"Jihadi John" confirmed killed in airstrike

[Wyrd of Gawd]

I'm definitely glad he's gone. The human race is richer by subtraction. As to hoping he suffered, c'mon people. We're better than that.

Are you better than God?  Even the gods love it when they beat the crap out of people before killing them.  Of course gods aren't real but still even the best human alive isn't above killing someone who really pisses him off.

[AFTT47]

Killing someone to stop them from doing more evil is fine - if that is the only way you can do it. Inflicting unnecessary pain is not. That is evil itself.

[Catholic_Lady]

 As to hoping he suffered, c'mon people. We're better than that.

Yeah, as much as I hate to admit I'm happy he got killed, I definitely don't wish he was burned alive or anything. 

[Catholic_Lady]

Killing someone to stop them from doing more evil is fine - if that is the only way you can do it. Inflicting unnecessary pain is not. That is evil itself.

Agreed with this 100%.

[Thumpalumpacus]

(20 minutes ago) "I got some awesome beer... but its late, probably abit late to be getting hammered... should I leave it till tomorrow?"
(Looks at story, now.) "Nope, time for Mexicos finest."

lol, Mexico's finest beer, that's like America's finest politicians -- pisswater, nothing more.

Death should never be celebrated, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I wasn't happy for it. It's hard.

You're not a native Texan, so you may or may not have heard this before, but we do sometimes say of a person, "He needed killing."

This is one of those people who needed killin'.

[Thumpalumpacus]

As for wishing his death was slow and agonizing, given the fact that this shitstain sawed the heads off of live humans beings, I think a little karma before you go is perfectly apt, and I'm perfectly apathetic to his possible suffering.

[Faith No More]

I hope it hurt like hell.

[Ben Davis]

I'd much rather he'd have been brought to justice. I understand the type of revenge thinking that drives people's emotions in this type of situation, the man was a sick murderer after all, but killing him with drones only gives ISIS another martyr and more political ammunition to fire at 'the evil and decadence of western democracies'. He kills, we kill in response; that makes us just as bad, doesn't it?

A big, public trial to highlight his atrocities followed by a full life sentence would provide us with the ability to demonstrate why his so-called 'messages' (aka. killings) were examples of the worst kind of inhumanity and then rob him of his chance for everlasting glory.

'Dead men can't talk' and now we've missed the opportunity to use his incarceration to send a powerful message in opposition to the death and destruction he advocated.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I'd much rather he'd have been brought to justice. I understand the type of revenge thinking that drives people's emotions in this type of situation, the man was a sick murderer after all, but killing him with drones only gives ISIS another martyr and more political ammunition to fire at 'the evil and decadence of western democracies'. He kills, we kill in response; that makes us just as bad, doesn't it?

A big, public trial to highlight his atrocities followed by a full life sentence would provide us with the ability to demonstrate why his so-called 'messages' (aka. killings) were examples of the worst kind of inhumanity and then rob him of his chance for everlasting glory.

'Dead men can't talk' and now we've missed the opportunity to use his incarceration to send a powerful message in opposition to the death and destruction he advocated.

I get what you're saying, but I think the likelihood of him turning into a messenger of peace would have been vanishingly small. How many radicalized fighters have come out of Guantanamo Bay preaching peace to their fellow jihadis?

As for the moral equivocation between us and them, I disagree on that too. Intent is vital to assessing the morality of an act. He killed with the intent of terrorizing others into bowing before the movement he had joined. The countries fighting these assholes kill with the intent of stopping the spread of a virulent, and murderous, brand of Islam.

Pacifism is nice, but unrealistic. It's a mean world and sometimes a fellow needs to be shot in the face for being a murderous cunt coming after you -- or innocents you're charged with defending. Hand-wringing over self-defense, or the defense of innocents, doesn't seem to be a useful strategy in fighting these assholes.

[AFTT47]

He kills, we kill in response; that makes us just as bad, doesn't it?

If it's out of a sense of revenge, yes. If the only option at your disposal to stop the killer is to kill him, then it is just. It is depraved to kill when you don't have to or deliberately causing unnecessary pain and suffering when doing it.