and killed some bad guys but really we don’t have much of a plan beyond that”.
What would you do, then?
The obvious question, which I’ve partially answered above: help in Iraq, and provide aid. Another element, which I’ve referred to before, would be to end our obsession with border lines drawn on maps many years ago; and to support a Kurdish state.
Another possible question is “what would the people inside Syria like us to do?” I find I have no idea at all what the answer is.
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1NicVH6
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