Dropping weapons must start from the top

Police officers in Paris (Image: The Guardian)

Friday 13th is historically, superstitiously and apparently a day to fear. It is a day where everything is meant to go wrong, where luck isn't on your side. If you looked at the news at the start of the most recent Friday 13th, which just past, we may have placed those superstitions to one side when UK and US governments announced they finally targeted 'Jihadi John', the mastermind behind so-called Islamic State, ISIL or whatever you'd like to call the extremist group.

This announcement brought cautious jubilation. Powerhouses from both sides of the Atlantic joined forces and orchestrated air strikes on these extremist sites in Syria and Iraq. They have ordered these attacks as they believed that this was the 'right' approach to win the War on Terror - Cameron used the term 'right thing to do' for targeting radicalised, brainwashed, British citizen that is 'Jihadi John'. From both UK and US's perspective, killing him was the only viable solution.

As I write this, the death of 'Jihadi John' is yet confirmed, however the United States are pretty confident. Regardless, in the current political climate, he must have seen this deadly fate coming. After being radicalised and later filming the beheadings of innocent aid workers simply to make a statement. He was out of control and too many were following his lead. Being wiped off the face of the earth was the easiest solution.

Despite the targeting of 'Jihadi John's' base at the time, as I said, there was a general sense of global cautious jubilation. The caution was correctly judged, but under the most tragic of circumstances. Just hours after the announcement of the ISIL member, the city of Paris was under attack.

The French capital witnessed terrorism to the extreme with a reported over 150 lives lost. The biggest bloodbath came from iconic concert hall, the Bataclan, where more than 1,000 were watching heavy metal group Eagles of Metal Death. Smaller attacks came from different parts of Paris including Stade de France where 70,000 football spectators were mourning the dead rather than celebrating their national team's 2-0 victory over the current world champions, Germany. French President Francois Hollande, present at the stadium, quickly announced the country was in a 'state of emergency' and closed the borders. Usually vibrant and spirited on a Friday night, Paris was in complete lockdown.

Of course this isn't the first publicly known attack to have taken place in Paris this calendar year. In January 2015, Charlie Hebdo magazine headquarters was under attack which left the rest of the world in mourning over the death of satirical cartoonists. That and also other horrific incidents that has rocked France this year - including the plane crash on the French Alps that led to 150 passengers dead after the co-pilot reported to have committed suicide and consequently mass murder. And very recently France witnessed the worst coach crash 'in decades' after colliding with a large truck leaving 43 dead, many of which were elderly tourists. We were also close to a mass shooting on a train heading to France in August, but were saved by American off-duty troops. Not to mention that this year the north of France had to cope with an influx of refugees leaving unimaginable situations at home, and also leaving Calais in a difficult logistical situation. Some of these incidents aren't classed as terrorism, but you can't help but think 2015 is seen as annus horribilis for the beautiful and tranquil country of France.

Francois Hollande (Image: Zimbio)

It makes you wonder why France? Their current government is ever-so-reluctant to start a war and socialist Hollande has spoken for peace more often than not. It is gut-wrenching to hear stories of mass destruction, I'm sick of it. I'm sick of mass media social media outcry of sympathy as in reality, I, like the French President, want to live in the world where we can live like one big joyous union, little tension and abolish arms that causes so much grief and don't feel the need to grieve for those who lost their lives in gruesome and sudden circumstances.

You may be wondering about where I'm getting at between the recent Parisian attacks to the targeting of 'Jihadi John'. One reason is that ISIL have claimed responsibility for the attacks in Paris but for me that's irrelevant. Does it really matter what group(s) were responsible for the death of 150 people on Friday the 13th? The killers are still extremists, very angry extremists. And there are more of them than we dare to think. I don't want to delve into their motives because they can't justify their actions - neither can we. But there are long-standing solutions in how we can significantly reduce similar attacks from happening - and this starts right from the top.

When I say top - I mean governments around the world, of course. Terrorism has been going on for centuries, this isn't a new concept. We know the drill - two parties' dispute, one has the better of the other and suffers the consequences, then a conflict begins. There will be no winners in this battle, but certain parties would get the worst out of it and later cause isolated massacres that have lasting effect on the majority's security. Then the other party wipes the other off the planet as repercussion - but someone from the party just wiped off the planet will get angry and follow similar tactics to those who performed the attack on his members.

It is a vicious cycle and for this attack to happen in this week of all weeks, when the World remembers the fallen on Armistice Day. The timing to get this debate in the open has never been so apt. In Britain, we remember those who defended our country in World War I against German repression which led Dictator Adolf Hitler to do what he did in the lead up and during Second World War. Then the victims of Hitler's atrocities, namely the Jewish, suffered tensions of their own and in Israel in particular, retaliated elsewhere - in Palestine and the rest of the Middle East leading to further conflict between Jewish and Islamic extremists.

I could go on, but I want to fast forward to 2015. The justification current extremists have, particularly those based in the Middle East, is that they are angry about the way the West (pinpointing the UK and US) have intervened in the region over the past 30-40 years, investing billions in arms and oil that has continued the fighting, increasing their resources to accelerate their barbaric behaviour to the fifth gear. Despite France's historic opposition to US's anti-terrorism policies, they have been the recent constant target, the rest are ganging up to terrorism on their behalf. This is evidently not working and these attacks have got to stop - from both sides.

The UK and US can defeat terrorism if they put their minds to it but to stop the tensions that is putting the world in disarray, they must drop their arms. Killing 'Jihadi John' would only make another brainwashed person angry enough to retaliate. It's like a police chase whereby an offender and police officer points a gun at each other. The only way that answers to questions take pace is that both drop their guns without pulling the trigger and co-operate. If we stopped interfering in other countries business by limiting fierce military action abroad, I can almost guarantee that tensions will ease massively. It is a long term solution which has to be kept because seriously, conflicts will only create more conflicts and I don't want to sympathise more dead during terrorism much longer - I want the terrorist attacks to stop.