Don’t bomb Syria, British Afghanistan veteran says

This video from Britain says abiut itself:

BBC Inside Out – Dealing With Afghanistan

7 February 2011

BBC Reporter and Reservist officer, Lieutenant Clive Lewis recalls his struggle to come to terms with life on civvy street after a 3 month tour of Helmand Province‘s frontline in 2009.

By Luke James in Britain:

MPs would lose lust for war if they saw it

Thursday 24th September 2015

Lewis hits out at ‘knee-jerk’ bid to bomb Syria

POLITICIANS would think twice about bombing Syria if they had ever experienced war, according to a Labour MP who served in Afghanistan.

Clive Lewis, who has represented Norwich South since May, took part in a three-month combat tour in 2009 with the Territorial Army reserves.

In an interview with House Magazine published yesterday, he explained how the experience informed his opposition to a British military intervention in Syria.

He said: “As someone who, to be quite frank, has had my fill on my short tour of Afghanistan of death and mayhem, I sometimes think if we had a few more MPs in there seeing the direct consequences of their lust for war, maybe they’d think twice about it.”

The former soldier spoke out after Tory PM David Cameron insisted this month on “hard military force” to defeat Islamic State (Isis) in Syria.

Though MPs blocked bombing in 2013, Mr Cameron is building support for a second vote to sanction British participation in US-led raids.

Up to half of Labour’s shadow cabinet supports bombing if the government can prove it is legal.

But Mr Lewis branded it a “knee-jerk reaction,” saying the consequences and effectiveness of bombing “hasn’t been thought through.”

“Let’s go for the diplomatic options first and exhaust them rather than this knee-jerk reaction that we see in this house time after time, which is: ‘We’ve got a problem in the Middle East — bomb it.’

“I’m tired of it.”

Syria could be the subject of a contentious debate at Labour conference, which begins on Sunday. Left Labour activists have tabled an emergency motion which says the party should only back bombing if it is authorised by the UN.

Mr Lewis also defended leader Jeremy Corbyn for not singing God Save the Queen at last week’s Battle of Britain memorial service.

He said: “I would have said I served in the army, I don’t think my love for my country and my patriotism can be defined by a song — from a very jingoistic period of our history — singing about what I believe to be a non-existent deity, saving an unelected head of state.

“To try and define your patriotism based on that is preposterous.”

WE OWE Labour MP Clive Lewis a debt of gratitude for his frank warning about the drift to war on Syria. Lewis speaks with authority, as someone who saw first-hand the “death and mayhem” of Afghanistan: here.

While there is a defensive character to Russia’s military intervention in Syria, it is nonetheless thoroughly reactionary. It is directed not at defending the people of Syria, or, for that matter, protecting working people in Russia itself. Rather, it is aimed at upholding the interests of the Russian ruling elite, which Putin’s regime represents: here.