Much as it grieves me to ever agree with Jeremy Corbyn, I don’t think we should bomb Syria. Make mine a ‘non’ vote. Not that I get a vote.

Let me make perfectly clear (a political expression meaning ‘you won’t understand any of this’) my position. In case it impacts today’s crucial vote on the proposed air-strike action.

Firstly: I hate ISIS. Ok, that’s a given.
Secondly: I hate Jeremy Corbyn. But I’m not agreeing with his reasons, just the outcome.

Corbyn wants us to ‘have talks’. With whom? ISIS? Asad?? One of the many factions of anti-government Islamists who aren’t (at the moment) affiliated with ISIS? Maybe with Putin. That’ll be interesting. As Russia has its own agenda completely out there.

So whilst I’m generally ‘a lover, not a fighter’, I’m really not opposed to war, to bombings, to all manner of force, defence of principles, nuclear deterrents and martial arts. I just think you have to pick your battles.

You cannot destroy ISIS. Something that for some reason Obama, Cameron and the other nations and combined 22,752 expert advisers don’t seem to comprehend. Its an ideology, not a ‘thing’. And if you did manage to kill every single member of that hateful organisation, another would immediately spring out of the ground to replace it. ISIS is merely the end point of a sick and distorted philosophy, armed with religious fervour and which feeds on vengeance and victim status. It exists to exact revenge. Bombing will make the philosophy grow, it will not diminish it. The creation of thousands more ‘martyrs’ would make them stronger. They have no fear of death. Radical Islamists revere death and happily sacrifice themselves, their children, anyone, for ‘the cause’. That’s just one measure of how fucked up they are. They love to be persecuted.

And you can’t persecute much more than 20,000 bombs. That would be the best recruiting device ISIS could ever dream of. You can’t apply our logic that ‘life is sacred’ and ‘give up or everyone dies’ thinking it will get results. It won’t. Not the results we want anyway.

The result will be revenge. In London. Paris. Washington. Berlin. Who knows.

But I don’t fear that. I just think it shows the futility of the intended action and the lack of understanding by us and our allies, who really, we have no choice but to support. Even though we’re all stupid in doing so and inviting horrors to be enacted upon us.

And if the bombing is successful, then what? Asad is a bad man. Putin is armed up, in the neighbourhood and keen to defend the man. The ‘rebel militia’ in Syria who aren’t ISIS are simply a different type of terrorist. Mainly because they’re Shia, rather than Sunni. So you get rid of ISIS and Hezbollah take over. Great plan.

We don’t understand Syria. Which is why we’re now bombing to effectively protect the man we wanted to bomb ourselves 2 years ago.

Every other middle eastern action has ended disastrously. Iraq. Afghanistan. Libya. Awful. Create a vacuum for extremists to fill. You can’t impose democracy on people who have no understanding of it nor desire for it. Its a philosophy as alien to middle easterners as suicide bombing is to westerners.

Its a lose-lose situation, whichever way you look at it. So I’m voting an emphatic ‘non!!’ thank you very much.

Happy Black Wednesday (well we have black everything else, why not??)

A xxxx