While Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) admonishes American interrogation practices and endangers American lives by releasing a detailed report of CIA enhanced interrogation techniques, ISIS is using true torture and involving children in its evil machinations. Where is the Senate “shame on you” report addressing this current issue?

It has been reported numerous times that ISIS militants have been executing Christians and those who are not the “right kind of Islamic." They have accomplished these atrocities through beheadings, crucifixions, execution-style shootings, and torture. Not acting out against these acts is the "true stain on our values and our history.” The world and history will not remember that we used waterboarding and sleep deprivation in the hunt for actionable information to protect national security. They will remember, however, how the US let the Islamic State commit horrors on men, women, and children with impunity. They will remember how we as a nation were focused on imaginary racism, idiotic MIT professors, narcissistic Presidential interviews, and bad journalism on a manufactured rape case instead of dealing with the largest threat to the world since the Axis Powers and Cold War Russia.

ISIS has begun “educating” the children in conquered territory on how to be the best Muslim you can be. They have started doing this by creating a “School of Jihad,” according to reports from The Independent and Breitbart News. In this “educational forum,” young Muslims (some younger than 10) are shown videos of beheadings and torture of “infidels” and taught small arms marksmanship with AK-47’s. These “Cubs of ISIS,” as they have been dubbed by the militant group, will most likely be sent to conflict areas in a combatant or auxiliary capacity. Either way, this is a clear violation of Human Rights and human decency.

In March, there was an article in Al-Monitor of an interview with a Syrian rebel fighter who had been captured and tortured by ISIS. His torture included confinement with beheaded and rotting corpses, repeated floggings with sticks while being hung by his feet, and being forced to watch the brutal (and fatal) beating of a cellmate. Shortly before his rescue, the ISIS fighters gave him extra provisions and told him, “May God protect you if we never come back” as they locked his cell door and left for battle. Another case of similar inhumanity is the capture, torture, and eventual execution of American journalists James Foley and Joel Sotloff. These men were held and tortured by ISIS and when a rescue attempt by American forces failed, the extremists released Youtube videos of the executions.

The worst act I have found amidst all of the repulsive deeds of ISIS is the recent accusations by Canon Andrew White, a British vicar in Iraq, in which ISIS has beheaded four Christian children for refusing to convert to Islam. According to a report in The Independent, the priest said that the ISIS members ordered the children to say that they “will follow Mohammed.” They children replied that they could not because they follow and love Jesus. They were told again to say the words and when they refused they were beheaded.

While we are concerned with aggressive interrogation that happened years ago, there are real and violent crimes happening now. We must stop playing politics and trying to look like the good guys and actually go be the good guys. ISIS is not going to wake up tomorrow and decide they don’t want to kill innocents anymore. It is going to take the true might of American power striking down on them like a hammer of justice. Not just words from a Senator looking to stir the political pot.