Today is a day for British citizens - and I am one of them - to pause, and reflect on what their politicians have done in their name. For this morning, Britain is - depending on your politics of war - either a seriously diminished, paltry thing, isolated and deflated - or a nation that has shown it is nobody's lapdog, and that parliament is indeed in charge. This is the day that lays to rest Labour's sins under Blair, and that dodgy dossier - or, makes Ed Milliband the new Neville Chamberlain. For make no mistake, yesterday's vote against the PM's declared aim to take Britain into war against the Assad regime is historically momentous - never before has a British Prime Minister had their war plans kiboshed in such a way. It is, depending on your view, a humiliation or a triumph, or maybe both.
Eyewear's view is that it is a potential tragedy, for the following reasons: while it is good that the primacy of parliament was upheld, it is not clear such a domestic aim is so noble when one considers what has been voted against - a plan to aid allies to punish a terrible war crime - a gas attack that killed 1,000 people a few weeks ago, many of them children. Should this vote change minds in Washington - and this could still happen - and no attacks occur against the depots and soldiers who deployed the terrible chemical weapons - then a very evil group of men has got off Scott free. One can't give too many blank cheques to wicked people before ever worse crimes against humanity occur.
Syria, that great nation, currently facing so much hardship, is likely no better off this morning. And Britain? She has a strong democracy. And a weak foreign policy.
Eyewear's view is that it is a potential tragedy, for the following reasons: while it is good that the primacy of parliament was upheld, it is not clear such a domestic aim is so noble when one considers what has been voted against - a plan to aid allies to punish a terrible war crime - a gas attack that killed 1,000 people a few weeks ago, many of them children. Should this vote change minds in Washington - and this could still happen - and no attacks occur against the depots and soldiers who deployed the terrible chemical weapons - then a very evil group of men has got off Scott free. One can't give too many blank cheques to wicked people before ever worse crimes against humanity occur.
Syria, that great nation, currently facing so much hardship, is likely no better off this morning. And Britain? She has a strong democracy. And a weak foreign policy.
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