So, what is my ideology then? That violence is a means of last resort? That problems should be tackled at the root, not by attacking the symptoms? That religion - which I personally do not subscribe to - has problems, no matter where but that freedom of speech automatically implies freedom of religion and so it&#x27;s here to stay and will have to be accommodated, in all it&#x27;s forms?<p>Pick some, they&#x27;re all true.<p>Bombing civilians in a trumped up war about resources is to the victims <i>exactly the same</i> as shooting randomly at people. Ditto blowing up weddings with rockets, killing a few hundred thousand civilians to stop them from subscribing to another ideology and so on.<p>All of these activities are deplorable. I&#x27;m all for national defense, I&#x27;m <i>not</i> a pacifist (try harming me or someone I love and see how that ends) but at the same time I&#x27;m all for restraint and <i>very careful</i> consideration of the consequences of actions.<p>Note that there is a fairly direct line between the Iraq invasion (which France was adamantly against, remember the &#x27;surrender monkeys&#x27; and the &#x27;Freedom Fries&#x27;?), and the attacks in Paris. Action begets reaction, so before you react without considering the consequences you should hold still. And only when and if you&#x27;ve identified root causes can you go and attack the problem.<p>Attacking Iraq on false pretexts after 9&#x2F;11 was a step on the way to Liberating Fallujah (or should that be &#x27;wiping it off the face of the earth&#x27;) which indirectly led to the US leaving Iraq which led to a power vacuum which led to on the raid of Mosul by IS which was one step on the way to IS becoming more coherent which was one step on the way to a bunch of murderers shooting up the Paris nightlife.<p>It&#x27;s not that hard. Context and intent are a lot more complex than they seem to be at first glance, ideology has precious little to do with it.