“The pet goat seems a tad excessive”
In war, there is no such thing as ‘excessive’. Excessive is the excuse used to tie the US military’s hands with ROEs that allow enemies to leave a skirmish unscathed because some ‘civilian’ might be killed, which in turn increases US casualties, and the casualties inflicted on those same ‘precious and innocent’ civilians by the enemy.
Without ‘excessive’ in war - much like current US ROEs - the war cannot be won. ISIS understands this. The more excessive they are, the more we are intimidated, confused, and ultimately defeated.
The West cannot defeat Islam until the people who speak of excessive, unfair, unjust, unacceptable collateral damage, peace talks, understand that war is ugly and horrible, but only winnable when all those willing to die for Islam are dead - no matter what the extreme needed to effect that end. WWII was ended by extremes when the last Nazi, the last Japanese soldier willing to die were dead.
Go one step further and incinerate the vegetation the goat ate, then salt the land the vegetation grew on, just to be sure.
The enemy certainly cares nothing for civilian casualties.
good point