Oh Dave, Make Haste to Help Us?

Given the patchy record of foreign interventions in recent decades - an Iraq for every Kosovo - it makes no sense that only 1 day of debate is being allowed for the decision to bomb Syria. Why the rush? If it's the right decision, then taking longer over it will reveal the rightness. It's hard to make a good decision in a hurry. 

I'm bemused that we have a majority of MPs prepared to vote in favour of this: we have Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq as cautionary tales of military action taken without an exit strategy or planning for what happens afterwards. Every bomb dropped will mean millions in reconstruction costs further down the tracks, but the government isn't even offering a promise of rebuilding to the civilians of Syria who will have to live with the mess after Daesh are history. 

"We don’t really know what we want to achieve other than to hear the sound of bombs falling on Raqqa, thus satisfying the need to do something. We can’t win if we don’t know what winning looks like." (Giles Fraser)

Ian Paul offers 7 good reasons to really take our time over this, and consider if there is a less sexy, but more effective, way to tackle Daesh. 

Cameron has been itching to bomb Syria for a while, and the Paris attacks have given him the reason/excuse/pretext he needs. But the Paris attacks don't really change any of the military logic. If, as is frequently announced, 7 similar attacks have been foiled on the UK this year, then the threat has always been there, it's just that this time they weren't caught by the security services. The fact that one attack was successful, instead of joining with the other failures, doesn't change any of the maths around ISIS in Syria. If it didn't make sense a month ago, it doesn't make sense now. 

Persecution of Christians in Syria

Open Doors have launched an appeal to help persecuted Christians in Syria, with reports of Muslim extremists turning on Christians, many being forced from their homes, tortured, kidnapped, or worse.

More details of what's going on, why, and what can be done about it, at God and Politics.

Here's another recent report:
Nearly 100,000 Christians so far have fled from Homs and other cities being targeted by government forces, but it is no longer just to escape the crossfire. Now, more reports are revealing that a new wave of persecution is deliberate and growing. As a result, Virginia-based Christian Aid Mission is sending additional aid to help the growing numbers of refugees which have fled to Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey.

"It is over; we can't get back what we lost," said one discouraged Christian refugee here in Jordan. "It will never be the same anymore for me or my family. We've lost hope." He said he had to flee with his family at night, because anti-Christian persecution in Syria is becoming a steadily growing reality.

"I had my own business. I ran a supermarket, and we were financially stable. Unfortunately, that's not the case anymore. Our dreams vanished when a group of terrorists threatened to kill my family, burn our house, and set fire to the supermarket if I didn't pay them $7,000.

"I paid the amount, hoping that they would leave us alone, but they did not. Instead, they kidnapped me for a whole week. They only let me go on one condition: that each month I would pay them the same amount.

"What do you think I could do? I fled. I packed our stuff, taking only the basics. I took my family and came to Jordan. My son, Omar, has one year left to finish his bachelor's degree, but now his dreams have vanished as well. I used to be a business owner...but now I am a laborer who can hardly provide the day-to-day basics for my family."