Let me finish with this killer who hides behind a mask and celebrates his hatred of us.
It’s hard to face up to such a figure, to accept that he stands on this earth with us, openly and coldly slicing off our heads, one at a time — or in groups.
He lacks not an ounce of sympathy for us. Believe that if nothing else. He cares not for our fears, or horrors or our final humiliation or the death that comes at the end. In fact, he wants these moments, wants to be there taking pleasure in them, wants to know before, during and after that he has the power of inflicting death, fearful, terrifying, total.
And he wants you, those of you watching these videos he sends out, to know it, feel it, hate it, and know there’s nothing you can do about it, nothing to stop him.
“Jihadi John”, the headline writers have dubbed him. But unlike “Baghdad Bob,” which we called that guy who couldn’t, wouldn’t admit the defeat of Saddam’s armies, there is nothing of mirth in this man, nor should there be in a name thrown upon him. Masked or not, he is the face of evil. As long as he stands out there, condemning, humiliating and ultimately executing people, he looms as a specter of evil that I don’t think can be endured without shaming ourselves. There needs to be a reckoning with this evil. The challenge to President Obama, which he must know if anyone does, is to find a way to bring it.
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