Going by email, now. Mr Jason McCartney MP House of Commons Westminster LONDON SW1A 0AA 25th September 2014 Dear Mr McCartney As you know, I oppose more or less everything your government has done since 2010, but at the same time you have always answered my many communications diligently and to the best of your ability, which is more than I can say for the previous incumbent. I believe you also, from your replies, to be a basically honest and intelligent person, and I was grateful for your support against the misguided badger cull and for voting in favour of curbing out-of-control and reckless puppy breeding. However. The news that we are now contemplating once again air strikes in an attempt to intervene in Middle East politics leads me to ask just what you and your colleagues think you can achieve by such an action. You may recall that you replied to me, when I wrote to you to complain that we were firing missiles at Libya that cost £800,000 a time when at home we couldn’t afford to keep the Sure Start Centres and libraries open, to the effect that, just because we couldn’t solve all the world’s problems, we shouldn’t hold back from intervening when and where we can. Well, that worked out well, didn’t it? In 2001, there were probably about two dozen radical “Islamists” in the world, living in caves in Afghanistan. Since then, we have managed to create a multi-state army of hundreds of thousands of people intent on doing us the maximum amount of harm possible and they, in turn are busily recruiting others. Just stop doing it! When I complained about the cost of the campaign against Libya, you told me that the cost came out of an “emergency” fund, and I replied thus: “This, for me, raises a very important question. If this money is supposed to be used for emergencies, when is an emergency not an emergency? If we have got to the stage where were shutting hospital wards, Sure Start centres and libraries, that is a bloody emergency! If we have got to the stage where were cutting police because we can no longer afford to keep our streets safe, that is an emergency! If weve got to the stage where thousands of people are being laid off - in the construction industry for example - that is an emergency. If weve got people having their houses repossessed and being turned out onto the streets, that is an emergency.” Clearly you disagreed, or so the lack of any reply to my letter would indicate. I am now asking you one more time to vote against the motion for air strikes tomorrow. Irrespective of the cost issue, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever tactically. You cannot stop the multi-national Jihadist nutters simply by bombing them. All you are doing is creating more glorious martyrs and yet more converts to the cause. Unless the UK government and the USA was willing to bomb Iraq to a nuclear crisp and then send in ground troops to garrison it for a century, there is nothing we can do. And both you and I know that there is no will and no wherewithal to do that. In any case, we are in a hopeless cleft stick supporting the Syrian rebels, who may be largely ISIS, in Syria- and even arming them - and yet bombing them as soon as they cross the border. It defies all logic and reason. It would be laughable if there was not the life of an English hostage at stake. The UK is an island, which is potentially easier to defend from external threats. We already have security services who are, presumably, abreast of developments here in the UK. My own default line of defence would be the white cliffs of Dover. Creating thousands more aggrieved would-be martyrs in the Middle East by carpet bombing Iraq is not going to make the jobs of those tasked with protecting us at home any easier, notwithstanding that the bombing will, inevitably, also result in the deaths of innocent people. Finally, we should also be aware of the phenomenon of mission creep. It starts out with bombing from 20,000 feet and it ends up with our forces on the ground in the theatre of war, being shot at and coming home in body bags. See Afghanistan if you want a precedent. I am generally adjudged by people who know me to be a proud, irascible, short-tempered, bad-tempered and unforgiving individual. Not the sort of person given to pleading, but I am pleading with you today, to think very carefully, and to vote against the air strikes. Yours sincerely STEVE RUDD
Posted on: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 21:39:51 +0000