I'm one of your constituents and Labour-voting supporters. I am writing to you to urge you to vote against bombing Syria.
My reasons are as follows.
1. Any bombing will kill civilians. Apart from the human tragedy this involves it will also act as a recruiting sergeant for ISL.
2. It is comparatively easy for ISL to hide from aerial bombing, regroup and pose as great resistance fighters to the colonial, imperial and/or corrupt West.
3. There is no proper co-ordinated thought-through strategy of facing the threat that ISL poses. Bombing will make matters worse. There are hardly any examples of aerial bombing being successful - London Blitz, Dresden and Vietnam spring to mind as spectacularly unsuccessful ones.
4. There are alternatives: e.g. putting pressure on the Saudis to prevent them from supporting surrogates and allies of ISL, putting pressure on Turkey to stop buying the oil and to stop bombing the Kurds, helping to create a regional conference(s) in order to discuss peaceful solutions.
5. There is a real danger that escalating the conflicts through bombing will bring on the danger of world war. We should be making it a priority to de-escalate.
6. It's a good time to question why the UK is involved at this kind of level in foreign conflicts. Is there any cogent, rational explanation as to why the UK is involved in the Middle East acting as policeman, assailant and judge while, on occasions posing as mediator and arbitrator. It seems to be either a hangover from colonial times and/or part of the UK tail being wagged by the US dog. I would suggest that every time the UK is called upon to support the US or another country's foreign adventures, the Conservatives are able to present themselves as the real true 'defenders' of the UK. The exception is of course Iraq which very few now would take exception to calling a blunder, a tragedy and one of the reasons why we now face armed Islamism in many parts of the world. If for no other reason, opposing the bombing of Syria is one way we can put some distance between social democratic politics and the bombing of the Middle East.
