that fact (our killing of civilians) doesn't generate much interest here - ...

by "here", I meant in the USA - or the Western world.

Not the people posting here on TalkLeft.

I should have made that clear.

I would also like to make clear that I don't think that we're "worse", as you say. But I do think we hold ourselves to a different standard than other peoples. I do think that what we call terrorism is when they do it, and military "actions", or operations when we do it.

And, I would repeat, that there does seem to be a callous over our consciousness - meaning our national consciousness - about the death and damage that we have brought and continue to bring to other countries and their people. And, as you know, the numbers of casualties are staggering.

One other thing.
I seem to be acquiring a reputation of being a negative person.
Complaining all the time. Whining.

I would like to suggest to those who feel that to be the case to post the good news they see happening thanks to the Obama administration. Or good news in general. I'm open to it - and would look forward to reading about it.

But what I see before me is a country still locked in the mentality of GW Bush. I see that ghettos still exist as ever. That the police forces have become even more militarized. That journalists here are being intimidated. That whistleblowers are being threatened. That income inequality has become even worse. That the neglect of our wounded or disabled veterans continues to be cruel and shameful.

I can't ignore these things because they affect me.

On the other hand, I love my record collection.
I love to cook.
I love listening to music.
I love my friends and family.
I think that TalkLeft is great and unique - and that Jeralyn is amazing.

There won't be accolades for him though.  The rightwing will either use any ISIL success as proof he isn't doing enough, or if ISIL begins faltering....well, he never asked permission to use Special Forces and now he's King Kenyan.  Nor will there be many congratulations from the Left.

You don't have to have seen the film to have picked up more detail about it than you might want to know. My own squeamish imagination is in thrall to the tiny knife, a picture of which the media in its wisdom has decided can be published freely. I'm not so sure that it's wise to bandy pictures of that (assumed) murder weapon around. Actually, I see so much meaning in that knife that I wonder if I might have strayed beyond reason on this matter.

First, it makes a mockery of the idea that you can protect yourself from the brutality of the attack on Foley by declining to look at the film. It invites you to think about how difficult it would be, to sever a man's head with a little knife like that, and how painful. You can't help feeling that the knife was chosen for that reason.

Actually, it's reported, even the film leaves the actual butchery to the imagination, showing only its results. However, I think that small knife was selected for reasons more fiendish even than that unwelcome invitation to imagine it being used. I think it was selected to provide a contrast with the air strikes of the military industrial complex, the air strikes that the murderer claimed were Foley's real killers. I think it was a message and a warning: "I may not have many weapons at my own disposal, but look what I'm prepared to do with whatever comes to hand."

We've seen the word, "baiting," being used, and, I believe that's important. Just like the Twin Towers were chosen on 9-11, specifically, to strike at the heart of our business/industrial center, so it is with ISIS in each of their atrocities.

I just hope our leadership is capable of dealing with this new type of "war." What we need is not better weapons, but, better intelligence. I mean, do they really mean it when they say to America, "bring it on?" They know we could turn them into crystallized fossils with the push of a button. So, when they publicize their mass butchery/beheadings who are they trying to reach, us, or, the people of the Middle East?

It looks like the execution video was a big mistake by ISIS though, as Americans are now scared, and if you make Americans scared, they will want their military to destroy you.

If you make Americans scared they will give license to their congress critters to repay the debt they have to the Military Industrial Complex, and vote to enter into an unwinnable war with no cap on spending.

GOP wet dream... all entitlement programs (save for tax breaks for the upper-middle and upper class) will be ended because the treasury will be emptied by non-ending war.