[jaxie]

https://amp.theguardian.com/commenti...rexit-atrocity


This article which argues that we are all complicit to a degree in the slaughter in Syria is a thought provoking read if anyone is interested,

I understand public opinion is that we shouldn't become too involved in these wars but I admit to feeling guilty that we and the rest of the world just turn a blind eye to what is going on there.

[Tom4784]

I think we bare a responsibility for what's happened in the Middle East as of late. Nothing good has ever come from us getting involved in that region and it's fair to say that we have a hand in creating threats like IS as we created the power vacuum they thrived in and provided the region with weapons that IS have used to gain power.

[jaxie]

So are we damned if we intervene but also damned if we don't while civilians are slaughtered by their government?

[Tom4784]

We're damned if we go in to help the US secure an oil supply and leave the place in disarray when we leave, yes.

Us getting involved in the Middle East has never been about defending it's citizens from a terrible regime.

[Oliver_W]

The sooner "we" can switch to alternative fuels and leave the middle east to its own devices, the better.

[Northern Monkey]

I always said that if we were going intervene against the Syrian government then the time was when Cameron called the vote in Parliament.2013 iirc.But it was voted against.
Russia went in there in 2015 and fortified the Assad regime with anti aircraft batteries and naval and air bases.I think they have an embassy there too.
No chance of military action now unless Trump’s suicidal.That could escalate tensions drastically.We’d in effect be attacking Russia.F’ck that shet.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Oliver_W

The sooner "we" can switch to alternative fuels and leave the middle east to its own devices, the better.

I was on holiday in the Southern States the year before last and the most striking thing about there (especially Texas) was the consumerism and total lack of environmental friendliness there, massive cars/trucks, fast food places literally everywhere, s**t food, over weight people. I thought to myself there's no way these guys are going to cut back on all this stuff, not a chance. We also went to San Francisco though on the last leg of that trip and it was liking flying into a different country

[MTVN]

Not much we can do realistically. We didn't cause the civil war, it's a product of their internal problems and it's become clear over the years that there is no moderate force that is strong or united enough to act as an alternative to Assad if he were defeated. It would be like Libya I think which hasn't had any real government since Gaddafi because there's so many different factions involved. There's a lot of lecturing in that article but no credible solution

[Crimson Dynamo]

None at all. It's their mess and only their mess. We have our own problems.

[Maru]

Why even assume we can do anything? I'm not real familiar with Syrias past, but many countries have had long-lived issues that won't simply go away because the West gets involved, It's arrogant to think we can fix every problem or solution in the world, especially internal problems, when we can't even solve our own. The most we can do is support humanitarian missions there to help get ppl resituated...

[Crimson Dynamo]

5000 children died today in s and East Africa. Mainly of diarrhea and pneumonia, both preventable. 5000 will die tomorrow and the next day and the day after and every day, 35,000 "each week in that small area of the globe.

Do we care?

Not really

[bots]

of course we are not complicit in what another country chooses to do

[Kizzy]

Is now a good time to post Corbyns 'Stop the war' speech?...no?

[jaxie]

Originally Posted by Maru

Why even assume we can do anything? I'm not real familiar with Syrias past, but many countries have had long-lived issues that won't simply go away because the West gets involved, It's arrogant to think we can fix every problem or solution in the world, especially internal problems, when we can't even solve our own. The most we can do is support humanitarian missions there to help get ppl resituated...

Well we are human beings, Syrian's are human beings, shouldn't we want to do something to help the people being obliterated by their government? I'm not seeing much being attempted diplomatically either. I'm certainly not arrogant enough to think we can fix everything in the West but I am humane enough to think someone should be trying to make it stop.

Growing up I thought this was what the UN and NATO were about, helping the innocent, going in and putting a stop to the violence. Now I look at these organisations and I wonder what is the point if they are just there to make noises. What happened to the 'peacekeeping forces?'

Note to the post about the stop the war speech. Had I anything to do with do with the Labour party of 2013 I would be slinking out of this thread on my stomach and not wanting to remind people about how Labour played politics with the vote to intervene with air strikes in 2013 when a difference might have been made early on. There was some shameful politicking going on over that vote that had very little to do with the reasons for the air strikes and a lot about party politics. Zero respect for any of the MPs involved in that.

Does anyone ever wonder how WW2 would play out today?

Originally Posted by LeatherTrumpet

5000 children died today in s and East Africa. Mainly of diarrhea and pneumonia, both preventable. 5000 will die tomorrow and the next day and the day after and every day, 35,000 "each week in that small area of the globe.

Do we care?

Not really

Should we care?

Yes, of course.

Isn't that why we do charity donations? I certainly don't do mine to pay for prostitute services for members of Oxfam staff.

[Maru]

Originally Posted by jaxie

Well we are human beings, Syrian's are human beings, shouldn't we want to do something to help the people being obliterated by their government? I'm not seeing much being attempted diplomatically either. I'm certainly not arrogant enough to think we can fix everything in the West but I am humane enough to think someone should be trying to make it stop.

Growing up I thought this was what the UN and NATO were about, helping the innocent, going in and putting a stop to the violence. Now I look at these organisations and I wonder what is the point if they are just there to make noises. What happened to the 'peacekeeping forces?'

Note to the post about the stop the war speech. Had I anything to do with do with the Labour party of 2013 I would be slinking out of this thread on my stomach and not wanting to remind people about how Labour played politics with the vote to intervene with air strikes in 2013 when a difference might have been made early on. There was some shameful politicking going on over that vote that had very little to do with the reasons for the air strikes and a lot about party politics. Zero respect for any of the MPs involved in that.

Does anyone ever wonder how WW2 would play out today?



Should we care?

Yes, of course.

Isn't that why we do charity donations? I certainly don't do mine to pay for prostitute services for members of Oxfam staff.

I get what you're saying, jaxie, I really do. When Aleppo was being bombed, it tugged at my heartstrings reading the calls for help claiming we were standing by while genocide was committed. This was in 2016, and the media didn't really cover it, but it was all over Twitter, etc... I always feel an emotional response to these things, regardless of what logic would have me say, life is unfair...

Even if the entirety of the West banded together and got involved, isolated the regime, removed it, and installed a new infrastructure... it's society needs a culture that will actually adhere to it, or it will collapse again in another power vacuum. We learned this with Iraq.

This may sound harsh, but sometimes letting these things occur is the best thing to do for those cultures. That there is something inherently wrong with their model that is so incompatible with peace that no govt or substantial structure there could thrive as-is. If we interfere, we stop all the micro-processes that are occurring that push those cultures to evolve... I am OK with humanitarian aid, and I support this, though I think there are agendas involved there that aren't always "sound". And even I think that it introduces issues, just like welfare and socialist systems have in the our systems, where we've effectively taken away the pain of life and that has ceased people trying to innovate or create a live for themselves... they instead become overly dependent on pre-existing or "supplemental" infrastructures for the short-term, when they need to be focused on the long-term.

It is like with animal rescue. Yes, I could become a super pup or kitty mom, board all the neighborhood pups I see on my walks, and even start a rescue of my own, saving lives. Not only does that restrict my freedom in terms of being able to thrive in my own life, but it's not addressing the cause of the issue... the irresponsible homeowners who take in pups, feed them, but don't vet them and leave them on chains to get pregnant over and over... and then worse, they dump them on the side of the road god knows where... they are the issue, not the strays. So taking them and in and getting them neutered and all that, and re-homing, it helps some in the long run and gives me a little bit of emotional solace... but there's much more of them coming out of the woodwork than what rescue handles because the problem is so much larger, regardless the size of the rescue community here. We put down at least 70,000 animals a year in our shelters each year... and that's only what's reported as being their shelter pets... doesn't include contracted euthanasia.

Same with the homeless. My local shops are near a homeless camp, and I'm walked up to constantly for cash. The mayor has said don't give these people money, we are building the infrastructure to house and get them off the streets... but what if they don't want the type of help we offer... some have never seen structure in their entire lives, and as soon as you place them under it, they become totally different human beings and don't function as we expect them to. So I think solving those issues as well is difficult...

My point is, it's not as simple as go in and save people... if I were to take someone in from off the streets, I'm not just responsible for them, but I'm also responsible to myself and others... and is it reasonable to offer all the possible solutions we have to people in the external world, while there are dire needs at home. Things were very different during WWII... and as many who are nostalgic for the past, our cultures were a bit more cohesive and the war effort did help to drag America's economy out of difficult times... but again, different times. And while no doubt we could help some people abroad, it could do much more harm domestically as the 911/Iraq War did to the US... our politics have never recovered since. And though many voted for Obama thinking (including white folk) that he could reverse that trend, the complete opposite has happened... (edit) Anyway there seems no easy solution domestically or abroad

America's response to World War II was the most extraordinary mobilization of an idle economy in the history of the world. During the war 17 million new civilian jobs were created, industrial productivity increased by 96 percent, and corporate profits after taxes doubled. The government expenditures helped bring about the business recovery that ;had eluded the New Deal. War needs directly consumed over one-third of the output of industry, but the expanded productivity ensured a remarkable supply of consumer goods to the people as well. America was the only that saw an expansion of consumer goods despite wartime rationing. BY 1944, as a result of wage increases and overtime pay, real weekly wages before taxes in manufacturing were 50 percent higher than in 1939. The war also created entire new technologies, industries, and associated human skills.

The war brought full employment and a fairer distribution of income. Blacks and women entered the workforce for the first time. Wages increased; so did savings. The war brought the consolidation of union strength and far-reaching changes in agricultural life. Housing conditions were better than they had been before.

In addition, because the mobilization included the ideological argument that the war was being fought for the interests of common men and women, social solidarity extended far beyond the foxholes. Public opinion held that the veterans should not return jobless to a country without opportunity and education. That led to the GI Bill, which helped lay the foundation for the remarkable postwar expansion that followed. The war also made us more of a middle-class society than we had been before.

Source: http://prospect.org/article/way-we-w...g-world-war-ii

[Ammi]

..surely we’re complicit though, western countries who supply arms to contribute to the atrocities which are horrifying us../..the general public..?...I do agree with MTVN in the article being quite ‘lecturing’ but that’s because the focus isn’t more on things that are in Western country government control...those things our government could do something about through not supplying arms, keeping tighter vigilance of where weaponry is going to/where overseas funding is going to ..?...ok, it might be simplistic but if all western governments stopped supplying weaponry, which takes the lives of innocents...surely, not today, not tomorrow or any day soon..but some day those bullets, those weapons would dry up and lives would stop being taken...?...we, as countries may not be able to do anything to stop in the present days, but surely there are possibilities for the future in stopping the supply of right now with the visuals and realities we’re being made aware of..?...

...what do our governments think, what mindset and reasoning do they have and believe in..?...do they think it’s ok because Syria is a far off land and the repercussions will only be felt through media reporting...do those people have any less value because it isn’t ‘closer to home’ like for instance, a country in Europe or our ‘sister’, America....would we supply arms to those countries if we knew they were going to be used to kill innocent residents of the country, to kill children of those countries....?...it won’t ever stop because Western governments are not doing what is absolutely in their control in the supplying of and enabling to happen.../...so that would be complicity..?...

[Ammi]

..I mean would we put a loaded rifle into the hands of a known murderer...and then when the trigger is pulled and innocent lives are lost, say oooops, none of that was our doing, he just had murdering tendencies so he would have acted on that anyway...no we wouldn’t, we would bear responsibility because Western governments do bear responsibility in this awful slaughtering...

[Livia]

Originally Posted by Oliver_W

The sooner "we" can switch to alternative fuels and leave the middle east to its own devices, the better.

We import only a fraction of our oil and gas from the Middle East. The majority of our oil and gas comes from Norway.

[bots]

Originally Posted by Livia

We import only a fraction of our oil and gas from the Middle East. The majority of our oil and gas comes from Norway.

that and Russia via the Ukraine

[Livia]

Originally Posted by bitontheslide

that and Russia via the Ukraine

It's interesting actually, how little we get from Russia too...

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...ed-kingdom-uk/

[arista]

Originally Posted by MTVN

Not much we can do realistically. We didn't cause the civil war, it's a product of their internal problems and it's become clear over the years that there is no moderate force that is strong or united enough to act as an alternative to Assad if he were defeated. It would be like Libya I think which hasn't had any real government since Gaddafi because there's so many different factions involved. There's a lot of lecturing in that article but no credible solution

Very True MTVN.

Also the Former PM D.Cameron
wanted to take out Assad
but failed to get a vote in our
Parliament,
New Labour blocked it , back then.

[MTVN]

Originally Posted by Ammi

..surely we’re complicit though, western countries who supply arms to contribute to the atrocities which are horrifying us../..the general public..?...I do agree with MTVN in the article being quite ‘lecturing’ but that’s because the focus isn’t more on things that are in Western country government control...those things our government could do something about through not supplying arms, keeping tighter vigilance of where weaponry is going to/where overseas funding is going to ..?...ok, it might be simplistic but if all western governments stopped supplying weaponry, which takes the lives of innocents...surely, not today, not tomorrow or any day soon..but some day those bullets, those weapons would dry up and lives would stop being taken...?...we, as countries may not be able to do anything to stop in the present days, but surely there are possibilities for the future in stopping the supply of right now with the visuals and realities we’re being made aware of..?...

...what do our governments think, what mindset and reasoning do they have and believe in..?...do they think it’s ok because Syria is a far off land and the repercussions will only be felt through media reporting...do those people have any less value because it isn’t ‘closer to home’ like for instance, a country in Europe or our ‘sister’, America....would we supply arms to those countries if we knew they were going to be used to kill innocent residents of the country, to kill children of those countries....?...it won’t ever stop because Western governments are not doing what is absolutely in their control in the supplying of and enabling to happen.../...so that would be complicity..?...

The Syrian government get their weapons from Russia and Iran though, I'm not aware of any arms going from the UK to the Syrian regime in recent history

[Maru]

Ammi, I was thinking along those same lines, but a bit broader... we actually can do something about our impact, and it's to look at our country and our individual externalities.

For example, companies that do business in countries where poverty and famine runs rampant... is it really right that we go in and grab up all their resources on the cheap while people are starving? And while I'm sure we do charity work there... does it really make up for our environmental and socio-economical impact?...

Globalism has had ill effects around the world, I'm sure. It's just it's not covered in the media and it's considered to be an "unfortunate" side effect... but there are a lot of things like this that are done so that we can have cheap products and services.

I think part of the reason the Iraq war became unpopular as well is because we've become more conscious of these externalities. Smaller military operations seem to be tolerated here, but not large operations like taking over a country and running it... unless it's really justified.