2015
December 2
Just a view
As I write this, our elected representatives are debating whether or not we should commence air strikes against IS in Syria. Apart from the disgusting, mindless input from our own Prime Minister that anyone voting against the idea is a terrorist sympathiser, much of the debate is well reasoned. That doesn’t mean it is right but the logic is there.
People say we should stand firm with France; a noble gesture. People say we should not sit back and allow IS to win; fair point. People say we should do this to make our country safer. Ah, maybe this one is less well reasoned.
As I understand it we will join others who are already flying missions against IS and help bomb their strongholds and eventually eliminate them. Unlikely. But assuming we do cause some disruption then, as our PM tells us, there are 70,000 Syrians ready to work with us to…………………..achieve their own agenda. Well actually the murderer, (I think it fair in Cameron-speak to say that anyone who sets in motion an action that may kill innocent civilians is branded a murderer – we can play his way) didn’t mention the “own agenda” bit.
We bombed in Iraq to get rid of Saddam. We had no plan of what to do next and Iraq is a mass of different factions fighting, one of which is of course IS. We bombed in Libya to get rid of Gaddafi and Libya is a mass of different factions fighting for power. Can anyone in their right mind really suggest that bombing IS in Syria and then handing things over to a ragbag of 70,000 (if that number is correct) Syrians to sort out is a good idea?
I, like Jeremy Corbyn, am of sound mind, deplore terrorists and their murdering of innocent people but also abhor war and violence of any sort. We cannot find terrorists in Britain or France and probably many other civilised and well-populated countries. Will we be able to find them all in Syria or Iraq? No.
IS, in fact any terrorists, are not like Germany or Japan in the last war. They cannot be defeated in the same way. I doubt they can actually be eliminated ever but you can try. You can cut off their money and who is supplying them with arms. You can put an army, under the control of the UN big 5 into Syria. But air strikes will not succeed alone and following them up with a collection of Syrian cliques will not either.
And of course you have the danger that you will kill innocent civilians with your bombing and be the best possible recruitment material for IS or for increasing refuges. IS is not a country. You can bomb a city where they have a stronghold but ordinary people still live there. Can you guarantee you will not make a mistake and bomb houses?
Last week a report was published into the bombing of a Medecins Sans Frontieres clinic in Afghanistan. The bombing was carried out by the United States military. It happened on 3 October. On that day Colonel Brian Tribus, US forces spokesman said “US forces conducted an airstrike in Kunduz city at 2:15am (local), Oct 3, against individuals threatening the force. The strike may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility. This incident is under investigation.
On the next day the Pentagon Press Office said that “US forces conducted an airstrike in Kunduz city at 2:15am (local), Oct 3, against insurgents who were directly firing upon US service members advising and assisting Afghan Security Forces in the city of Kunduz. The strike was conducted in the vicinity of a Doctors Without Borders medical facility.
The day after that the US military chief in Afghanistan, General John Campbell, said “We have now learned that on October 3, Afghan forces advised that they were taking fire from enemy positions and asked for air support from US forces. An airstrike was then called to eliminate the Taliban threat and several civilians were accidentally struck. This is different from the initial reports, which indicated that US forces were threatened and that the airstrike was called on their behalf.
And on October 6 he told a senate committee that “On Saturday morning our forces provided close air support to Afghan forces at their request. To be clear the decision to provide aerial fires was a US decision, made within the US chain of command. A hospital was mistakenly struck. We would never intentionally target a protected medical facility… I assure you that the investigation will be thorough, objective and transparent.”
Now, after this investigation we know all of these statements were not true either intentionally or because not enough time was taken before making them. You can decide on this one. We know this because on 25 November General Campbell stated that “The US strike upon the MSF Trauma Centre in Kunduz… was the direct result of human error, compounded by systems and procedural failures. The US forces directly involved in this incident did not know the targeted compound was the MSF Trauma Centre. The medical facility was misidentified as a target by US personnel who believed they were striking a different building several hundred meters away where there were reports of combatants.”
The US gunship fired 211 shells at the MSF compound over 25 minutes.
MSF General Director Christopher Stokes, the General Director of MSF put things a little bit more bluntly. He said that quite simply “It appears that 30 people were killed and hundreds of thousands of people are being denied life-saving care in Kunduz simply because the MSF hospital was the closest large building to an open field and ‘roughly matched’ a description of an intended target.” MSF have also stated that they contacted the US-led forces several times during the attack to say they were being bombed.
MSF said, which seems obvious to anyone with a quarter of a brain, that the incident shows gross negligence by the US military and constituted “violations of the rules of war”. They also asked for an “independent and impartial investigation into the attack”. The not-too-well-hidden implication was that the US had committed a war crime. As I understand it, when questioned on this possibility after the report came out, the US spokesman didn’t respond.
The reason I have written about this is because in times of authorised killing sometimes the wrong people get killed. If, allegedly, the greatest military power in the world can be seen to be grossly negligent who knows what might happen. Who will provide the pin point navigation for the British pilots and please don’t tell me the US.
I see that Lord Owen is suggesting, if I understand it, that the five permanent members of the UN security council each take a bit of Syria and then put in ground forces and eliminate IS in their area. It sounds like he is playing Risk but within a country rather than globally. Having said that, it might work.
Whatever is decided in our parliament tonight, make no mistake that the Prime Minister, and his objectionable opinions of those who don’t do what he says, must be held account for what transpires. I have lived through the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the second Iraqi war. I am not sure, after them, the world was a better, more peaceful place. We need to remember tonight not Edmund Burke but Jimmy Carter. “War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it will always be an evil, never a good. We will not learn to live together in peace by killing each other’s children”. By the time you read this you may have been committed, by your elected representatives, to undertake a necessary evil. Let us hope that whether it succeeds or not, it does not take unnecessary lives.
December 9
Happy Christmas
Let’s start by wishing all those who follow these ramblings a very Happy Christmas and give you the good news that, unless something really annoys me over the next weeks, I will be taking a few weeks off from moaning. I will return on Wednesday January 6 2016.
By then we will all have celebrated the end of one year and the start of another, made a few resolutions that might last a day or two, hoped that the ones we didn’t tell anyone about do come true and have gone through Christmas.
I say “gone through” because there are parts of this annual event that quite scare me. Ostensibly the real reason for our celebration was that birth some 2,000 years ago but even the more religious of you seem to have forgotten that. If true, it was a lowly birth to a fairly poor couple in less than auspicious surroundings. Okay, three kings arriving with gold, frankincense and myrrh moved it a bit up market but those of you who celebrate by either getting into debt so that you buy expensive presents for others, usually children, or those that have procured, earned or inherited vast sums of money that you can now spend, are slightly missing the point.
Of course it is nice to receive gifts; maybe it should be nicer to give but I’m not sure that idea is catching on. But smothering your off-spring with gifts is not, and never will be, a substitute for giving them your love and your time. Most people will have at least four days off from work over the Christmas period; some as many as ten days. This time should be family time as much as possible. Don’t forget the old relations but, to be honest, and from personal experience, we like a bit of time on our own. Use the time to bond as a family and don’t bond in front of any sort of screen too much.
Yes, watch a few films and drift into an imaginary world but don’t let ipads, tablets etc. become your star to follow. Do something, make something, play something, go somewhere but do it with time and as a family. Whilst the internet can give you every bit of information you may want, it also, without a doubt, removes a large degree of your creativity, your ability to solve your curiosity on your own. Having access to everything isn’t the brilliant panacea some would have us believe.
As a child, some sixty years ago, I would look forward to Christmas with just as much excitement, hope and enthusiasm as the children of today. I would have a pillow case, empty, left at the foot of my bed on Christmas Eve. The next morning my sister and I would go into our parents’ bedroom, probably far earlier than they wanted, and all sit up in bed and open our presents. We might have ten or eleven each. That was it. And that was exactly what we wanted. We would play with our toys in the morning, have Christmas lunch maybe with a grandparent or aunt as a guest, and then play more in the afternoon. The Queen would make her speech which newspapers wouldn’t report beforehand, we would play some more, at least one game as a whole family, watch comedy without a single swear word and go to bed totally happy.
Bigger, better and more expensive gifts do not lead to bigger, better happiness.
Happy Christmas and try to make your Christmas present someone’s future. Think about it. I promised never to say “it was better in my day” so I won’t do that but I will repeat that some of what happens these days’ scares me. A lot.