However, what has distinguished the English speaking people from the world IS compassion. REAL compassion, not the Utopian kind. I was stunned after reading a book on Dunkirk how , in fact , The Germans were as masochistic as the Japanese when it came to the treatment of prisoners.
Moreover, we all know how the Russians treated theirs.
Therefore, let's celebrate rather than deny what we have accomplished in establishing the modern day civilization.
"The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the cause of the destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and, as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of the ruin is simple and obvious; and instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it has subsisted for so long."[Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 2nd ed., vol. 4, ed. by J. B. Bury (London, 1909), pp. 173–174.]
From the beginning he was treated with more compassion than he deserved. He just hit the jackpot by being returned as a hero to his own land and family after serving only eight years in a relatively comfortable prison (compared to prisons in Muslim countries) for slaughtering 270 innocent men, women, and children.
That works out to about 11 days in jail for each innocent life taken. That's not compassion. That's insanity.