By Keir Martland
There’s a lot of talk of the recent debates over the Cameron regime’s proposed Syrian adventure being a good thing and that we are learning from the mistakes of Iraq and Libya.
No we aren’t. The vast majority of voices we are hearing are in favour of a military solution. While the wisdom of bombing is being questioned, it is the wisdom of ‘bombing only’ that is being questioned, with even a young lady from the Adam Smith Institute calling for working “with countries all over the world” in a Grand Coalition, arguing that boots on the ground “probably is necessary”.
The lesson we seem to have learned from Iraq is that anyone can be an armchair general. Suddenly everyone from Ken Livingstone to Charlie Falconer is an expert military strategist. Of all the moonshine I have heard about some kind of military solution, the least ridiculous is that of George Galloway, who has proposed providing military support to President Assad, President Putin, the Syrian Kurds, the Iranians, and Hezbollah.
And then there are the non-military solutions. The SNP want a political solution as does Jeremy Corbyn.
But, you see, that won’t work either. Oh, we all know deep down that the military strategies won’t work. Cameron says there are 70,000 moderates in Syria to help defeat ISIS when there are likely fewer than 7,000. The airstrikes don’t actually hit ISIS, but instead hit hospitals. And the more we intervene, the more “blowback.” But even the political solutions won’t work. Why? Because the political solutions rely on states and terrorist groups to talk to each other, find common ground, and make peace.
But one government may be buying oil from ISIS. Another government may be giving arms to ISIS. Another government may be attacking ISIS’ enemies for them. The web is a tangled one and it won’t be solved by the British government suggesting everyone sits down and sings a few choruses of kumbayah.
So what do we do? Of course, we must do something. We don’t have the luxury of doing nothing. ISIS have killed a whopping 30 British citizens. “ISIS have killed your neighbours” as the young lady from the pseudo-libertarian Adam Smith Institute has said. Therefore, we must destroy them! We must act. We must act now!
But what can we do? Not only is bombing a public good, in that it costs more than it is individually worth to us, but it probably won’t do any good. We can sit around talking military strategy until the cows come home. And we can call for another UN resolution until our voices become hoarse.
Ultimately, we can do nothing worth doing. Indeed, we should stop doing whatever we are currently doing. We should stop our air missions to Iraq. We should stop funding and arming ISIS as we probably are. We should also stop taking in any more refugees from the region. Finally, we should repeal all of our gun control legislation. Do this and you’ll soon find the terrorist threat diminishes.
I accept that this is unlikely. I accept that the chattering classes are experts at deluding themselves and deluding those stupid enough to believe them that Britain is still a hegemonic power or at the very least that Britain must “punch above her weight.” I accept that we are ruled by people who are either evil or stupid. But fortunately, it is still legal to fantasise about a Britain that keeps its mitts to itself.
In short: if in doubt, do nowt.
By all means let someone bomb ISIS — but the UK does not have a large enough military for more than token action. And bombing ISIS does not provide a solution for a stable Syrian government (something we shouldn’t try to sort out) and does not stop ISIS or the large numbers of sympathizers here from reacting. The real solution is to end multiculturalism and stop immigration from Muslim countries.
[…] By Keir Martland […]
Quite right, Keir.
Terorism is a UK police matter at home rather than an armed fores matter around the world.To pretend thatthearmed forces make the UK safer by bombing in the middle east is irresponsible and quite silly.
Indeed. Ignoring malignity and concentrating on stupidity, Cameron now seems to have slipped into the same type of fantasy world as Blair and Bush inhabited. Part of the problem I think is this modern idea that everyone is basically the same, so people will react the same way we think we would. In fact the complex of clan and religous loyalties in the region is very alien to modern European thinking.
We are going to war, unclear on whose side we are on, what the intended outcome is, or what practically should be done, purely driven apparently by emotionalism. I am not by the way much of a believer in “blowback” since the motivations of Islamists are proactive rather than reactive in my opinion. But this is still pointless and almost certainly counterproductive.
It is interesting that two years ago most of the Telegraph commentariat were anti-involvement. The other day I found myself pretty much the only anti-voice other than a few Leftists. But nothing has really changed. If we should support any side (dubious itself), it would be Assad, not Cameron’s imaginary Legion Of Nice Moderate Muslims. To say that Assad is not a nice man misses the point; neither was Stalin, our ally in World War II.
After the catastrophes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya etc, it seems that our leaders have learned nothing. The joke of it is, as David Webb points out, our military is now so enfeebled that our involvement can only be tokenistic anyway.
Heh! I like your use of the term Telegraph commentariat to refer to those who comment at the Telegraph, rather than those “above the line”. Two years ago I was still occassionally reading (but mainly commenting) at the Telegraph site, so I remember the sentiment to which you refer. Article after article from the hacks torn apart in the comments.
There are various angles from which one could approach this question.
As David Davis did this morning on Radio 4, one could raise various practical objections. It’s noticeable that to date none of these has been seriously addressed.
One the other hand, as Peter Hitchens has done, one could question Cameron’s motivation. After all, here’s a man who wanted to bomb precisely the +opposite+ side little more than two years ago:
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2015/10/which-side-are-we-really-on-in-this-war-of-the-awful-against-the-evil.html
Mr Hitchens’ more recent articles on the subject are well worth a look too.
But I prefer to ask this question: what actions by European governments would IS leaders most have hoped to provoke by the Paris attacks?
Because so far, Hollande and Cameron appear to be doing their best to play the terrorists’ game.
[…] First published by the Libertarian Alliance on 29th November 2015, http://thelibertarianalliance.com/2015/11/29/let-us-do-nothing/ retrieved 6th January […]