I don’t know the answer. I have read as much as I reasonably can, but I don’t believe that I, or most MPs or Lords, really know all there is to be known about the pros and cons of military action in relation to Syria, let alone what might happen in the months and years to come. Having listened to ordinary voters giving their opinion in the media, I don’t think they are very well informed either. I don’t think it is sufficient to be pro-war or anti-war in a general way. It is a decision that might best be made by the Cabinet and the military experts. That is why there is much to be said for the historical practice of the treatment of going to war as a matter of the Royal Prerogative. For hundreds of years, and until very recently, the decision to go to war (however defined) was for the Crown to make, ie in practice the Prime Minister. There was no vote, as far as I know, when we entered the First and Second World Wars, or defended the Falklands. Indeed, it has often been said that even to debate the issues in Parliament means giving the “enemy” advance notice of our intentions, and involves disclosing information that ought to be confidential and might relate to the protection of our armed forces. Undoubtedly if there were a sudden attack on this country, we would expect, and it would be perfectly legal, to defend ourselves at once without recourse to Parliament. Whether the proposed Syrian action could be called an emergency, or a matter of self defence, or a war of choice is debatable. But it seems to be expected now that, if there is time, Parliament should not only be consulted, but should have the last word on whether to go to war or not. The new convention started with Blair’s seeking Parliamentary approval for the Iraq invasion, and since then it seems to be accepted that Parliament makes the decision, not the PM. The weakening of the royal prerogative and the growth of a new constitutional convention, have been considered, with approval, by Parliamentary select committees – http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmpubadm/422/42204.htm#a6 and http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201314/ldselect/ldconst/46/4602.htm. But then of course it would be surprising if MPs did not think that they should have the last word. That is democracy. Nevertheless I am anxious that complete and confidential information may be absent from consideration when a decision to go to war is being made by polling party members, or to serve party political ends, or to show solidarity. Least of all should the decision depend on a guess as to whether more terrorism might be unleashed on our shores. That would be giving the “enemy”, whoever that is, the very control that they want over our foreign policy. There is, even today, much to be said for the Royal Prerogative.
First, some deeper or further factors:
1. re “Royal Prerogative” – it is “not” –
it is an absolute and direct last-ditch “Duty to The People”.
PM Robert Hawke of Australia turned “queens evidence” after himself ordering military action ‘against’ Australian citizens in Tasmania at the Pedder Dam open confrontation, by flying noisy big Army helicopters scarily low over those adult maturely responsible and peaceful-protesters [“to protest” = to stand up for something better];
so Hawke reminded us that
(“) As the last constitutional defender of The People, the Queen/Governor-General must first sign, even against Parliament or the PM, not only a commitment to outright War, but every other commitment to military action or using military-equipment or troops (“).
2. Militarily defined as “Logistics”, supply is quite possibly the most difficult of the sub-division-ing not only of Military Situations but of overall Peacetime-Civil Strategy and Implementation as well.
In the ultimately greater but over-clouding, under-burrowing, and open-sores face of Human Civilisations’ worldwide spendthrift-wastage, extinction, and destruction, of this Planet Earth’s bio- and non-bio Lifesupports,
“the enemy” is already “within our own gates”, and lodged even deeply within our individual, personal, family, and neighbourhood planning, budgeting, expenditure, and lives.
(instantially in the last of these, we must include the “economic” daily rip-roaring, around the entire world, of hundreds of millions of “private cars”, “family four-wheel-drives”, holiday-cruise-liners, and fleets of ‘holiday-making ordinary people’).
3. If the “democracy” you call upon is the best-possible going-fact of National and International Governance, then at root “The-People” become the Sovereign Power.
But just glimpsing “the Peoples'” spendthrift-wastage, extinction-ing, and destruction-ing of Planet Earth’s Lifesupports in the name of “liberal consumerism”, this human kind’s Unfitness-for-Purpose and Unfitness-to-Democraticly-Govern becomes clearly lit-up, “in flames”.
So de facto isn’t (your) “democracy” not by/of/for The People at all, but by a “so-far-so-good benign-ish” sort of Top-Down One-Way Directive, Worldwide Oligarchic-Cartel, over-killing the Earth by posing as “Democratic Government by The People” ?
——————
Are you all mad in that Parliament building? Are you all unable to think logically? What is it you have between your ears there?
1) Cameron is spouting the identical nonsense of Blair. When ‘Dave’ said he was the heir to that money making little warrior, who will be damn defiant if it comes to his own boys being onto the front line how quick the boots will come off to run. Let Cameron take that on board. He has kids, does he really want them facing a war for oil. And that is what this is. Apparently they have found a hundred years of the stuff on the syrian side of the Golan Heights.
2) What is threatening to our lives here in the UK is already in our midst and growing by the day. Don’t kid yourselves otherwise. Use your logic, we are the infidel every single one of us. And we must be opposed and finished off to make the world right, according to Islam. The more we bomb those people the more they feel they have an absolute duty and destiny to do so here. How many of the Paris terrorists were French? How many of those willing to die for Allah in Syria are British, French, Belgian, Swedish, Norwegian, German and so on?
3) You are being duped to bring Turkey into the EU. What the US has wanted us to do for years and this is what they are combioning, killing two birds or even three with one stone.
4) Nato, the UN, Europe and us are ruled by Globalists. Globalists are ruthless, treacherous killers who have no sense of what a Human Right is, other than as a use of words to make us simpletons. How can you not see that, it is so obvious?
5) It will not and cannot stop with Syria, this is maximum mission creep. Think ahead and of the ‘what ifs’. Turkey downing the Russian aricraft was no accident. Who was at the back of it? And how many more do you think it will take to poke the bear enough to create a backlash on all of us here in Europe, but, not in North America folks, not there.
6) Think about this one before you vote for war or to expand the already bombing of Iraq and the Iraqi people. Who is funding ISIS? Do you know? Have you followed the trail by any independent means? Who is supplying the arms in the millions to those so called terrorists? The training, the booty, enough to keep them interested in prospective death. Even those backers assisting young European women to go there and be their belly warmers. Remember WWII. Warring governments have no sense of human right. Only human collaterol being worth the loss for the real motive.
7) Has all the bombing over the last ten years in the Middle East made one iota of difference? Or, has it furthered the pain? Now ask yourself, why would any government want to continue with this kind of crazy expenditure? What is in it for them and indeed for us, as a nation?
8) And lastly, think about this, are you ready to possibly die for what they are really after? Suppopse this mission creeps into nuclear war in Europe. Then it will be you and your families who will be paying the ultimate price. Just as those young terrorists are now. And if you are ready for that, please cut me and my family loose from your endevour and do it today. You are being duped, every single one of you. Because, I don’t believe the majority, in either of those Houses, green or red, really want this and for sure your contituents don’t. You can feel it in your gut. Every fibre in your body is telling you, this is another confidence trick.
Vote against any further military action at all by our government. And get us out of what they are already up to. And do it as quick as you can make that trip to the ballot box.
Listen to these stories. It is food for thought and thought here is a must.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnztR-Ah6ns
And:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkamZg68jpk