February 4, 2015--Burned Alive

After beheading six innocent captives on elaborately produced videos, ISIS descended to a new low. Assuming anything can be lower than the kinds of things they have already perpetrated and put on barbaric display.

Yesterday they released a 22-minute-long video of the murder of Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh. He is the Jordanian A-16 pilot who was either shot down or crashed in ISIS-controlled territory. After failing to get Jordan to meet its ransom demands, they doused him in flammable liquid, put him in a steel cage, lit a fuse, and moved in for closeups as the flames ignited his garment, and  burned him to death. They then crushed him and the cage with a bulldozer.

Rather than breaking Jordan's resolve, officials there rushed to execute the first of six ISIS captives they have been holding and the military leadership vowed an "earth-shaking" retaliation. I can only imagine what that will be.

Meanwhile, back in the United States, calls have been increasing, mainly from Republican hawks--but not exclusively--to arm Syrian rebels and consider sending 10,000 American troops into the region. To put "boots on the ground."

How bad an idea is that?

Considering the reaction in Japan after two Japanese hostages were beheaded and now in Jordan, how do you think we would respond if one of our troops was captured, tortured, and either beheaded or burned alive on vivid TV?

Even with just the current bombing campaign we are leading it is likely that one or more of our pilots will crash and be captured. With troops on the ground, it is inevitable.

All of us, and I stress all, would be so justifiably outraged as to push us to do who-knows-what.

Do we need any of this? A mess and disaster of the first magnitude, sorry to remind you, brought about and catalyzed by the militant policies of the previous American administration. As we think through what to do, let's also keep that in mind.