In response to an FT article by Jim Pickard on 19th July 2015, entitled 'Cameron hints he seeks to step up action against ISIS'
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5dc1113a-2dfe-11e5-91ac-a5e17d9b4cff.html#ixzz3gMskkPd4
Just what the world needs - another British Prime Minister making foreign policy in front of an American TV camera and a gaggle of admiring press. His hero blazed the trail for him over a decade ago, but alas the admiration got too much for the attention seeking personality of Tony Blair, anxious as he was to kiss the hand of destiny at every opportunity - especially after Gordon Brown stopped him from joining the euro or having any say in economic policy.
But surely Mr Cameron is made of sterner stuff - not for him the school boy politician's dream of striding the world issuing sound bites and promising to put other people's children in harm's way. Not for him the bombing raids that will kill as many civilians as jihadis. Not for good old Dave the role of ISIS recruitment officer - providing them with another generation of kids who grow up wanting to kill Brits and Americans, having fed that hatred daily since the day in July 2015 when they came home to a hole in the ground and a few scattered items that reminded them that their mother was there when they left home that morning.
From a military perspective I suspect that Lord Richards quoted here might not be alone in his feelings about this - there also may be one or two present military commanders gnashing their teeth this afternoon, wondering exactly when being a senior military commander will qualify them to have an opinion on tactics, strategy, and/or operational logistics.
Finally, Mr Cameron says:
“I’ll always have to take my parliament with me”.
Yes, you will Mr Cameron, thank you for acknowledging that, and I hope you show more integrity in that matter than your predecessor but one did. But please remember it's not YOUR parliament, it's OUR parliament, and the folks on those benches are not your MPs, they're our MPs. I shall be telling my MP I want him to say 'No'.
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A fellow reader replied:
"It wasn't your loved ones gunned down in cold blood in Tunisia then? Typical. Say 'no' to war even when our own citizens are being mass murdered. Thats how we got here"
MarkGB:
You ask me a question, answer it yourself, decide what that says about me, and then pass a judgement that implies I condone mass murder. It seems to me, that that is one of the ways we got here.
You have absolutely no idea what my loved ones have or have not been caught up in. But here's my answer to you anyway - if anyone harmed any of my loved ones I would want to kill them, not with a bomb - up close and personal. That is a natural response of husbands and fathers everywhere. It's also the reason why we don't put relatives on juries.
Bombing people who do terrible things, killing innocent people in the process, may or may not 'succeed', whatever that word means to the neocons running US foreign policy (you know them - the idiots who armed ISIS in the first place), but here's one thing I know it will do - it will create a whole new generation of kids who grow up wanting to slaughter other innocent people on holiday in Tunisia. That is what is 'typical' - something isn't working, so let's do more of it.