ISIS Burns Captured Pilot Alive [Updated]

Moaz al-Kasasbeh, the Jordanian pilot who was shot down and captured by ISIS, has been burned alive on video:

The footage, which is titled ‘Healing the Believers’ Chests’ appears to show the captured airman wearing an orange jumpsuit as a trail of petrol leading up to the cage is seen being set alight.

Flames are seen quickly spreading to the cage where they completely engulf the helpless pilot in images that are far too distressing to publish.

Jordan promptly announced that it would execute the six ISIS terrorists in its custody.

To a greater degree even than al Qaeda, ISIS has become an international symbol of pure evil. It carries on a constant recruiting campaign among the world’s Muslims, and while most, of course, are repelled by the group’s outrages, some are not. The territory ISIS controls has become a magnet for the demented, the power-mad and the simply evil. Its adherents are being sent back to their home countries around the world to pursue jihad. ISIS wants to rule the world. It won’t succeed in that objective, and one would think that an organization so crazed and so ill-attuned to the realities of governance must be inherently unstable, and can’t cohere for long. Perhaps that is right, but in the meantime, grave damage is being done.

Evil thrives where it is seen to prosper. It is success, not failure, that draws converts. To millions around the world, ISIS is triumphant, its enemies defeated and humiliated. The only way to stop an evil like ISIS is to crush it–dramatically, visibly, finally. With hindsight, this probably should have been done long ago. But six months ago, hardly anyone supported military action against ISIS. I didn’t. But ISIS has changed my mind. The time comes when there is no alternative but to stand up for civilization. In times gone by, we could have said that ISIS is someone else’s problem–let the Kurds deal with them. But today, with ISIS spreading its venom around the world, this particular gang of terrorists is our problem, whether we like it or not.

The Obama administration should begin recruiting allies and laying plans for an armed assault on the territory controlled by ISIS, with the objective of wiping the group off the face of the Earth, once and for all, in a manner that will deter imitation.

UPDATE: The Daily Mail has published these additional stills from the ISIS propaganda video:

254EF5AD00000578-2938199-image-a-2_1423005202954

254EEA6E00000578-2938199-image-a-1_1423005195842

The pilot displays remarkable courage, I think.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses