Monthly Archives: July 2015

Bombing for Peace. This time: Syria.

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1.  Cameron loses Commons vote on Syria action

“It is clear to me that the British parliament…does not want to see British military action”

“”David Cameron, Prime Minister, 20th August 2013

BBC: “MPs have rejected possible UK military action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government to deter the use of chemical weapons.  David Cameron said he would respect the defeat of a government motion by 285-272, ruling out joining US-led strikes.”

Had that very close vote gone the other way, we would be attacking Syria’s government, troops, infrastructure and, inevitably, civilians as “collateral damage”.

2.  MPs support UK air strikes against IS in Iraq

Intervention at the request of the Iraqi government was “morally justified” to combat a “brutal terrorist organisation” and was clearly lawful.  Britain has a clear “duty” to join the campaign, and IS is a direct threat to the UK and I am not prepared to “subcontract” the protection of British streets from terrorism to other countries’ air forces.

Paraphrasing of David Cameron, Prime Minister, 26th September 2014

BBC: “The UK Parliament has backed British participation in air strikes against Islamic State extremists in Iraq.  After a seven-hour debate, MPs voted for military action by 524 votes to 43.  Some MPs expressed concerns about the prospect of future engagement in Syria.”

3.   David Cameron believes ‘there ​i​s a case to do more’ in Syria

“British MPs need to think again about what else British forces can do to help moderate forces in Syria.”

David Cameron, Prime Minister, 2nd July 2015 via Downing Street

Guardian: “No 10 stressed it would be better if military action, likely to be air strikes, only went ahead if there was a consensus in the Commons.  Michael Fallon, defence secretary, said Isis was directed and led from northern Syria.  He vowed that if there was any decision to include air strikes in Syria as part of a full spectrum response (spot the weasel words), the government would seek the approval of parliament. “Our position remains that we would return to this house for approval before air strikes in Syria.  We are clear any action we take must not provide any succour to Assad’s regime.”  The prime minister’s spokeswoman stressed that British military assets were already flying over Syria, and British forces were helping to train members of the Syrian Free Army outside Syria itself.”

So we’re training ‘freedom fighters’ / ‘insurgents’ / future terrorists?  Isn’t that the classic mistake the CIA has been making for decades?

4.   Syria air strikes conducted by UK military pilots

” ”  ← (i.e. nothing so far)

David Cameron, Prime Minister, 17th July 2015

BBC: “UK pilots embedded with coalition allies’ forces have been conducting air strikes over Syria against the Islamic State group, it has emerged.  Crispin Blunt, Conservative MP and Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, said the 2013 vote on action in Syria was a “totally different decision” to the question of strikes on IS and that that decision had not been undermined.  Labour has indicated it would not oppose military action in Syria. Acting leader Harriet Harman has said the case for air strikes was now different to the situation in 2013, when Labour voted against UK military action in Syria.”

When was this discussed and arranged?  Apparently a couple of days ago when the Greece crisis was all over the news.  What a good day that was to bury bad news.

Both sides of the Commons are all for this.  Politicians are odd creatures: opposition in everything, everything, as a matter of principal, regardless of the logic, yet unity in wanting to extend violence.  There is something about the desire for power that results in a mind-set of wanting to see others hurt.  [ note to self – there’s a psychology essay to be written based on that last sentence. ]

It seems there are three sides in Syria:

  1. Assad’s regime which is being attacked by the US and allies.  UK troops may or may not be embedded and supporting these attacks.
  2. The revolutionaries trying to bring down Assad’s regime (sorry, who are these people exactly?) who are being trained by the UK.
  3. IS / ISIS / ISIL / whatever we are to call-them this week are being attacked by the US and allies and (covertly) the UK.

This is like the proxy wars of the Cold War in the1900s where NATO and the Warsaw Pact tested and demonstrated their weapons’ capabilities in other countries by supporting opposing sides.  At least then the West and East could pretend we/they were on opposite sides.  Now the West seems to be supporting the fighting on all sides.

Had the 2013 vote gone the other way (requiring a difference of just 7 MPs’ votes), we would be openly bombing all of Syria.  No wonder Moslems think there is a Holy War going on.

As for training the rebels (the next generation of elite mercenaries and terrorists) trying to bring down and take over Assad’s government, how many of them are now fighting for, leading, arming or training the IS / ISIS / ISIL forces?

Presumably, if and when IS / ISIS / ISIL have been defeated, the airstrikes will continue but against the Syrian government.  Therein lies the inevitable argument of the next few days: “We may as well start bombing Assad now to prevent his resources falling into IS / ISIS / ISIL hands“.  Yep, I predict a scorched earth policy, although it will not be called that.

Here we are in 2015, still bringing peace with bombs.  And how well has that been working since 2003?

Hanging on to the big dreams

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I started out with this big dream about three years ago of finding some way to convince my own government to use methods other than war. Of the people I have spoken to, very few have said “war is inevitable” or “you can’t have society without war”. This has not just been because of the people I have started to mix with, not do I think it is people just being polite. It feels like an idea whose time has come. Those who do pooh-pooh what I say I find are easily countered, despite my lack of knowledge.

But sometimes I think I have bitten off more than I can chew, especially when I see what others have achieved, or what large or long-standing organisations have not achieved. I start thinking I should wind back a bit on my ambitions. And then I’ll see something like this quote, which I just read when trying to go to sleep:

The biggest things are always the easiest to do because there is no competition.

William van Horne

It is nice, the number of the random strangers I have met this past few years whose attitude has been “go for it”. There’s a lot of hope out there.

There is no pax Americana

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Bringing down stable governments of countries and failing to put something in its place is the principal cause of the terrorism and conflict going on in the world at the moment.

When the Romans invaded, they took control, dictating foreign policy, providing defence in exchange for a promise to not rebel and pay tribune.  In so doing peace reigned over the Roman Empire at the cost of freedoms at a national level. This was the pax Romana.

The Islamic Golden Age, inspired by the philosophy that “the ink of a scholar is more holy than the blood of a martyr“, in which huge advances were made in medicine, mathematics, culture and science, was also a period of peace, sometimes called the pax Islamica.

A thousand years later the Mongols conquered much of Asia and held it to produce the Pax Mongolica.

The Ottoman Empire in turn provided peace to its citizens in the pax Ottomana.

A similar arrangement to the Roman Empire was achieved by the British Empire to produce the pax Britanicca.

Chinese empires have come and gone and provided their own periods of internal peace, as have many other cultures.

The concept of “empire” has come to be seen as purely a bad thing since the mid 20th century as countries gained their independence, partly through economic consequences of the World War 2, partly through improved communication and education and partly through the disruptive influences of the Cold War.  In place of an imposed external governing body, freedom for those of a territory has been granted, often with disastrous consequences.  The lesson that could and should have been learned from those experiences are that independence should be done slowly, replacing institutions and structures with new ones, a part at a time.  It is frustrating, but far more stable. [Note to self: specific examples needed.]  A clean break leaves a county with no stable government and civil war and decades of turmoil is the usual result.

But the desire to ignore the beneficial benefits of a benign empire has resulted in much chaos, death, suffering and desire for revenge of late years.  The removal of stable governments from countries like Iraq and Libya without replacing it with something else that works has been far worse than what most empires have done in the past.

It would have been cheaper and less destructive (but probably no more productive in the long term) to simply assassinate those leaders that were considered undesirable.  At least there would not be hundreds of thousands of dead and maimed civilians and a world-wide problem with revenge terrorism.

The idea the USA has been the global policeman producing a pax Americana is a fallacy.  They are not spreading peace: just fear and hate, chaos and disorder.

Instead of toppling a regime, take it over and change it from within, fools.  Learn from thousands of years of history.

Bradford University Peace Studies MA

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Bradford University has a reputation for being the university for peace studies in the UK.  They also claim to be the first and largest university Peace Studies Department in the world.  Hence I visited their Bradford University’s open day on Saturday 4th July 2015 to investigate them as a possibility for doing my master’s degree in a peace-related subject.

The Peace Studies department was formed 40 years ago.

There is no cap on the number of entries; they currently get around 100 MA students per year.  One does not have to choose a specific MA in advance—admission is to the department.  I was told “the Peace Studies MA is for people who do not know what to do with themselves”.  I know exactly what I want to do and a Peace Studies MA is core to that.

Part of their claim to fame is that Margaret Thatcher tried to get the peace studies department closed down because of their links with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) organisation.  (I checked this out and, according to The Struggle Against the Bomb Volume 3):

As early as 1981, the British Secretary of State had publicly attacked peace studies as “appeasement” education and, thereafter, public officials issued dire warnings about peace and antinuclear bias in the nation’s schools . Thatcher herself, convinced of pro-CND bias at the nation’s only university level peace studies department, located at the University of Bradford, sought to have it shut down, and repeatedly asked officials: “Has that department been dealt with yet?”

I was also told about an organisation one of their staff is involved in (the Oxford Research Group) but that organisation is independent so it is a bit glory-by-association.  Ditto for SaferWorld and OpenDemocracy.  We were also told one of their professors is always jetting round the world and contacting him results in “I’m in such-and-such airport” responses.  Not much use as a campus lecturer, then.  They also said they are influential in government, but not how.  Lots of words, little evidence.

I was taken around the library by their Head of Library Services.  It is a fantastic university library; I was very impressed.

For some of my questions the PostGraduate stand sent me to the Peace Studies stand who sent me to the PostGraduate stand.

It seems very pro-gender-divisive which came across in the old, tired, “you’re male so you’re wrong and need educating” mantra.

Intake is in September.  Class sizes are 30-40 and no less than 15.I asked why they are relatively inexpensive (£5,400) and told “Just be glad  it is so cheap“.  Contact hours about 10 per week with attendance being on up to 3 days per week.

I managed to have a chat with one Peace Studies undergraduate student.  She is enjoying the course but not intending to use it in her career.

Conclusion.  It felt too big; I felt I would be more raw material for their sausage machine.  I was not inspired by the modules they do: too region-specific and contemporary and not theoretical or practical enough ni my areas of interest.  They seem to be geared up for training people to do grounds-roots work in the field overseas as opposed to changing the policies of governments to prevent war, which is my area of interest.

Hacked again

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Another of my sites has been hacked and the home page replaced.  Much less damage this time and it was easier to repair, remove and make the site secure again.  (The cause was an old Drupal installation which I tried and abandoned but did not delete.  It had some bug in it that gave people more access rights to the site than it should.)

Unfortunately for the numpty children doing this, they don’t realise that putting graffiti on walls does not endear people to their cause.  Assuming it really is them and not someone else trying to discredit them.

Image of the hacked home page that replaced my personal web site.

Image of the home page that hackers uploaded to replace my personal web site.