This will be our reply to violence...

If we put our troops on the ground we will simply inflame the situation.

I wonder if we'd be so interested in the 'welfare' of the people if they didn't sit on a chunk of the world's oil.

2013 Burma committed ethnic cleansing against thousands of Rohingya Muslims; 28 children hacked to death and mass graves uncovered.

Did we intervene?

2014 Disability groups go to UN over Australia’s forced sterilisation practice

Did we intervene?

Human rights abuses in India, Pakistan, China, many countries in Africa....in fact in various places all over the world. Do we intervene?

We cannot intervene everywhere. I seem to remember, not that long ago, that we intervened to save Muslims from murderous Christian Serbs.There Was nothing in it for us, but we did it anyway ( how about that?!)

VQ, we are threatened already by these ghastly people, as are many other countries, it is in our interests to get rid of them, and the sooner the better.

The ''killers' in Paris were most likely French nationals. So how does bombing Syria help. They could have been radicalised in France.

I think the Serbia Croatia intervention was by the UN and it did serve our purpose because it was when the Eastern Bloc was disintegrating and we wanted to make sure we brought them onside.

We don't do anything for purely altruistic reasons.

vampirequeen you're right, we are picky about where we intervene and I have always been uncomfortable with that fact. For me though the difference is that IS is a threat to world peace. The enemy is an organisation, not a country and I am not sure if we've faced a threat like this for centuries.

The breaking news is France has launched airstikes against IS tonight, bombing the IS stronghold of Raqqa.

France now says the attacks were planned in Belgium and two of the attackers who died were French nationals living there. Salah Abdeslam, the man they are looking for is Belgian and his brother is one of the attackers who died in the auditorium. Six people have been taken into custody in France and seven people have been arrested in Belgium in connection with Friday's attacks.

It seems to me that the problem of Daesh in Syria and Iraq needs to be taken in hand by the Arab nations including Turkey as they are the ones most at risk. BUT the issue of the violence perpetrated against the innocent civilians in European countries is another matter entirely. We need to step up our international intelligence activity. Word on the ground and prevention is much to be preferred and will not feed these awful people's desire for notoriety. Knee jerk responses will only give them the excuse to execute further violence against us.

Just my humble opinion! Having lived with so much tit for tat violence in our society in N. Ireland I know it is self perpetuating!

I have been reading all the above posts with great interest.

Everyone is appalled but there is no consensus even amongst us few oldies, as to what the solution/way forward should be. Heaven help the politicians. I think the end of European civilization is nigh.

There are solutions. Just not easy ones.

Agree with jingl.

A letter in today's paper made a good point; terrorists are almost impossible to beat militarily because the ruthlessness it takes to defeat thrm is unacceptable in a democratic world.

It continues that organisations on the scale of IS need money, lots of it. Locating the source of funding and choking off the financial support is a good place to start and likely to be very effective.

The last part is I think what Donald Trump has been saying for a while now.

From the BBC website about IS funding -

Islamic State initially relied on wealthy private donors in the Middle East keen to oust Syria's President Bashar al-Assad.

It now makes between $846,000 (£540,000) and $1.645m (£1.05m) a day selling oil from fields in Syria and Iraq.

Middlemen smuggle crude oil and refined products to Turkey and Iran, or sell them to the Syrian government.

Kidnapping has also generated at least $20m (£12.7m) in ransom payments in 2014, according to the US Treasury.

Islamic State raises several million dollars per month through extorting the eight million people under its full or partial control.

Payments are extracted from those who pass through, conduct business in, or simply live in IS territory.

Religious minorities have been forced to pay a special tax, convert to Islam or leave.

Islamic State also profits from robbing banks, looting and selling antiquities, and stealing or controlling the sale of livestock and crops.

Abducted girls and women have allegedly been sold as sex slaves.

Some funding is still derived from wealthy donors and Islamic charities in the Middle East and Europe.

How do we stop this?

Never thought I would agree with Trump

Never thought I would agree with Trump
Me neither, but it is only on the one point:

I would knock out the source of their wealth, the primary source of their wealth, which is oil",

but I doubt you - or I - would agree with the rest of the statement anniebach:
“I would knock the hell out of them, but I’d put a ring around it and I’d take the oil for our country.”

No rosequartz, not the - I would knock the hell etc. But on the financing of IS

annie

I also just thought it was ironic that he said he would not let them have the oil but would take it for America .....

He is barking rosequartz

He is terrifying.

Only terrifying if he is ever elected President!

Even more terrifying is the fact he has much support in his election bid , imagine if he became president - no best not to think of that

Getting back to OP (now that's a novel idea) how about tomorrow night's football friendly between England and France at Wembley.
"Allons enfants de la Patrie!"

P.William has said he will be at the match and the Met has said armed officers will be in the grounds

The French don't seem to be by nature very warlike. More philosophical, emotional, family centred.
I don't know where the Marseillaise words come from. ?Pre-Revolution?

They were quite warlike under Napoleon!

I think the words of the Marseillaise are from the Revolution.