I know everything about Bernie Sanders but nothing about Jeremy Corbyn.

And I don't think many people seriously believe that thousands will die from the benefit sanctions. I think realistically people who die and/or kill themselves whilst on benefits sanctions were probably going to anyway.

Holy fuck that is a depressing and regressive statement.

"Meh, those people would have died anyway."

As somebody with depression who has struggled to find help under this government this is quite an insight into how the general public on the other side of the asile feel about people like me.

It's humbling to know that if I did kill myself people like yourself would justify it as "meh, he would have done it either way".

Aside from that you make some good points, but let's please not pretend we were ever about to ally with ISIS.

I never said we would, but bombing their primary opposition I would call siding with them.

That's what people who blindly oppose all war in any circumstances (even in cases of preventing genocide and mass murder as in Libya or Syria)

I'm not anti-war in all cases...

But how is Libya going again? And how would the Syria intervention have gone if we'd bombed the shit out of Assad? Even without bombing him we're seeing headlines being made because of his government losing territory.

We were going to stop a madman who has been systematically murdering his populace. Forget gas which he definitely used and is using. He bombs hospitals. He sends planes with orders to circle and bomb any groups of people which often means people queuing for bread or water. At the very beginning he would find out where protesters were living and send deathsquads to their apartment building and kill everyone inside so that people would be terrified of their neighbours going to protest. When the rebellion took off he would find out where rebels families were and bomb their whole building, so again, neutral families would be trying to force out families of the rebels.

Quick question... do you think we should go to war with Saudi Arabia?

They execute people for fucking witchcraft and sentance people blogging to hundreds of lashes over 100 days. They are an absolutely disgusting country who are the polar opposite to us. They also actively fund IS and other terrorist groups and are arguably one of the main sources for Jihad globally. And they are our active ally.

I see no reason for going to war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria which shouldn't also apply to Saudi Arabia except they're a more useful to us alive than dead. And that's no reason to go to war.

Because before Assad was fighting both rebel groups, now he knows he only needs to attack the FSA, because the west will bomb and support the defence against any advance ISIS makes.

I'm sorry but this sentence is kinda making me question your knowledge of this particular war...

You genuinely believe that Assad isn't worried about IS and the airstrikes make them not a threat? Have you been following the war for the past 6 months? Palmyra was taken from Assad by IS, so was a whole other bunch of territory. Assad is getting his ass kicked by IS at the moment, airstrikes or not.

It took an absolutely titanic effort to get IS out of Kobane with constant airstrikes for months. Airstrikes are only moderately effective in any case. Airstrikes failed to prevent the Taliban from retaking Musa'qala... not to mention the fact that the US and allies won't bomb areas Assad and the Iraqi Army/Millitias are fighting because they're committing war crimes.

Had we decided to help the FSA topple Assad, then we'd be in a better position to crush ISIS, Assad would likely have stepped down ending one of if not the bloodiest dictatorship of this century and starting the long road Syria must go down to heal from the civil war.

I disagree with this so strongly that I'm almost lost for words.

If we had destroyed Assad we would currently see Al-Nusra in power at best and IS in power at worst. And if you think the current death squads are bad you haven't seen anything yet.

The FSA is an absolute joke. They don't have the unity or leadership to do anything effectively.

We're sitting here talking about which of our many candidates' policies we like best whilst celebrating the fact we didn't help people who are getting slaughtered for asking for the right to vote.

You're making the arrogant assumption that we can fix their problems. We can't. All we end up doing is making it worse. That's been the case time and time again. Do you honestly believe people like yourself weren't saying the same thing before Iraq and Afghanistan? "Look how horrible Saddam is!" now we're saying "look how horrible IS is". IS is a direct result of us getting rid of Saddam in the first place.

Nobody is denying there is a slaughter going on... but I think we fundamentally disagree on how to make it stop. I think throwing more bombs and weapons into the area isn't going to help, and history backs me up on that.

/r/britishproblems Thread Parent