Here are some common myths about the UK parliament's decision to bomb ISIL's positions in Syria:
1. It represents a major new departure for the UK.
No it doesn't. We are currently bombing ISIL in Iraq (at the invitation of the Iraqi government), and the UN has authorised member states to extend operations to the part of Syria occupied by them. ISIL do not recognise the Iraq/Syria border (they think all the land belongs to them) and in practice it no longer exists anyway.
2. Bombing will make no difference.
Yes it will. It may not make much difference, but that's not the same as no difference. US bombing in Iraq is credited with turning ISIL back only 50 miles away from Baghdad. The more states are involved, the more difficult life will be for ISIL on the ground.
3. No civilian casualties are occurring in Syria.
Yes they are. This is such a potent myth that Stop the War in fact never need to utter it. They merely say "innocent people will be killed", as if no innocent people are being killed at the moment. In fact innocent people are being killed by ISIL in numbers and in a manner which any decent person would find revolting. A more respectable argument goes "even though you may defeat ISIL, more innocent people would be killed in the process than ISIL would kill if left to their own devices". More respectable, but still I think likely to be wrong.
4. It is possible to have a foolproof plan for war.
No it isn't. Leaving aside von Moltke's commonplace "no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy", contemplate Churchill in 1939 - "Winston, are you sure we are right to support Poland? After all, you have no plan for the post-war settlement once Germany has been defeated!". It may be true there's no plan, but criticising the Government for lacking one is to make the assumption that a plan could be devised and then stuck to.
5. David Cameron described the opposition as terrorist sympathisers.
The Guardian alleged that Cameron said to Tory MPs "you should not be walking through the lobbies with Jeremy Corbyn and a bunch of terrorist sympathisers". This was treated by Labour and the SNP as an attack on them in general, and a good part of their early contributions to the Commons debate were preoccupied with attempts to get Cameron to apologise. But Cameron isn't alleged to have said that all the opposition were terrorist sympathisers; the highest gloss that can be put on his remarks is that they implied some of them were. And some of them are. Corbyn and John McDonnell's support for Hezbollah and the IRA are a matter of public record. Get over it, Labour, and enough with the faux outrage. Don't pretend you didn't know what these people were like when you elected them.
6. It will make the UK a terrorist target.
The UK is already a terrorist target. This won't make a bad situation any worse.
7. Hilary Benn's closing remarks showed what the real Labour party is like.
I watched Benn's speech and thought it a magnificent - if theatrical - display of moral authority. But he was only able to persuade about one fifth (one fifth!) of Labour MPs to vote with him. Despite the free vote, the overwhelming majority of the PLP voted with Jeremy Corbyn. And the PLP are meant to be the sensible wing of Labour! If Hilary Benn represented the party nowadays, it would be like a return to a golden era. But it's the foam-flecked finger-jabbers outside Parliament who represent the real Labour now. Hilary Benn is an outlier.
8. The choice for the UK is between one self-evidently good thing and one self-evidently bad.
No it isn't. War is a bad thing. People are killed, huge sums of money are wasted and over all hangs the Law of Unintended Consequences. But leaving ISIL free to go on the rampage across the Middle East is a bad thing as well. The choice is between two bad things. The grown-up response is to accept this and make an earnest decision to pick the least worst.
9. Only one side in this argument has moral authority.
Not true. Both sides wish to minimise suffering, and differ only in the best way of going about it.
10. Both sides have intellectual authority.
For all the praise MPs heaped on themselves for the great quality of the speeches, I didn't hear anyone make a persuasive case against bombing. The antis have unreasonable expectations of what is possible in the matter of pre-war planning, and are reluctant to face the terrible plight of people in Iraq and Syria under ISIL. They may not all be terrorist sympathisers, but their desperation to cling to the belief that the West is wrong at all times and their reluctance to defend the values which inform Western liberalism have impeded their intellectual honesty.
