It is odd listening to our politicians talking portentously about the heavy responsibility they bear in deciding whether Britain should “go to war” in Syria. The sad fact of the matter is that, to all intents and purposes, Britain is already at war in both Syria and Iraq and has been for at least a year.
The current intense debate about whether to step up our involvement by joining the US and France in the aerial bombing of Islamic State terrorists in Syria has been fuelled by the dreadful Paris attacks and fears that something similar may happen here. But as they grapple with their consciences, some of the leading parliamentary participants in this debate exhibit an inexplicable forgetfulness about what they have previously agreed and an inability to recognise what is actually happening, almost daily, in the world beyond Westminster.
Following hard on a series of Isis advances and atrocities, MPs decided on 26 September last year, without much fuss, to support British air strikes in Iraq. All the main party leaderships concurred. The vote in favour was overwhelming – 524-43. Since then, RAF Tornados have conducted hundreds of attacks and sorties.
No comments:
Post a Comment