But couldn't it be argued that civilians killed by Kurdish of FSA forces could also result in people joining Daesh? Also "indiscriminate airstrikes" refers to an approach that involves no specific target, larges areas are bombed in the hope of hitting something valuable. The british approach has been specifically striking against oil refineries in areas where there are no civilian population, with laser guided missiles. This is arguably the antonym of "indiscriminate".
of course that can be argued. There really isn’t a simple or perfect solution, I didn’t try to claim there was one. But civilians killed from syrian factions AND airstrikes is just going to make it worse. I would like to at this point say that I do agree with you to a certain extent, but for the sake of presenting both arguments:
I reckon that the people would still be more easily persuaded from the western strikes. I mean, daesh can turn round and say “see your people have killed you, all your people are bad, join us to fight them” which the people are gonna be a bit wary and cynical of because they have that immediate connection with their people, their families, communities, friends - they know that even if mistakes are made, they were fighting for them. There’s a distance with the west. if daesh say “see, the western people have killed you, they are bad people, join us to fight them” then that’s a fundamentally easier point to argue. The people don’t have such a strong and personal point of reference, as well as the philosophy of “they shouldn’t have stuck their nose in our business” (even if they did mean well) I hope you understand what I’m trying to say? I’m not saying that this is the definitive situation, just pointing it out as a concept.
which actually reminds me, this is going back to your original question, but another reason i’m against the british airstrikes is the money. I’m absolutely not someone who says we need to fix our own problems first or cut foreign aid, i’m so so so against that philosophy when there are people worse off in the world. However, that said, our government goes on and on about austerity and not having enough money to fund schools, hospitals, councils, benefits - everything is getting to the point where services are becoming elitist and are barely working any more, and yet they can suddenly get all this money together to bomb another country? It’s not the spending money on other people I’m against, it’s just that I smell a rat there. The tory government try to claim they don’t HAVE the money - they clearly do, and their choice of what to spend it on is… interesting.
Ok, fair enough, not indiscriminate. But still. All it takes is a mistake, or a “mistake”, or simply just deciding to increase numbers of airstrikes etc etc and you’re putting people in danger. They’re still throwing bombs at a situation, and you can’t always guarantee that these areas are completely void of people.
