MISSION CREEP : THE FIRST TIPTOE TO WAR IN SYRIA HAS BEEN MADE

The mission creep towards war on Syria is going to be like watching a cartoon, but a bloody cartoon engineered by headchopping Saudi Arabia. Picture a cartoon character creeping up on his victim, creeping quietly one minute, tiptoeing quickly the next.

A month ago Callous Cameron, who allowed David Haines and Alan Henning to have their heads sawn off by Islamic State and then cite those brutal murders as a casus belli, proposed a motion for war in Iraq.

The only explicit mention of Syria was this:

Notes that this motion does not endorse UK air strikes in Syria as part of this campaign, and any proposal to do so would be subject to a separate vote in parliament

But now Reaper drones will soon be flying over Syria.

Britain is to send military drones over Syria to gather intelligence in a move that will deepen its involvement in the campaign against Islamic State (Isis), Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, has revealed.

Downing Street insisted that the flights did not amount to military intervention and said there was a clear legal case for drone surveillance in Syria under the principles of “national and collective defence”.

The Reaper drones have already been active in Iraq, after parliament gave its approval for Britain to take part in air strikes against Isis. However, this will be the first time they will have ventured into Syrian territory, where David Cameron has not sought approval for military action because of fears it would be blocked by Labour and some within the prime minister’s own party.

[source : UK to fly military drones over Syria, The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/21/uk-to-fly-military-drones-over-syria, 21st October 2014]

Has this been OK'd with Syria?

What if Syria shoots one down?

What if a drone, oops, shoots at Syrian military?

NB this step was announced just days after the first Islamic State plot on British soil was allegedly busted, but no trial has yet taken place and thus no convictions have been made. There was something very, very fishy about those arrests: they occured just after Moazzam Begg claimed that the FCO rejected his proposals to negotiate the release of Alan Henning; the arrests diverted public outrage onto the alleged plot rather than the FCO; most of those initially arrested were released without charge; the highly irregular decision was made to mix all the charges together in one big charge sheet rather than lay out clearly each individual's charges.