Today Parliament votes on the Governments’s plan to expand the scope of British operations against Islamic State. Limitations and problems with the plan have been expressed by many people from various sides. In a previous piece I described the objection I have to the nature of some of this criticism.
The thing is though, I think it’s a pretty lousy plan too and I agree, to various degrees, with much of the criticism. I think in the medium-term it may well marginally increase the risk of terror attacks at home, and when that occurs it will also fuel the apologists and give impetus to our domestic Islamists. I think the risks for mission creep are substantial. I think it might help Assad and I think it is possible that more civilians will die because of that. I think it could reach a stage where Putin will be able to make demands of the West in other areas due to the hand he will hold in Syria. I think the risk of increasing Iranian influence and power is great. I think British help will make only a marginal difference. I think the limitations of the ‘moderate opposition’ might be exposed and the case for Western ground troops and special forces will increase exponentially as we progress and we will find it increasingly hard to resist deployment.
I am a supporter of the Government’s plan.
Just about.
If you happen to follow me on Twitter or know me personally you might well think I am a fervent supporter of engagement in Syria and this would be due to how much time I spend arguing against the Stop The War types. This reminds me very much of 2002/3 where once again I found I spent more time objecting to objections than in offering support to what was being proposed.
Anyway, to business. There are so many poor arguments, repeated canards and rank dishonesty being presented that I thought I’d run through a few of them. Those advocating a ‘no’ vote against the government come from across the spectrum and have an array of views. What follows here does not apply to all of them all of the time. You will though hear plenty of these made in the debate on this subject today so I suppose if you wish to play anti-war bingo, this is a good basis for a card.
“You can’t win a war just by bombing.”
Not technically true I’d suggest though in this case it is. However, nobody is telling anybody that this will be ‘won’ just by bombing. Cameron was clear that we will require ground holding units at some point to bring about the defeat of Islamic State in Syria and airstrikes will support them. Already the Kurds are being supported by airstrikes inside Syrian borders, just not by us. Bombing does still have the potential to degrade IS capabilities and to kill their commanders however (this is a good thing).
“What do we put in its place?”
This is a good question but is it contingent on a decision? I for one am comfortable with taking the risk of it coming out wrong. I’m not sure ‘better the devil you know’ is particularly strong when that devil is Islamic State. Also with the number of unknowns before us it is something which is going to remain to a large extent, well, unknowable. A complete plan for this is not really possible as it stands and I suggest this is not a good enough reason to reject attempts to degrade Islamic State.
(Related) “We need a full and comprehensive plan”
This sounds the “impossible standards” klaxon.
No plan will be full and comprehensive enough for the Stop The War types. However, the likes of Corbyn can always demand it is MORE full and MORE comprehensive.
No plan survives contact with the enemy and with a situation as dynamic and complicated as Syria the idea of a ‘full and comprehensive plan’ is a nonsensical suggestion. However, “plans may mean nothing but planning is everything”, we must plan for what we do next.
A full, detailed, preannounced path to rainbows and sunshine in Syria wouldn’t be worth the printing and distributing. And to make one’s approval being contingent on such a thing is not just to create an impossible standard it is to provide an excuse for your decision which is not honest. We don’t have a full and comprehensive plan. In this time and in this place this is the best we can come up with. If you have a better one, spell it out.
“Iraq is now a worse place than when under Saddam Hussein”
Assuming this is true (plenty of Shia will argue with you and quite a few Sunnis too. Oh, and most Kurds), this is to suggest that life post-Islamic State will be worse than life now because of what happened in Iraq. It isn’t a logical assumption. One could just as easily say that life in Sierra Leone improved after we wiped out most of the West-Side Boys. Neither are good arguments. Each time is different. Though the ‘Islamic State provides stability’ argument is very close to being implied.
(Related) “The last two times we intervened failed so…”
Actually no, the last time we intervened was in assisting the bombing against the Islamic State in Iraq. This was clearly a good thing. It helped the Kurds. It halted the Islamic state advance, or at least prevented them from mounting the next stage, it alleviated some of the suffering of some of the Yazidi and it has assisted greatly in forcing the retreat of Islamic State in some areas. [See this.]
However, assuming they mean Iraq and Libya, the answer is this: It’s not the same. Unless you are suggesting ALL military activity leads to unfavourable results then you need to be clear about what the similarities and differences are between each example. The invasion of Iraq and the support for rebels in Libya have key differences. If you are not willing to argue these and simply make the argument which says ‘intervention is intervention’ then you’re not serious.
“Got to defeat them but you need to get a broad coalition”
Is this not broad enough? How broad exactly is ‘broad’? Impossible standard alert.
“Cameron asked us to bomb Assad now he wants us to ally with him”
This is a canard that has been used by many and keeps coming up. Cameron was asking for a “tough response to the use of chemical weapons”. This was about Western credibility regarding the use of WMD. Strikes on facilities for a limited time were the intention. It sent a message, it maintained the credibility of ‘red lines’. It was never proposed as a war against Assad. As such it bears no relevance to the policy proposed today. This is a charlatan’s tactic.
Besides that, Cameron insists that his policy is Islamic State first. He is not conceding that Assad should remain in the long-term. So if you hear this argument made you’re listening to a bluffer.
“What difference will our few make?”
This is my least favourite of all. It is suggesting that we should merely allow our allies to do the work for us and assume both the risks and the costs alone. I don’t consider this morally serious. In fact I think it is dishonourable and shameful. Cameron said that the UK “cannot sub-contract its security to other nations.” I say this is correct. Even if our own bombs don’t turn any tide it is no reason to leave it all to others.
“We need a full solution with ground troops.”
Bizarrely, Ken Livingstone seems to be suggesting we need a full spectrum assault with long-term ambitions and will. Good on him. Though I suspect this is a bluff because he knows it will not happen and it shields him from accusations of inaction. But if you are one that seeks a more comprehensive solution it is no argument against the plan for increased airstrikes. Furthermore, if ‘mission creep’ is a genuine risk then allowing the mission that you wish to creep to creep into Syria is a good start no?
“They’re a symptom not the disease”
This is the best making the enemy of the good once again. Assuming the statement is true why not try to alleviate symptoms?
“All conflicts end with a political settlement”
or
“We need negotiations and a wider political settlement”
This is a Corbyn favourite. The problem with it is you tend to need to have the bloody war first. A clever German once said “war is the extension of politics by other means”. Why is anybody going to negotiate when they think they can win by fighting? And what Islamic State want cannot be negotiated away. This is fantasy.
“We want peace, not war”
Well guess what, we all do. If you have a peaceful method of ridding the world of Islamic State I would be most pleased to hear it. However, the assumption of Corbyn, previously implied elsewhere, is that those who advocate military action do not wish for peace. Sometimes war is necessary to bring peace about. Corbyn’s team are quick to take umbrage at any assertion that he is a ‘terrorist sympathiser’, though painting his opposition as people who would prefer war to peace is somehow acceptable.
“Cameron is involved in a rush to war”
We are already at war. Islamic State declare it on us. We are already bombing in support of Kurds and against Islamic State inside Iraq. France and the U.S. are also doing so inside Syria. This is simply not a war/peace binary. Besides, there hasn’t been much of a rush, this has been going on for ages.
“Bombing will make us a target”
We already are a target. This is for several reasons but not least because we are already bombing them. If you prefer us not to be attacking Islamic State at all, then say so.
According to the intelligence services several plots this year have been foiled already. We are not at peace now and I cannot see that our good fortune in not receiving an attack is because they just haven’t tried hard enough yet.
Furthermore, so bloody what? If people say they will murder civilians and down airliners if we engage with them is that less of a reason to kill them or more of one? Are we just to accept the terrorist’s veto and leave it to our allies to bear all the risk? Spell out that case more clearly please.
“They don’t need Raqqah to launch an attack like Paris”
This is probably true. However, the ability of Islamic State to hold ground means they are better able to recruit, train, plan and organise. This means greater potential for ‘spectaculars’. If denying them their capabilities doesn’t prevent Paris (it might make it harder though), it still helps to limit their capabilities to do other, worse, things.
“We will just make matters worse”
Possibly. Though I note most do not spell out how. But imagine how bad things would be if Islamic State was allowed to continue to grow. They had momentum, the reputation of invincibility, they call themselves the ‘Caliphate’ with all its attraction to jihadists and they spread unspeakable misery wherever they go. Not fighting them will certainly, definitely, definitively, make things worse. We need to discredit the invincible Caliphate and the sooner the better.
“Civilians will die”
True. It’s terrible. Fortunately our armed forces are getting ever better at minimising this and take great pains to do so. However, here’s the rub. Civilians ARE dying already. The abandonment of a utilitarian approach and basing the morality of this on “at least their not killed by us” is morally wrong. Unless you can reasonably attempt to demonstrate that more will die this way than from inaction this is not a good argument.
“The ‘70,000 moderates’ is a made up figure”
It just isn’t. The numbers might change either way, some might not turn out moderate enough, they might be useless, they might end up fighting each other. It is a tricky part of the plan which Cameron admits comes with risks. But the knee-jerk statement that these numbers are nonsense are exactly that. Knee-jerk and themselves, nonsense.
“It’s just what they want us to do”
The actor Stephen Fry tweeted the following:
There tends to be more than one rule in conflict, Sun Tzu has a ton of them. But ok… Firstly, surely this applies when actually engaged. Not in the decision to fight. It is possible for one side to want to fight and be completely ill-judged about that. Secondly, because somebody asks for martyrdom and entry to a paradise Fry doesn’t believe in, that’s no reason not to oblige with the contingent element in that process. Namely, killing them.
And why limit the categorising of the action to just attacking them? Perhaps the distinction is that they want us to attack and lose but what they want least is for us to attack them and win?
More to the point, how is it that so many are so certain that this is exactly what they want? What specifically is this based upon? I would bet any money I have that when engaged in the fight for Sinjar the Islamic State would have preferred if the Kurdish units they were fighting did NOT have air support from the US, UK and Canada. Is Fry suggesting they would? Does Fry think the attempted attacks on us over this last year is because they want us to extend our bombing over the border? How does he know this?
“They attack us because they want us to bomb them”
This is basically the same as the last point. However, I wish to add this: Beware of those who claim this and then also claim we are attacked BECAUSE we bomb them. If the motion is passed and we change some locations in our bombing mission and then the mainland UK is attacked, I truly hope the likes of Fry will not claim it is because we bombed them. These are surely mutually exclusive positions? They attack us because we attack them OR they attack us to make us attack them. It surely cannot be both.
“It’s none of our business”
It is. They attack us. There is a refugee crises. And we are all humans.
UPDATE:
Saw this photo online and think there’s room for one more.
“You have no money for X but have money for war”
How UKIP is this? “No money for British Grannies but you have money to try and save foreign types?” It’s the logic that says until every hospital has solid gold toilets you can’t spend a penny on the Olympics.
This is suggesting not that the war is bad because of outcome but merely because of expense. That’s a legitimate argument perhaps but in this case it is saying that a marginal (imperceptible) difference in the ability to spend money on education in this country trumps the chance to allow for say, a Yazidi girl to stop being raped or murdered, and be able to get any education there. What are the odds, do you think, that this girl in the picture says the same thing about the foreign aid budget and its relationship to education? I say none.
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There are many more. Too many. And most of these points above, fully expanded on, are an essay in themselves. However, in the meantime…
The Gerasites 
With regards to your last point I completely agree it’s a far-left and UKIP contention to see the defence budget and the education/overseas aid budget as a zero-sum equation. The 2014-15 defence budget was £38bn, the education budget was £98bn. Even if the defence budget was doubled as a result of the action agreed to in parliament last night (and it won’t be), we would still be spending £22 billion pounds more on education than defence. I really think the problem is the general public’s not being aware just how much money is raised by tax and borrowing and what it gets spent on.
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