AMONG those demonstrating in Stroud against military engagement with Islamic State, I recognise highly esteemed friends.

Yet I disagree with their vigil, believing many good people fail to recognise ISIS for what it is, just as many failed to appreciate the threat posed by Hitler.

Though Neville Chamberlain is remembered as the man who appeased Hitler, we should recall that nine months after Hitler became Chancellor, the Labour leader George Lansbury proposed, and I quote, to "close every recruiting station, disband the army, disarm the Air Force, abolish the whole dreadful equipment of war and say to the world, ‘Do your worst’."

Was he last century’s Jeremy Corbyn?

Military intervention saved Europe from the ideology of fascism and, too late for many, saved Muslims in Bosnia from Christians whose ideology permitted them to "ethnically cleanse" them.

At the dawn of history, human beings, intelligent enough to understand but not to accept mortality, devised the notion of a God who, if they pleased, would ensure their welcome after death in Paradise.

Cults arose, offering such a hope, balanced with a treat of eternal punishment should they fail to please this parent figure.

Some cults spread and were subsequently called world religions, an altogether more palatable name.

The religion preached by what Christopher Hitchens has accurately labelled Islamo-Fascism, offers its brain-washed adherents a seat in paradise should they kill anyone outside their cult. A former al-Qaeda operative recently referred to them as "pious psychopaths".

If thousands of such psychopaths were advancing down Rodborough Hill, murdering as they approached, might not those demonstrating in Stroud drop their placards and grab rifles?

Might some even pray for air support?

I’m with Laurie Lee, George Orwell and those who in 1937 cried “No Pasaran!”

Orwell, who valued precise language, might suggest that placards reading 'Don’t Bomb Syria' read 'Don’t Bomb ISIS'.

Anthony Hentschel

Nailsworth