The barbarism gets worse

The Herald reports:

The Islamic State group has released a video purportedly showing the burning alive of a Jordanian pilot it had captured in December.

The video released online showed images of a man purported to be Maaz al-Kassasbeh engulfed in flames inside a metal cage.

To a degree the Islamic State is more barbaric than the Axis powers in WWII. Executing prisoners is bad enough, but burning them alive is a hideous form of suffering.

I’m amazed that Labour seem to be saying that NZ should not contribute to the fight against the Islamic State. It is hard to think of a more moral case for intervention since WWII.

Now that is not to say we should send in ground troops. I’m against that. But the proposal to send 100 NZers to work with Australia on training up the Iraqi army seems reasonable.  It is possible that the Iraqi Army will fail, as they have in the past. But a change of Prime Minister seems to have improved things in Iraq, and just walking away and doing nothing isn’t a great strategy.