Should our MPs have a say on World War Three?

So Theresa May wants to go to war against Syria and, by implication, its ally Russia. One false move and it could be World War Three, but what could possibly go wrong with Donald Trump in the White House and Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary?

President Assad is plainly a very bad man, but what is an attack on him designed to achieve? Help the Islamic extremists who are among those opposing him, so it will be easier for them to attack people in British streets? Get our forces involved in a complex, murderous civil war, with no end in sight? Set off a war against Russia?

Our MPs should be debating these questions NOW. Theresa May plainly wants to delay any discussion until AFTER she has taken military action. That is not good enough. MPs should not be waiting for an invitation, they should be at Westminster demanding their voices are heard.

This is what I have written to my MP, Labour's Sir Keir Starmer.

Dear Sir Keir,

Why aren't you and your fellow MPs in the House of Commons? The survival of our country could be at stake. One false move and we could be into World War Three. (Just remind me - who is our Foreign Secretary?)

You should not be waiting for a summons from the Prime Minister. You should be in the chamber debating what to do about this crisis even if the government doesn't want you there. If you can't get into the chamber, I'm sure there are plenty of other places to hold a debate.

MPs scandalously failed us over Brexit. You wanted to be an irrelevance on that great question. Now Theresa May plainly thinks she can ignore you when it comes to starting a war too.

What are you going to do about it?

I look forward to hearing from you.

John Withington

Most ISIS victims are Muslims

Following yesterday’s murder of an 86 year old Roman Catholic priest in his church in Rouen in northern France, a reminder that most victims of ISIS terrorists are Muslims.

More than 40 people have been killed by a massive suicide truck bomb in the Kurdish-controlled city of Qamishli in north-east Syria near the border with Turkey. ISIS said it was behind the attack which happened near a security headquarters. The blast appears to have caused a gas tank to explode, adding to the destruction.

Kurds have been perhaps the most resolute opponents of ISIS, in spite of also finding themselves under attack from Turkey’s increasingly autocratic president, Recep Erdogan. As a result they have often been the victims of bombings by the Islamist terrorists.

Earlier this month, an ISIS suicide bomber on a motorbike killed 16 people among a crowd which had gathered to celebrate the end of Ramadan in the Kurdish-majority city of Hasakah in northeastern Syria.

Europe's migrant crisis - facts and numbers

Last month, more than 218,000 migrants reached Europe by sea according to the United Nations – about the same as the number for the whole of 2014. More than 10,000 arrived in Greece alone on a single day. So far this year, nearly 3,500 are estimated to have died trying to get to Europe.

The vast majority have come via Turkey to Greece. This has replaced the route to Italy via Libya which used to be more popular. The highest number come from Syria – about 53 per cent, with Afghanistan next – 18 per cent.

The United Nations has been heavily critical of Europe’s response, but the organisation’s own predictions for the number of migrants expected have been gross underestimates. It forecast 700,000 for the whole year, but at the end of October with two months still to go, that figure had already been exceeded by 44,000.

Normally the numbers fall during the winter months, but that may not happen this year as the people traffickers seem to be offering bad weather discounts. The fact that some of the Islamic fanatics who carried out the mass murders in Paris apparently slipped into Europe as ‘refugees’ has heightened alarm.

More refugees than ever

This week 45 African men suffocated in the hold of a ship as they tried to get themselves smuggled into Italy. It is said they had begged to be released but that they were kept below in case the vessel capsized. Another 70 boat people were lost in the Mediterranean in a separate incident.

Over last weekend, patrol boats picked up 5,000 migrants, following a reversal in Italian policy. Until 2011, the country had tried to block them, sending those it caught back to Africa, but after 360 drowned off Lampedusa last year, it has started search-and-rescue missions.

Since then, the number of arrivals has ballooned to 65,000, compared with 8,000 in the first half of last year, while Greece has seen the number of illegal migrants more than double. Earlier this week, Italian police arrested five Eritreans they said were running a people-smuggling operation.

Across the world, 2013 saw 6 million people driven from their homes by violence and conflict, taking the global total for refugees to more than 50 million. The war in Syria has displaced 9 million people – nearly half the population.

Chemical weapons

So the UN inspectors now have the taks of destroying 1,000 tonnes of Syrian chemical weapons. Such weapons were first banned by the Hague convention of 1899.

This relatively new rule book, though, was not enough to stop them being used during World War One, first by Germany, and then the Allies. They killed at least 90,000 soldiers.

During the 1930’s they were deployed by the Italians in Ethiopia and the Japanese in China. In the later stages of World War Two, President Roosevelt was advised by some to use them on the Japanese stubbornly defending Iwo Jima from caves and tunnels, where they would have been particularly vulnerable. He rejected the idea.

In the post-war era, Saddam Hussein employed chemical weapons against Iran and against the Kurds and other minorities in Iraq, while in 1995, a terrorist used a home-made nerve gas to attack commuters on the Tokyo subway system.

Syria - a lesson from (recent) history

As Britain plans to embark on its fourth Middle East war in little over a decade, a reminder from Iraq that the one thing you can be sure of when you start a war is that it WILL NOT turn out as you expected.

A series of co-ordinated bombings in Baghdad has killed more than 50 people and wounded dozens more. The bombs were detonated in Shia neighbourhoods during rush hour, and Sunni militants are suspected.

In July, the deadliest month for some time, more than 1,000 Iraqis were killed. So far this year, the death toll is more than 4,000, with 10,000 injured. 

In 2003 Britain invaded Iraq because the government BELIEVED Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Now the government wants to invade Syria because it BELIEVES the Assad regime mounted the chemical weapons attack. Sound familiar?

But even if our politicians haven’t learned any lessons, the British people have. An opinion poll shows they want nothing to do with an attack on Syria. MP’s please listen for once.

Syria - lessons from Iraq?

As Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague itches to arm the rebels in Syria, a warning from Iraq that getting rid of a bad ruler does not solve all problems.  Yesterday, at least 66 people were killed in a dozen explosions targeting mainly Shia areas in Baghdad.

The United Nations says more than 700 people were killed in April, the worst monthly death toll in nearly five years.  So far this month more than 450 have died, raising fears that violence is heading back to the peaks seen in 2006 and 2007.

Many of the bombs were detonated in busy shopping areas and markets.  Last week, more than 70 people were killed in explosions at bus stations and markets in mainly Shia districts, while two weeks ago, 38 perished in an attack on a Sunni mosque.

Iraq’s Sunni minority has been complaining that the government, led by Shias, discriminates against them.

Haiti in historical perspective

If the estimates we are now hearing of 200,000 people killed in the Haiti earthquake are accurate, that would make it probably the eighth deadliest in history. The worst may have been one that hit the eastern Mediterranean region in 1201 or 1202, devastating countries like Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Palestine. Some say this disaster claimed more than a million lives, though many of these may actually have perished in the famine that was raging through Egypt about the same time.

Better documented is the quake that devastated Shaanxi province in China in 1556, killing up to 830,000 people, many of whom had been living in man-made caves they had dug into the soft soil. Perhaps third worst was the quake of 526 that destroyed Antioch in modern-day Turkey. Known as "the Fair Crown of the Orient", it had been the third biggest city in the Roman Empire, and was the place where the word "Christian" was first used to describe the followers of Jesus. The death toll was said to be 300,000.

In more modern times, the Chinese earthquake in Tangshan in 1976 was officially said to have killed 242,000, though the Chinese government did not admit to this figure until three years afterwards. Unofficial estimates put the death toll as high as 655,000. More recently, the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004 claimed 230,000 victims.