After Manchester concert attack, how barbaric would you be to stop ISIS?

This one feels different.

The attack at the Ariana Grande show in Manchester was the worst terror attack in England in 12 years. In that time we've had so many other ISIS attacks at targets all over the world, including the Paris attacks at the Bataclan theatre in 2015. I wouldn't say we've grown numb to them, but we're certainly no longer shocked by them. Yet this one, with a lower death toll than the 89 at the Bataclan has a different feel. We lived through domestic terrorism with the Pulse nightclub shooting. We lived through car bombs, rammings, shootings, and stabbings around the world.

This one feels different.

Is it because it had a familiar touchstone of an American artist named Ariana Grande? Certainly a more familiar name to Americans than Eagles Of Death Metal at the Paris attacks. It may have gotten our attention more, but what I think sets this one apart is how many children were victims. As I write this, 12 of the injured are children 15 years old and younger, and one of the dead is a precious little 8 year old girl. It takes about 30 seconds of research to find out Ariana Grande's fan base would include a lot of little kids. Was this on purpose? Did ISIS choose a concert of this type because they're adopting a new tactic of killing children to shock the psyche more? Will this continue?

How will we respond if this becomes routine? President Trump has already employed what was called at the time The Mother Of All Bombs to take out an ISIS network of underground tunnels inside an Afghanistan mountain range. If ISIS keeps going after children, how barbaric are you willing to be in order to stop their madness? Are we going to start using more 21,000 pound bombs? Carpet bomb areas known as ISIS strongholds and stop worrying if we take out civilians in the effort?

ISIS will not stop. They don't only want certain concessions from the United States. They don't only want us out of certain areas. It's been clear for a long time now, they want us dead. Nothing else will do. Even within Muslim nations where they take root, they take over and slaughter indiscriminately anyone who won't go along with their radical beliefs. Up until now, our being careful in taking out ISIS in a surgical manner has kept us separate from them, better than them.

Now that little girls are being blown apart, will we still cleave to those standards? When the high road is becoming covered in blood, will we decide to become more barbaric to stop ISIS once and for all? All I know is in nature, when the cubs are attacked the mother bear will stop at nothing to protect them. We want to be better than that. We want to hang on to our humanity and morals in this fight.

However, this one feels different.

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