Wolfgang, just in case any of your post was directed at anything I've said in this thread:

I have made no attempt to downplay anything. My objection is to the practice of calling human beings "animals". This practice has nothing to do with laws. It is a visceral response based on cultural ideas about some ways of killing being more acceptable than others. Personally, I think that any kind of illegal killing is bad, and that the kinds that cause the most suffering are the worst. I don't really give a shit what the laws have to say in that regard. We here in the US are not in a position to call anyone "animals". And even if we were, we still shouldn't do it.

My other objection is an agreement with some of the other posters in this thread. We shouldn't use the beheadings to justify our own wrongdings. Especially ones that occurred prior to the beheadings. What we see happening is that we have behaved in a way that is barbaric and wrong. Some other people have responded by behaving in a way that is barbaric and wrong. Then we say, "see... we were right to treat them that way because they are no better than animals". This is a profoundly blinkered way of looking at things, and also a very dangerous one.

BTW, the law says that all human beings are human beings, and should be treated as human beings, even the ones who break laws, and, yes, even the ones who do barbaric things.