Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister and I agree that both sides in the Syrian conflict have been guilty of horrific crimes. The use of arms and bombing by both sides is not helping matters. When Pol Pot started his campaign he had an army of 5,000 men, yet within four years the actions of President Nixon and his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, through the use of B52 bombers, had increased this figure to 200,000. ISIS is similar to Pol Pot's crowd in that its members are also a bad shower that has grown out of the violence in the region. We need to stop this violence and advocate for the bombing campaign in Syria and Iraq to stop. ISIS will not be beaten by bombing them from 30,000 ft. The bombing campaign does not solve the problem as it causes even greater misery for the citizens who must live under it. We must call on everyone to stop supplying arms and munitions to Syria.

The Minister of State is dead right; Assad is an animal. However, when people took to the streets in Bahrain the Saudis, using US munitions and arms, stopped the protests because the Bahraini Government could not handle them.

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