"To back me up there's the Geneva Convention, the Versailles Convention, and the European Convention on Human Rights; Article 2 - the right to life and Article 3 the right not to be subjected to torture or degrading treatment."
However, my nation and the USA have been flagrantly disregarding these for years, both in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As an individual I abhor such acts, but unfortunately, "by objective, democratic, politically validated standards" no longer has any merit as our elected leaders set the standards by which we, as nations and as a society, are judged.
The people who carried out this atrocity genuinely see nothing wrong in what they are doing. According to their guiding principles and beliefs, their acts will see them rewarded.
With my 'Western' head on, I cannot, emotionally, understand such acts. Intellectually, I can see how their response to the atrocities carried out by US and UK forces could be justified.
We live in an increasingly barbaric world, and my own personal view is, that we as a species are actually in irreversible intellectual and moral decline. We are seeing the battles of a thousand years ago being fought all over again, only with highly sophisticated weaponry.
Our leaders are operating from a position of 'divine right', with each side laying claim to their God as being righteous.
It's all downhill from here.
Beheading