Benedict Cumberbatch weighs in on ISIS: 'You can't kill an idea with bombs'

Benedict Cumberbatch weighs in on ISIS: 'You can't kill an idea with bombs'
(Image credit: Jason Merritt/Getty Images)

Benedict Cumberbatch has revealed his ideas for the best way to stop ISIS.

Cumberbatch has previously campaigned for the U.K.'s Stop the War Coalition against the Iraq war, and he's now stated that ISIS' existence is the result of the U.S. government's foreign policies in the Middle East.

"The usual means of showing your prowess and strength just won't work with this," he told The Daily Beast. "You can't kill an idea with bombs — in fact, you often strengthen ideas with bombs." He went on to explain what he considers the "smart way" of dealing with ISIS:

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To really understand [ISIS] is how we're going to be able to start combating it, and changing it. Although, I think there's nothing else in the world that would make any right-minded person want to be totally opposed. If there was conscription and I was asked, I would go, because it's fundamental to every person's ideology on this planet, no matter what race or creed you are. It's their way, or death. That's as clear-cut a divide in morality and principles as we've faced with fascism in the Second World War, and we haven't really had a uniting common understanding in something that's so the polar opposite to what's sacred in life than that, really. It's a form of ethical and moral genocide, as well as the idea of race. It's about killing everyone who doesn't believe — even Muslims who don't believe in the same extremity of what they believe in. It's astonishing, and terrifying, and needs to be opposed. But, I do think the smart way of doing it is to understand it totally first. [The Daily Beast]

In the interview, Cumberbatch also discussed his portrayal of Alan Turing in The Imitation Game. Check out the full article at The Daily Beast.

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Meghan DeMaria is a staff writer at TheWeek.com. She has previously worked for USA Today and Marie Claire.