Chris Jockel said:
“The IS ideology is a cult of death and irrationality. It is a kind of fascism. As did our own Laurie Lee, I believe fascism should be confronted in whatever guise it presents itself at home and abroad. Military intervention has been voted on, agreed on and is happening but it’s an almighty bloody mess that we are getting into; a mess partly of our past and current government’s making. Even if it actually makes military sense, which I strongly doubt, it is only defensible if there is an urgent equal or greater deployment of resources to ‘draining the swamp’ of root causes and for humanitarian aid to assist the current refuges and the ones it’s likely to create.
We need to address the legitimate grievances of Muslims throughout the world by implementing UN resolutions for the return of Palestinian territories. We need to cease the corrupt trade in arms for oil dollars with equally repugnant but rich and strategically useful Middle Eastern kingdoms. We need to deal with extremism amongst young men at home and abroad, which contemporary research suggests has more common with gang culture, unemployment and alienation than indoctrination.
Then and only then will this latest war not be the father of the next one. On the centenary on the 1st World War, it might be especially wise to reflect on that.”