Speaking of Terror

 

IBDEditorials.com

An Islamic State terrorist points a knife at James Foley shortly before the journalist was beheaded.

 

Terror: Islamic State terrorists are trying to sell the headless body of James Foley to his parents for $1 million. As the left wrings its hands over the U.S.' supposed torture record, it's a reminder of the enemy we are up against.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein's release of a classified report this week on the Central Intelligence Agency's enhanced interrogation methods — waterboarding, sleep deprivation, rough handling — has set off a storm of guilt-mongering about America's supposedly terrible record of "torture," with everyone from the Ivy League academics to the leftist president of Uruguay claiming the U.S. is no better than Nazis (which is pretty rich, coming from Uruguay).

But as we go to press, they haven't had a word about the barbarism of the Islamic State, which not only brutally beheaded U.S. hostage James Foley after a prolonged period of captivity, but is now rubbing salt in the wounds of his grieving family by offering to sell back his body for $1 million.

Words cannot express the anguish Foley's parents must feel — from having to hear it all from these filthy killers still walking free after their heinous crime and now seeking a ransom of sorts for the "privilege" of a dignified burial.

So far, we've heard no condemnation from the U.N.

Or from the president of Uruguay, for that matter.

One of the middlemen involved in the grotesque proposal told BuzzFeed that the Islamic State had only the family's "need for closure" in mind and called its quest for a cash reward "a humanity case," while another middleman more frankly admitted "this is business."

No matter what it is, it's psychological torture on a family following physical torture of their son. More important, it tells Americans something about the horrible enemy we're still fighting.

The Islamic State and al-Qaida in fact have long, grotesque records of torture. An al-Qaida handbook uncovered by soldiers showed the terror group's preferred methods, including stringing people up in contorted positions, using power drills through hands, chopping off limbs, gouging out eyes and applying hot clothing irons and whips, among dozens of other barbarisms.

None of those medieval methods showed up in the highly politicized report on the CIA, but they're real and they're out there — a big reason we fight this enemy in the first place.

That's a perspective that needs to get out.