Just read that France is backing the US.

Jolly good perhaps the terrorists will bomb the Paris Metro rather than the London Underground then!(not that I really want that to happen either but there is usually a payback)

Maybe, just maybe if we had not been suckered into Iraq by the chimp and completely misleading and inaccurate information the result of the UK’s parliament may have been different.We are not a world power anymore and I don’t see why we should act as the worlds policeman. The British will not avoid a war if it affects us directly but we have learned some lessons from the past. The first one is do not ever trust American intelligence unless you can corroborate it yourselves and also work out the sub plot as why a war is necessary! Lost the stomach for a fight? Where was the USA until 1917 or 1941. Don’t ever infer this country are cowards we have just learned a bit of sense at last.

Well if the Indians hang on a bit I am sure we could flog them a shiny new Aircraft Carrier!

Mosul Charlie,more than that I will not say. Iraq is not a safe place no matter what those in the west tell you.What we tend to forget(or not care about) is most people in the middle east do not want war,retribution or extreme Islam. Like most of us all they want is the ability to work,make money and keep their families in peace and security. Is that to much to ask from life?

Yes their customs and religion may by different from ours but the aims of the man is the street is the same and in my book his life is of no less value.

Mosul

I am still waiting for my Iraqi friend to reply,he is watching the debate in our Parliament.
I would add that he is a kind thoughtful man. He was in charge of a AA missile battery in gulf war one. He told me that he could have brought down an allied aircraft with ease but if he lit it up and fired he would probably had 3 minutes to live so he did not.
Saddam was not the life of one of his men. Perhaps people like that are worth more than those who bang the drums of war

As for the pub it brings back memories a gang of us used to drink there in the late 60’s it must have been new then. Its still there apparently!

I have sent the following message to a very good friend of mine in Iraq. He more than the rest of us has suffered USA and UK intervention in his country. I will not identify him any more than to say he is an ordinary working man with a small business and 3 young children. When I get a reply I will post it.

“I think, on balance, that we ought to stay out of it.
As much as I feel sorry for the ordinary Syrians caught up in this mess, I don’t think there is much to be gained from intervention, despite the fact that Obama’s ‘red line’ has evidently been crossed.
If Assad was overthrown – and I appreciate that this is not the goal of Allied intervention – would any replacement regime be any better either in terms of stability or human rights? And, would an intervention be a ‘shot across Assad’s bows’, or would it just antagonise him more?”