the mad dogs of 'Islamic State'

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -- The Islamic State group demolishedan ancient monastery founded more than 1,500 years in central Syria Friday near a town where the extremists abducted dozens of Christians earlier this month, activists and a Christian priest said.

The extremist group posted photos on social media Friday showing bulldozers destroying the Saint Elian Monastery near the town of Qaryatain, which IS captured in early August.

A Christian clergyman told The Associated Press in Damascus that IS militants also wrecked a church inside the monastery that dates back to 5th century. The priest, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said the monastery included an Assyrian Catholic church.

Reports on the so-called Islamic State are iffy in my mind, not least because I can credit foreign media as portraying its enemies in a bad, tightly-edited light. But my suspicions (the same suspicions I bring to bear when it comes to Israel's depredation against Palestinians) are leavened with the question, "Don't these people do anything positive. Is their every 'constructive' move only to be measured in the amount of destruction they can sow? Have they neither shame nor the capacity to reflect?" It is hard not to see them -- and see them as they wish to be seen, perhaps -- as mad dogs.

And too, their righteousness and exceptionalism really does provide a good object lesson to neo-conservatives like Dick Cheney and Donald Trump and other American 'patriots' and other religions ... which among them does not carry this mad-dog seed? And perhaps the only measure of their worth is the willingness not to nourish that seed.

No joke ... mad dogs -- for all their tail- and flag-waving -- invariably kill others, whatever the banner.

Mad dogs have little or no capacity to recognize their madness. Is it any wonder that the tactics of Islamic State -- in whatever hands -- would be brought to bear? God save us from righteous people!

It is vile.

And incredibly sad.