Where's an invasion when you need one?

We've seen a number of ground invasions in the last few years: Iraq (twice), Afghanistan, Panama. At the time, and certainly since, the world has wondered whether any of them were really necessary, or even if they did more harm than good. Yet now, with thousands of innocents driven from their homes, facing rape and murder simply because they don't subscribe to one particular, perverted from of Islam, the West is wary of doing anything more than dropping food and water to the victims and some bombs on the perpetrators. To me this is one case where there should indeed be boots on the ground- a proper and definitive military action to crush these barbarians who would cast the world back into the middle ages if they could.


There is nothing new about the techniques deployed by IS. Mohammed himself, peace be upon him, practised exactly the same tactics of "convert or die" as he and his followers moved from town to town in the Arabian peninsula in the 7th century. You'd like to think things have moved on a little since then: apparently not, certainly in some quarters. Israel too relies on events which took place 3000 years ago to justify their exclusive claims to the land known as Palestine. They say their claims are justified by certain texts in the Old Testament- again we might have thought that was no basis for current policy but again we'd be wrong.


What is going on in Gaza right now is appalling, but from the terrible images we have seen from Kurdistan in the last few days, the plight of those people seems even worse, if such a thing were possible. We must help them before they perish.