Not in my name

As I type this, we are potentially just over 24 hours away from Parliament agreeing that we should commit to "an expansion" of our role in the war on IS/ISIL/Daesh. Writing that sentence makes me depressed, scared, angry - anything other than confident and safer. The hawks in Westminster, egged on by tub-thumping journalists and the defence industry, will soon have their way and we will commit to a war that will have no forseeable end and no clearly-defined outcomes. Of course, we could all be surprised and find that Labour MPs actually vote in line with the resolution passed at Conference barely two months ago. There could be many more Tory MPs who have a last minute wobble and decide to reject the need for us to - yet again - strut our stuff on the battlefield, only to find that when the war is 'over' and we have buried our dead, nothing has changed. It could happen, but I doubt it will.

We, the public, have been whipped into a frenzy of "we must do SOMETHING!". The constant assault on our consciousness by the endless front pages of the gutter press shouting out their stories of 'terrorist refugees' coupled with the night of co-ordinated attacks launched in Paris last month - "Paris - that's on our doorstep!" - has convinced the British people that we are next on the terrorists' list of targets. We have been made scared and set on edge and we have been told who the enemy is. Having wound us up, the press and Government can be guaranteed that the majority are now thoroughly on-side when it comes to rolling out the bloody red carpet once more.

I was disappointed that Jeremy Corbyn did not place a three-line whip on the Party when it comes to any vote relating to 'expanding' our role. To my mind, a free vote allows the bad apples in hs own cabinet, the ones that are constantly briefing against him in the press (probably for a nice little kickback too), to do what they want to do without having to positively buck the party line. I thought that this missed an opportunity to damage Cameron's leadership because, without the support of dissident Labour MPs, he would probably have had to have shut up about his war ambitions, a humuiliating climbdown given his known wish to increase our involvement. However, having heard Corbyn speak today and explain why he went with the free vote, I now believe it to be a good move: those Labour MPs who vote for war will have nowhere to hide when it all goes to hell and we are having Chilcot Part 2 - they will not have the option of saying "The Party made me do it!". It will all be of their own making, their own free will.

As a little aside, I just thought of something the other day. Although Corbyn is portayed in many sections of the media as "extreme" or "hard-left", take away his meetings with Palestinian and Irish Republican activists and his views on social justice, plain speaking, "good' politics and equality make me think of John Smith, the best PM we never had. Was John Smith vilified in this way as "extreme"? Were his views on social justice pilloried? No, the press had yet to descend into whatever circle of hell in which it currently resides. Back then, having a conscience was still acceptable. But I digress…

So, why are we going to war? Although there are associated reasons such as the French wanting us to do more (well, we could do 'more' but more of other useful and effective stuff rather than bombing) or "the UN has sanctioned it" (not sure if the UN has sanctioned war or, indeed, if Russia, for example, is going to carry on playing nice for ever). It seems to come down to this: to increase our security. Yep, you read right - to increase our security. Now, given that we are already (sort of) operating in Iraq against IS, we are going to be a likely target of some kind of revenge attack. IS are pretty old skool when it comes to their religion, very much an-eye-for-an-eye type guys. Given our current involvement in Iraq (plus previous form in Iraq, Afghanistan etc), I'd say we are on their attack list. The terrorists involved in the attacks in Paris specifically linked thier actions to France's role in the Middle East. Now, while some of the terrorists may have come into France posing as refugees, some were already there in France and/or Belgium and had been for some time. France getting involved against IS provided the trigger for their 'revenge'. We are now trying to go down the same route, painting a bigger target on our backs. Public safety will be decreased by our involvement and the only way to ensure "our" safety will be greater surveillance, more restrictions, more hassle. Win for the terrorists.

Never mind our safety, what about the safety of the average Syrian? In our war in Iraq (Gulf War 2 and the occupation), we managed to kill lots of Saddam's troops as well as henchmen fiercely loyal to him. But how many Iraqi civillians did we also manage to kill in the process? 100,000? More? We don't know for certain but, whatever figure it is, it is an awful lot of 'collateral damage' (as they try to sanitise it). The fact is that, even with the smartest of smart bombs, many, many Syrian civilians are going to be killed, especially if IS start basing themselves in densely-populatd areas. To compound the problem, we have no spotters on the ground so how accurate are these targets ever going to be? As more civilians die - people who might have been bombed by the Assad regime previously, remember- so anti-West resentment rises and IS can play into that. Win for the terrorists.

What is the end-game here? Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan had a good outcome following our departure, despite our hanging around for a very prolonged period after the 'victory'. The Taliban are back in many places in Afghanistan and the vacuum in Iraq left by removing the one thing holding factions at bay - Saddam - created the right environment in which IS could flourish. Oficially, Iraq has an army of 650,000 and around 300,000 police - nearly a million people who should be operating against IS and yet still they exist in Iraq. Syria, we are told, has a 'free Syrian army' of around 70,000. This figure, quoted by Cameron among others, is likely to be baloney: 70,000 armend people maybe, but not an army as we would understand it or need it to be - different groups and factions without a single command structure are not going to be effective allies on the ground. Internicene warring is more likely than concentrating on defeating IS.

Before we even get into a never-ending war (a showdown that IS wants, of course - win for the terrorists), why are we not looking to strike at IS in other ways? They get their weapons from somewhere - why are we not working on cutting that supply off? (I know it's probably the Saudis that are supplying which means Cameron will find it hard to be tough with them but, hey, it's all about this country's security, isn't it Dave? Isn't it?). Where are they selling their oil to gain revenue? Use diplomacy/pressure with the buyers. Do almost anything and exhaust those routes before we get into a war, for God's sake!

Churchill once advocated that there should be "more jaw-jaw and less war-war". A motion to lay before Parliament was agreed today, a few hours debate in the house tomorrow will determine if our bombers will be in action by the end of the week: barely time for any talking, any exploration of other options. I'd like to think that some of those set on war could still be turned through debate tomorrow, but I doubt it. Most politicians wear poppies and stand at the Cenotaph, yet they all seem to want to rush to war at the drop of a hat or the sniff of a dodgy dossier. Jeremy Corbyn wants us to stay out of a war and to try other means to defeat IS first. It's not about him being weak, it's about him being strong and holding on to his principles in the face of incredible provocation.