Pure Evil: Islamic State Beheads American Journalist James Wright Foley

The Islamic State kidnapped American journalist James Foley on November 22, 2012.

Foley was a freelance photo journalist covering the civil war in Syria at the time.

IS has held him ever since, but today they tweeted out video of his beheading.

They want publicity from this barbaric act, and I’m loathe to give it to them even by writing a few words about it.

But their barbarity needs to be exposed.

President Obama is reluctant to do anything about the Islamic State’s spread, other than to order airstrikes. Over the past few days, those airstrikes have helped the Kurdish and Iraqi forces fight IS. Iraqi forces recaptured the strategic Mosul dam.

But IS is far from broken. They still hold Mosul and several other Iraqi and Syrian cities. They are still capturing Iraqi Christians and Yazidis and reportedly selling captured women into sex slavery. They are murdering people by the dozens, by the hundreds. IS has designs on consolidating its power in Iraq and Syria and using that as a springboard to attack the United States and Europe. Tellingly, the murderer in the IS video of Foley’s execution — which I won’t post here — has a British accent.

IS is still holding American journalist Steven Sotloff. They have tweeted photos of him kneeling in an orange jumpsuit, next to a probable executioner, and declared that his life depends on what President Obama does next.

More: This is a frame from video that aired on CNN last night, from Ferguson, MO.

Foley beheading makes this ISIS sign behind @jaketapper in Ferguson even more chilling pic.twitter.com/lLDUFCZuk6

— AlexaShrugged (@AlexaShrugged) August 19, 2014