The shocking and offensive video that surfaced this week of American journalist James Foley being beheaded by an ISIS jihadist should never have made its way so extensively around the world via the internet and social media sites.
ISIS, or the Islamic State (IS), released the video on Tuesday, August 19, stating that the barbarous act was revenge for U.S. air strikes on its fighters in Iraq.
IS is so vile and barbaric that it is hard to fathom where to start condemning their actions. Religious and ethnic cleanings of non-Muslims in Iraq, massacres of villages and the wholesale kidnapping, raping and reselling of non-Muslim women and children are standard tools in their arsenal. They are a vile group of extremists who are profaning Islam.
Back to the video – it is hard to argue that the humanity and soul of any human being might be improved by watching another human being cut off that person's head. It does not and will not make us better world citizens to see that act of inhumanity.
It cannot help James Foley's parents, friends and family to see their loved one killed like that.
It helps no one to see that video. Sure, one might argue that the video is important because it shows just how nasty IS jihadists are and how little regard they have for any rules of warfare, let alone human life.
But we already knew they were vile extremists who are bastardizing Islam. We knew that when they began invading villages in northern Iraq and demanding that Christians convert or die.
We knew that when they chased thousands of Yazidis onto Mount Sinjar in Iraq, effectively trapping men, women and children there without food and water where many of them, too many of them being children, died.
Back to the video – our own humanity will be degraded if we become accustomed to and able to stomach regular viewing of such depravity. Our culture is full of violence – violence in movies, violence on television and more.
But when we watch those, we know it is not real. To accept and watch real acts of violence, such as someone being beheaded, will not and cannot be good for us as a society or as human beings. We should eschew such videos and social media and news organizations should too.
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