Where children are weapons of choice

One thing that tells you more than any rhetoric about the Islamist terrorists is how they treat the most dependent among them — actions that speak louder than words. They send their children to detonate themselves as human bombs. They do the same thing to their young women.

And then they run away in search of more women and children to victimize.

Now, not all of their human bombs are women and children. Some are young men. But not many are older women, and not many are older men.

While the older people are capable of allowing themselves to be blown up, they seem not to do so. With age must come wisdom, regardless of the culture.

I know I would not volunteer to be blown up, nor do I know anyone else who would, even the young. We have many brave young men and women who put themselves in harm’s way in military service, but they are trained to use weaponry and to take care of themselves. Most of them, thank God, come home. Some of them even sign up to go back into harm’s way.

What would we do without them?

Would we blow up our children and young women?

I think that would be highly unlikely. We value our children. We educate them to take over for us when we grow old so that the civilization — this civilization that has led to so many advances and advantages for humanity — can go on.

And we value the young women who might bear those children and bring them up. Not all women bear children, of course. The contributions of those who don’t have children are just as valuable. Would we choose to lose a single one in an insane act of war-making?

The way these men treat their women and children is an outgrowth of the brutality they use to keep their weakest citizens in subjugation.

Some in our country tend to write this off, saying, “Well, it’s just part of their culture.”

No it isn’t. It’s insanity.

Cruel behavior against women and children pops up in the United States, but when it is found, it is systematically eliminated by protecting the victims and charging the perpetrators. We see this in the way victims of out-of-control religious cults eventually get help.

We aren’t perfect, but at least we can recognize evil when we see it.