© The AustralianNot quite human.
The picture, taken in the northern Syrian city of Raqa, was posted on the Twitter account of Khaled Sharrouf, an Australian citizen who traveled to Syria last year and is now an Islamic State fighter.
As if the photo was not shocking enough, Sharrouf attached the comment "That's my boy!" to the Twitter image.
The shocking picture quickly went viral.
The Australian leader warned that the photograph proved exactly how dangerous the terrorist organization, which has swept across parts of Iraq and Syria in recent months, really is.
"There are more photographs in newspapers in Australia today of the kind of hideous atrocities that this group is capable of," Abbott said in an interview with ABC Radio.
"[The] Islamic State - as they're now calling themselves - it's not just a terrorist group, it's a terrorist army and they're seeking not just a terrorist enclave but effectively a terrorist state, a terrorist nation.
© The Australian
Other top-ranking officials from around the world also provided comments on the image.
The photograph provided "graphic evidence of the real threat that ISIL represents," said US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, in Sydney to attend the Australia-US Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN), as quoted by the Australian newspaper.
"ISIL [ISIS] is a threat to the civilized world, certainly to the United States, to our interests, as it is to Europe, it is to Australia," Hagel added.
Former Army Commander Peter Leahy, who recently sparked controversy when he warned of a 100-year battle against radical Islam, said the photo depicted a "depraved" and "barbaric act."
Comment: That's the point. All pathocracies need an identifiable external enemy against which to direct citizens' focus, energy, fear, anger, and bodies. What better way to distract from the very real problems present at 'home'?
"What's that child going to think? What's he going to be like for the rest of life?" Leahy told Sky News.
"We have to condemn that to the utmost effect," the retired top-ranking officer continued. "We have to say as a community and all communities - Australian communities, Muslim communities overseas and Muslim leaders here in Australia - have to condemn that sort of behavior."
Comment: They keep using that word. We do not think it means what they think it means. We live in a society of "condemnation." Damnit man, we don't need to condemn this, we need to stop it. And the best way to stop this is to get rid of the psychopathic infection in our own nation first. You know, the one that spread this disease there. This is what happens when a surgeon with a cold tries to operate. America blustered into the Middle East and made everything 100x worse.
The first step to getting rid of ISIS is getting rid of the Western Pathocrats. Fire them, arrest them for crimes, or vote them out. We have to wash our hands before we wash their wounds.
Australian opposition member Andrew Leigh, while admitting the image was "horrendous," reminded that "extremism comes in all sorts of guises" - not just among the followers of Islam.
"We need to celebrate the Australian Muslim community to recognize that there are many peoples of different faiths in the world and extremism comes in all sorts of guises. The Oklahoma bombing was carried out by a Christian," he told the Australian.
In 1995, former US soldier Timothy McVeigh used a truck bomb to destroy the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, many of them young children attending an on-sight daycare facility.
The Australian government estimates that at least 150 of its citizens are involved in fighting or actively fighting alongside the Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq.
There are so many deluded people that are chiming in on this issue that it is easy to see how the sheeple could be confused and not know where to place their loyalties or how to focus the angst.
We need a hero, someone who is outside of the normal spheres of influence, someone who is not afraid of standing up and delivering the message that so badly needs to be heard.
"Rise up, people of the West. Rise up and take your inheritance. Our legacy is pillage. Our estate is ignorance. Our future, like our past, is bathed in blood. Stand for what you know to be right, stand for the justice that this world sorely needs. We are all one in the eyes of the Universe and we are the only ones who can end this degradation of our souls. When love is allowed to shine, the evil darkness will be exposed for what it is." - AK
"Light up the darkness!" - Bob Marley