Proxy Wars

Ignoring the Home Front

We have watched some of the speeches made in the House of Commons calling for British air strikes against ISIL in Syria and Iraq.  A sample--a speech by Labour MP, Hilary Benn--can be found here.

At one point in  his speech, Benn reviewed some of the horrors and murderous villainy committed by the Caliphate.

Now Mr Speaker, no-one in this debate doubts the deadly serious threat we face from Daesh and what they do, although sometimes we find it hard to live with the reality. We know that in June four gay men were thrown off the fifth storey of a building in the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor. We know that in August the 82-year-old guardian of the antiquities of Palmyra, Professor Khaled al-Assad, was beheaded, and his headless body was hung from a traffic light. And we know that in recent weeks there has been the discovery of mass graves in Sinjar, one said to contain the bodies of older Yazidi women murdered by Daesh because they were judged too old to be sold for sex. 

He also referred to the threat of terrorist attacks, inspired and aided by the Caliphate, in the UK.   There is a clear and present danger in that country--and indeed throughout the West, including New Zealand.

French Mobilisation: Theatrics Or Resolute Policy?

Early Signs of Waging War

Following the recent Paris attacks and President Hollande's immediate declaration of war we wrote expressing scepticism about the will of France to conduct war against Islamic guerilla fighters or what used to be called irregulars, or commandos.  We pointed out that the "fronts" of that war are actually found in Europe, not in the Middle East.  Military strikes on ISIS--which constituted the initial French response--are largely irrelevant at this stage.   

To go to war against the guerillas operating in Europe would require a resolve and discipline of France and its people actually to wage war on home soil.  We were, and remain, sceptical of the resolve of Europe, in general, and France in particular to undergo the privations and difficulties of fighting on the domestic front.   France, we suggested, was far too wedded to the comforts of chardonnay and the cafes to proceed with any kind of militancy requiring mobilisation for the armed forces for war in France.  Therefore, we reasoned, Hollande's "declaration of war" was likely little more than a theatrical, rhetorical flourish.

Over the past week, however, the French authorities have been very active in tracking down and killing those involved in the military strikes against French citizens in Paris.