Thomas Wictor

The late psychiatrist David Viscott said that the sicker people get, the more generic they become. Their actions become entirely predictable. Before I give you the latest example, I want to clarify: By sick, I mean pathological, not ill. People make themselves pathological. It’s a choice. They engage in behavior that they know is wrong. Doing so damages them, scouring away whatever was good and decent in them. Evil is volitional.

A few days ago, I got a very angry e-mail from a former US military serviceman. I won’t use his name. The message was full of profanity and accusations that I was aiding the Islamic State by debunking their propaganda film Healing the Believers’ Chests—the murder of Royal Jordanian Air Force pilot Lieutenant Moath Youssef al-Kasasbeh. Also, by claiming that the video was a hoax, I denigrated the death of Lieutenant al-Kasasbeh. The message ended with a P.S. that I shouldn’t bother responding; the writer wouldn’t read my reply.

I sent him a message titled, “Since you won’t read this, I can say whatever I want.”

In my e-mail I explained that my main motivation in debunking Healing the Believers’ Chests was to try and expose the Islamic State as liars. The film is for recruitment purposes and to incite terrorists into becoming even more depraved. In my post “Yes, they recruit by committing atrocities,” from February 8, 2015, I wrote this.

Are these beheaders going to turn against the Islamic State for burning a man alive? Or are they going to start having mass burnings? The answer is in their faces.

Well, today I received a message from the former American serviceman I mentioned above. Though he still thinks I’m aiding the Islamic State, he apologized for being so vehement.

And today I also read this.

Islamic State militants “burn to death 45 in Iraq.”

Jihadist militants from Islamic State (IS) have burned to death 45 people in the western Iraqi town of al-Baghdadi, the local police chief says.

Exactly who these people were and why they were killed is not clear, but Col Qasim al-Obeidi said he believed some were members of the security forces.

IS fighters captured much of the town, near Ain al-Asad air base, last week.

Col Obeidi said a compound that houses the families of security personnel and local officials was now under attack.

He pleaded for help from the government and the international community.

The fighting and poor communications in the area make it difficult to confirm such reports.

Earlier this month, IS published a video showing militants burning alive a Jordanian air force pilot, whose plane crashed in Syria in December.

Prepare yourselves for many more mass burnings. They’ll be filmed, and they’ll be real. I won’t watch the videos. The only reason I watched Healing the Believers’ Chests was that I instantly knew from the screen grabs that it was fake.

I’m a film fanatic. My library is full of movies that I watch over and over. Though I don’t look for them, I find mistakes in most films. The reason is that I get drawn into movies, so seeing a nineteenth-century Mexican soldier wearing Keds high-top sneakers—as is the case in John Wayne’s The Alamo—jars me out of my reverie.

The Obama administration needs someone to jar it out of its reverie. President Obama and his coterie think all of this is a movie.

“We cannot win this war by killing them. We cannot kill our way out of this war.”

That’s amazingly stupid. The only way you win a war is by defeating the enemy. In war, “to defeat” doesn’t mean to win an arm-wrestling contest or a sack race. It means you kill so many of the enemy that they give up.

Killing huge numbers of Islamic State fighters is the solution, as the Islamic State itself admits.

Al Arabiya noted that many jihadists have become frustrated with recent developments including U.S.-led airstrikes in which the radical group aiming to establish a cross-border caliphate has lost ground.

“Morale isn’t falling, it’s hit the ground,” an opposition activist living in an Islamic State-controlled area told the Financial Times.

“Local fighters are frustrated. They feel they’re doing most of the work and the dying,” the unnamed activist said. “Foreign fighters who thought they were on an adventure are now exhausted.”

When you have to issue certain rations, it’s another sign that you’re not winning.

In addition to the planes, fighters found large amounts of cocaine, he said, some of which was portioned out and placed along with narcotic pills into packets that were discovered in the pockets of ISIL fighters’ corpses.

“The amount of weapons, ammunition, explosives and improvised explosive devices the group left behind indicates that it did not expect to withdraw,” Nasreddine said. “It clearly was surprised by the size of the resistance that repelled it .”

Now the Islamic State will step up the amount and hideousness of its atrocities. Despite what State Department spokeschild Marie Harf said above, the only way to make these creatures stop is to kill them. Each defeat has a massive impact on those who share the goals of the Islamic State.

As senior ISIS combatants flee the area, online sympathizers are mourning the loss and trying to boost their brothers’ morale.

In an attempt to lift the spirits of the ISIS fighters, supporters of the militant Islamic terror group have been tweeting the hashtag #PrayForTheBrothersInKobaniCampaign. The Kobani defeat comes at a time when ISIS is also losing ground in the Iraqi cities of Mosul and Diyala.

“Oh, the supporters of the Islamic State, be strong. We do not have it without you. Don’t demoralize the Islamic State’s soldiers. We ask Allah that the news is not true.”

The Islamic State has propaganda videos, homicidal maniacs, and social media on its side. Opposing them are the Kurds. Normally I don’t like military imagery set to music, but here’s a very well-done exception. It shows one way in which the Kurds keep winning: They create earthen berms for protection, and they have plenty of long-range weapons that allow them to kill the enemy at a distance. You can also see cannons being fired on a flat trajectory.

That means Kurds use field artillery as sniper rifles. When this is over, the Kurds need their own country. It’s time.

Go full screen with this video to get the full impact.