Syria watch...

[RenewableCandy]

I didn't even put the marker on the right bloody country (I was over 100 miles away and in Jordan) but I'm still more clued-up than 68% of the people who gave it a go.

Am very relieved about those "no" votes

[biffvernon]

The nos have it. Cameron defeated. Oh frabjous day.

Yes, this is a really big deal. Two nos means I don't even think we'll come back for another vote in a few days.

Our MPs have done what many of us have been calling for, good for them. It'll be weird 'watching' a war that we're not partaking in.

It will be interesting to see just how big a deal it turns out to be. There are certainly a lot of people tweeting that it is a very significant vote.

Here's one:

Sunny Hundal ‏@sunny_hundal 34m
A sitting Prime Minister loses the support of his own party on a motion to go to war. There isn't a bigger humiliation, frankly #Syria

and yet he'll probably just shrug it off.

I gather that military actin is not so popular in the US amongst the actual ordinary people so this might, perhaps, just, give even the government hawks a pause for thought.

What's going on in France?

[biffvernon]

Ha - Michael Gove's wife tweeted:

Sarah Vine @SarahVine

I am SO angry about today's vote. No military action would have come out of it. It was simply about sending a signal. Cowardice.
11:11 PM - 29 Aug 2013 from Westminster, London, United Kingdom

[biffvernon]

[Tarrel]

[biffvernon]

Sir Menzies Campbell, the former Lib Dem leader, has just told BBC News no one can remember when a government last lost a vote on a non-Europe foreign policy motion.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blo ... -live-blog

[woodburner]

Ha - Michael Gove's wife tweeted:

Sarah Vine @SarahVine

I am SO angry about today's vote. No military action would have come out of it. It was simply about sending a signal. Cowardice.
11:11 PM - 29 Aug 2013 from Westminster, London, United Kingdom

If we assume that really was the case, at best the debate and prior discussions were badly handled. Cameron only had to hold off until the inspectors report was available.

Serves Mrs. Gove right for assuming anyone is interested in her opinion anyway.

[Billhook]

Just how great are the international consequences of this seminal vote remains to be seen -
but the case for the gas attack having had US credibility as its prime target,
rather than the lives of a few rebels and thousands of poor bloody civilians,
is strengthened by this obstructive development.

The current Guardian site includes these headings giving a succinct snapshot
of the threat to the credibility on which US hegemony rests (my bolds):

- Cameron forced to rule out British attack on Syria after MPs reject motion
- US isolated after British MPs vote against Syria air strikes
- 'Highly likely' Assad government responsible for attacks, says British intelligence
- Obama administration to press for strikes but support wavers
- UN weapons inspectors ordered to leave early
- Strike would not weaken Assad's military strength, say experts
- Polly Toynbee: No 10 curses, but Britain's illusion of empire is over

With the Gulf States unwilling to participate militarily, both France and the US will each have to consider their position.
Obama appears to need the backing of Inhofe and Boehner to avoid climbing down
and looking like an aggressive but toothless lame duck.

Given that if they go ahead with the attack as touted (of a brief intense missile strike):
- it would lack a UN mandate -
- would lack incontrovertible evidence of Assad's culpability -
- and would lack a coalition larger than just two nations -
it would then :
- hold the US up for derision and contempt around the world -
- put a summary block on the prospect of future US involvement in Syria -
- while also doing nothing to significantly weaken Assad militarily.

Given that the chemical attack has also already, without a shred of evidence,
caused widespread assertions of "the rebels" culpability,
thus weakening western popular support for backing them,
the case for US credibility and freedom of action having been the target of the attack is growing by the day.

The case rests of course on Assad having had access to sufficiently subtle strategic analysis
for him to have chosen this means of neutering US threats
- and it is worth noting that his major backer has the best strategists in Moscow on call.

Regards,

Lewis

[biffvernon]

Now it's the morning after the night before we'd better move on to discussing what we should do now.

Giving the millions that would have been spent on bombs to the Red Cross Appeal would be a good start. http://www.redcross.org.uk/What-we-do/E ... sis-Appeal

[Tarrel]

Use our new status (i.e. no longer US lapdog) to start the process of building a consensus for a multilateral arms embargo on Syria. The fewer weapons in there, the less people will suffer (over time).

[jonny2mad]

Now it's the morning after the night before we'd better move on to discussing what we should do now.

Giving the millions that would have been spent on bombs to the Red Cross Appeal would be a good start. http://www.redcross.org.uk/What-we-do/E ... sis-Appeal

When someones trying to gas or shoot you I hope some tit comes along with a box of bandages and no one trys to stop the person or give you the means to stop the person .

How much good will the tit with the bandages do when your dead

[clv101]

Now it's the morning after the night before we'd better move on to discussing what we should do now.

Giving the millions that would have been spent on bombs to the Red Cross Appeal would be a good start. http://www.redcross.org.uk/What-we-do/E ... sis-Appeal

When someones trying to gas or shoot you I hope some tit comes along with a box of bandages and no one trys to stop the person or give you the means to stop the person .

How much good will the tit with the bandages do when your dead

The Red Cross do a bit more than hand out bandages. And remember a lot of the deaths and sufferings are not (edited to add!) due to gas or even being shot. It's the hundreds of thousands of refugees in camps lacking the most basic of medication and clean water. The Red Cross/Crescent can help there.

[biffvernon]

Something I mentioned early in this thread I think was the issue of water. It does not feature in the msm discussions but I understand that the perceived unfairness in water distribution was one of the original triggers to the uprising a couple of years ago, though it's now been overtaken by all sorts piling into the scrum.

It's an essentially arid area with a growing population. Much of the water is supplied by rivers that start in other countries, Turkey and Lebanon, and flow to other countries, Iraq. Some of the catchment has been occupied by Israel since 1967. Groundwater is being abstracted much faster than replenishment. Global warming is likely to cause climate change towards less rainfall in the region.

If there's one place where war will be triggered by water this is it. (Or maybe this was it.)

Here are a couple of significant articles
http://www.irinnews.org/report/88139/sy ... by-drought

http://www.irinnews.org/report/88554/

DEIR EZ ZOUR, 17 February 2010 (IRIN) - Drought in eastern and northeastern Syria has driven some 300,000 families to urban settlements such as Aleppo, Damascus and Deir ez Zour in search of work in one of the largest internal displacements in the Middle East in recent years.

The country’s agriculture sector, which until recently employed 40 percent of Syria’s workforce and accounted for 25 percent of gross domestic product, has been hit badly, but farmers themselves are worst affected, say aid officials.

In some villages, up to 50 percent of the population has left for nearby cities.

Note the date - 17 February 2010. Mass migration of rural population forced by drought into cities such as Aleppo, scene of the latest atrocities.

[jonny2mad]

Use our new status (i.e. no longer US lapdog) to start the process of building a consensus for a multilateral arms embargo on Syria. The fewer weapons in there, the less people will suffer (over time).

democide thats where govt kills their own people killed 262,000,000 people in the last century about 6 times the number of people killed by war .

Generally wicked govts love gun control, they adore idiots that want less guns because if your a wolf you love weak unarmed sheep.

The worse thing we could do is a arms embargo if we are ok with the use of poison gas and its a effective weapon and the govt's using it we should sell the rebels poison gas or cluster bombs

Thomas Jefferson - "When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fears the people there is liberty

[Tarrel]

@ J2m; I would agree, apart from the complexity of the situation in Syria. It appears to be much more than just a government oppressing its people.

An embargo would eventually lead to an end game. It may not be a pretty one, but at least it would be one. The alternative appears to be to allow fuel to continue to be added to the fire, perpetuating the conflict and the suffering.

With international consensus we have the means, militarily, to enforce such an embargo. Surelybthis is a better use of our forces rather than shooting a few missiles into an already messy warzone with no clear objective?