For those of us who did not know these children, our outrage should be directed to some purpose, such as seeing that those who committed these atrocities should be dealt with and that others like them should be put on notice that they will pay dearly for such crimes. In other words, we have a job to do -- and it is a more important job than venting our emotions. It is one of the sad signs of our times that relatives of victims are brought into court to testify to the devastation wrought in their lives by the murder of their loved ones, while the jury is deliberating the penalty to be imposed.
Why is there a law against murder in the first place, if we don't already know what an abomination it is, not only to the victim, but to all who cared about that victim? For something of historic proportions like the war that international terrorists have launched against us, and that we must wage against them in self-defense, surely the public venting of our feelings is not a top priority. Such boundless emotional exhibitionism only serves the terrorists' purposes of gaining maximum importance from their efforts.
What is truly obscene, in the midst of these emotional orgies, is having people worrying about the supposed "rights" of these terrorists' cutthroat comrades who have fallen into our custody. Civilians have rights and soldiers in uniform have rights under the Geneva Convention. But those who infiltrate in wartime in civilian clothes, or wearing someone else's uniform, have been summarily shot for centuries. The very fact that these cutthroats are still alive shows that they already have had better treatment than they are entitled to under international law.
Maybe we need to take some time out from our emoting to do some thinking.