When you only have a hammer...

...everything looks like a nail.

This is how I feel about tonight's vote in Parliament. It seems that for this government every foreign policy issue is a nail to be hit with the hammer of bombs.

Watching the news and some politicians are saying they support military action because of refugees. But the refugees are fleeing the Syrian government as much as (and very likely more than) they are IS. There are civilians living in areas controlled by IS, they are going to be killed and injured by bombing. Likely some of them will become refugees. However much governments say they only bomb specific military targets, there are always civilians killed - as most shockingly illustrated by the US attack on the MSF hospital in Afghanistan. 

I don't know what the solution is, but I can't see any way that bombing will help. My trips to Lebanon a few months ago were to meet refugees. I didn't write about it at the time, probably because I don't normally write much on here. The people I met just want peace and to go home to rebuild their homes and country. Bombing IS isn't going to make that happen, only a political solution to the crisis will enable that. Maybe.

And according to David Cameron, not supporting his bombing plan makes me a terrorist sympathiser. The vote just went through.

I got the first draft of my report finished today and sent off to be reviewed by my colleagues. It's been a lot of work so it's good to have the first stage done.