Once again we are at war; once again british planes are bombing an enemy no bomb can defeat. Bombing ISIS, Daesh or whatever we’re supposed to call them will achieve nothing. Those who advocate for this action say that we have to act, that doing nothing is not an option. Yet it seems to me that doing nothing is the only true form of retaliation. The second we strike back, we enter into these thug’s warped, ‘war of civilizations’ narrative. Instead, when faced with an atrocity like Paris, we must simply repair the damage they cause and carry on. We must show them they cannot change us; we must deny them the attention they crave. We must send the message that, whatever they do they cannot change us. To do anything else would be to act out of revenge; it would simply make matters worse, like trying to swat a fly – it just makes it more and more angry, when if you ignore it, it will eventually fly away.

[quote=”Moby-Dick”]”Vengeance on a dumb brute!” cried Starbuck, ”that simply smote thee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing,

Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous.”[/quote]