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I don't understand Cameron's drive to bomb Syria - is it peer pressure?
I'd say peer pressure is a very apt summary.
The US are bombing, they are our no1 political allied. France is bombing, they are the 2nd most powerful state in mainland Europe and we need their support for renegotiation in Europe. Russia are bombing, which means us and Germany are basically the only traditional major powers not. Everyone accepts Germany never want to get involved in military conflicts.
At home being strong on foreign policy is often goes down well if done right, and is always a good distraction.
Fundamentally Cameron is very pragmatic. No one actually has a fucking clue how to deal with the issue, so it's turing into a classic case of it being "better" to do something, even if it's the wrong thing, than it is to do nothing.
I guess one blessing is at least this time it isn't God telling our PM to do it!
hugo7-
Everyone accepts Germany never want to get involved in military conflicts.
Germany is sending warplanes to fly reconnaissance missions.
It's the third major military conflict in which Germany has become involved since the traditional non-involvement doctrine was broken in the 90s over Kosovo. They then became involved in Afghanistan, which was a shrewd move as it meant they could afford not to get involved in Iraq.
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No one actually has a fucking clue how to deal with the issue, so it's turing into a classic case of it being "better" to do something, even if it's the wrong thing, than it is to do nothing.
Plenty of successful modern countries don't feel the need to get stuck in to bombing shit. We need to take political and economic action against the Sunni state sponsors of IS, and get stuck into reducing our oil dependence which prevents us doing this.
Oliver Schick
dave4
Or maybe the Mytilenean revolt(!).
I don't understand Cameron's drive to bomb Syria - is it peer pressure? I reluctantly accept that military intervention may be something that is necessary (that is, a debate is necessary), but I don't see what good bombing is going to do.