slamic State cannot be defeated with kindness. It's time to kill or be killed

ISLAMIC STATE • 15 hours ago

Islamic State cannot be defeated with kindness. It's time to kill or be killed

The gunmen of Isil cannot – and will not – be defeated through talking, persuasion or understanding. There are no compromises to be offered

By Julia Hartley-Brewer 14:06 BST 16 November 2015

The tributes to the dead in the Paris terror attacks have been deeply moving. The candlelight vigils have been eerily beautiful. And the images from around the world of public buildings lit up in the tricoleur have been a vivid reminder that, regardless of our national or religious differences, we are all one humanity. 

We are all one humanity, regardless of national or religious differences

All of these niceties are heart-warming and reassuring at a time when the world seems a very uncertain and frightening place.

Indeed, there has been much written and spoken since the bloody horrors of Friday night about how, in the fight against evil, it is peace, love and understanding that will win. How, in the battle against men with guns, grenades and suicide vests, it is the simple courage of people standing together that will ultimately triumph. 

Those platitudes might sound great, they feel very nice to say and they are certainly reassuring to hear and read.

After all, we were all raised on fairy tales that told us, again and again, that in the end it is good that will overcome evil every time.

There is just one crucial problem: none of it is true.

Good doesn’t triumph over evil. And, contrary to popular belief, peace, love and understanding don’t stand much of a chance in the face of a barrage of bullets or a suicide bomber pressing the trigger at a football stadium or in a crowded concert hall. 

Sadlty, good does not triumph over evil

Indeed, the triumph of good over evil has rarely happened in human history without the helpful backing of rather a lot of guns, tanks and bombs. The good guys only win when their guns, tanks and bombs are bigger and better than those of the bad guys.

Yes, there have been plenty of peaceful protests for civil rights, democracy and even against the might of the Soviet Union during the East European so-called “velvet revolutions”. But, by and large, those successes have been won only when the men with guns chose of their own free will, in the face of the combined might of the people, to put their guns down.

That is not going to happen this time. I’m sorry, but it’s just not.

"Isis and its death cult stablemates will never be defeated until we get to grips with the concept that this has nothing to do with anything except the fact that we exist."

The gunmen of Isil cannot – and will not – be defeated through talking, persuasion or understanding. There are no compromises to be offered. 

There is, quite simply, nothing to negotiate.

The cold, hard facts are these: the Islamists hate us and their aim is to kill us. 

They hate our way of life, our values, our culture, our civilisation. There is nothing we can do to appease them or persuade them to stop their killing spree – whether that murder takes places in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon or on the streets of Paris.

There is nothing we can do – whether it is changing our foreign policy by withdrawing troops or warplanes from the Middle East or ending the Israel-Palestine conflict or anything else – that will make them change their minds.

This will not change the minds of Islamists. They still want to kill us

The terrorists and their willingness and ability to use violence against us will only be defeated by one thing: our own willingness and ability to use violence against them. 

History is littered with lessons that tell us that, contrary to the lament of the dove, war is actually good for quite a lot of things: mostly, defeating those who would wish us harm.

Our politicians can wring their hands and deliver fine, uplifting speeches as much as they want. The whole world can light up in the tricoleur and we can invent hashtags and change our Facebook or Twitter avatars until the end of time: it is all utterly pointless unless it is backed up by force.

The evil of Islamism is not going to go away. It didn’t go away when it was ignored and appeased by the West for many years, despite a lengthy bombing campaign on western targets long before 9/11. And it isn’t going to go away now.

Isil and its death cult stablemates will never be defeated until we get to grips with the concept that this has nothing to do with anything except the fact that we exist. It is that, and that alone, which offends them and which they seek to destroy. 

So, unless we are all happy to sign up to radical Islam right now, with every heretic and infidel executed on sight, every man forced to take up arms, every woman enslaved, every homosexual stoned to death and every nine-year-old girl at risk of rape, in a terrifying return to the Dark Ages, we have a choice to make.

That choice is stark: kill or be killed. So which one is it going to be?