The Defence of Europe

The UK parliament is to vote today to resume military action in Iraq. I fully expect that the vote will approve the bombing of military targets occupied by ISIL.

Our politicians are making comments about not repeating the mistakes of the the past and that there is a need to plan for the future. Where is the plan as far as I can see there isn't one? We are almost certainly repeating the mistakes of the past.

The invasion of Iraq under the pretext of deposing Saddam Hussein and removing his "weapons of mass destruction" was a colossal mistake. The Western allies created a power vacuum which was subsequently filled by ISIL. The invasion resulted in many tens of thousands of innocent civilians being needlessly killed. This was claimed to be "collateral damage". Many thousands of civilians would have had their heads blown off by powerful explosions and some of them could even have been vapourised. It is no wonder that many young men from Iraq and the region now seek revenge. Some of these men would also have been brutalised by the war and now seek a violent solution to what they see as an injustice.

The war in Iraq has created a new sort of enemy just like the First World War did. The defeat and humiliation of Germany left a power vacuum which was eventually filled by fanatical extremists who had been brutalised in the trenches. Hitler and his henchmen then created a state which was more brutal than ISIL.

Britain and France were then forced into another bloody war. Have we learnt nothing? Have we forgotten why men and countries go to war?

Nothing much has changed as far as the human condition is concerned; it is just war and more war. I am not a pacifist and would probably have volunteered for the Second World War because my nation was directly threatened by a powerful and brutal neighbour. Britain and France and latterly Russia and the USA were forced to fight.

As far as the Levant , The Middle East and the Maghreb is concerned we have not been forced into a fight and there has been no need for invasions or bombing campaigns. The West should not get involved militarily and we should not attempt to dominate these regions by force. We do not understand the culture and religion so we have made matters worse from a political point of view.We have created more enemies to make life more difficult for ourselves.

With regard to defence, Europe can easily defend its borders from a direct military invasion by ISIL. Where is the real threat?

We have an internal threat but we have sufficient police forces to track down and arrest "terrorists" who are trying to overthrow our states by violence. The police could be helped in their mission by the military if necessary.

I should like to know how many divisions of soldiers ISIL can deploy? How many military jets they can deploy and what is their range? How many ocean going naval vessels they can deploy? I should like to know what the military threat to Europe is and how we can defend ourselves from it? We need to know this before engaging in another bombing campaign.

I should like to know what additional threat there is from internal enemies? So far both the police and secret services have been remarkably successful in defending Europe from murder and treasonable acts perpetrated by the supporters of ISIL and such like.

When I listen to parliament I hear all sorts of accusations that ISIL is a danger to the world on a scale unheard of since the Nazis. This is untrue; ISIL may be equally as brutal as the Nazis but they lack the military power and organisational ability to organise genocide on an industrial scale or to invade Europe. To make a decision to go to war on the basis of these accusations rather than the assessment of the real threat is unbecoming of a rational parliament.

I am also of the view that the threat to Europe's internal security has been exaggerated; so far police action has protected us well . It might be better to invest money in beefing up our national security services rather than commit resources to further bombing campaigns abroad.

ISIL is a brutal regime which must be tackled but the regional powers have a responsibility to intervene. Iran is a regional power and it should be allowed to broker a peace agreement. The regional powers are better able to halt the spread of ISIL and its ideology. It is more practical from a military point of point to allow the regional powers to find a solution.

I fear that more bombing by the Western allies will lead to further destabilisation of the region and more innocent civilians being killed. The deaths of the innocents as a result of "collateral damage" will create further resentment and further justification for young men to take up arms and commit further atrocities.

This evening our MPs will vote for this military action and the bombing will begin shortly afterwards. Our parliamentarians will have made this decision without examining the real military threat and the consequences of further bombing campaigns.

The war will "ramp up": ISIL will melt away into the towns and cities to wait for the opportunity to spread their word and cruel ideology across the whole of the Middle East, the Levant and North Africa. The West is walking into a trap; we have armed the wrong people and we have once again been fooled. Our formers "friends" are now our enemies just because we wanted to depose Assad. The ISIL fighters and regime hail from Syria and it is the West who have supplied them with arms both by design and by accident. This was simply naive of us.

We now face the prospect of British war planes in action again and further revenge attacks upon our innocent civilians and the assassination of aid workers.

The revenge and war will continue until Western politicians can think of something better than bombing to solve the world's problems - there is not much hope of that unfortunately.