AMERICANS BETTER START BELIEVING IN EVIL: When a mother chooses jihad over life. Maggie Gallagher at NRO writes:

The San Bernardino shooters brought a baby into the world, then slaughtered 14 adults.

‘The motive is unclear.” That’s the headline CNN is flashing on its screen Thursday evening. “They haven’t ruled out terrorism,” Don Lemon intones. Is this a newscast or an Onion parody?

Sure, somehow the San Bernardino shooter got himself a Pakistani wife in Saudi Arabia just two years ago who was willing to turn their baby’s home into a bomb factory, willing to drop the baby off at his mom’s, willing to go back to an office Christmas party with two assault rifles, several handguns, and three connected homemade pipe bombs and murder 14 people. Because the lady is not going to let her man be dissed in the workplace? . . .

I am trying to imagine what kind of woman could do this: get married to a man she met online, come to America, have a baby that by all the neighbors’ accounts appeared well-loved and cared for — while building pipe bombs, collecting bullets, planning to die in a murderous spree in the name of her foul false god who demands blood sacrifices. What could she have felt when she dropped the baby off? Did she turn one last time to kiss the life she brought into the world, moments before she went to snuff out 14 other lives?

A mother whose soul is so dark that she calmly, deliberately, chooses mass murder over mothering — who can explain it?

It’s called “evil,” and it tries very hard to look normal. Indeed, radical Islam exhibits all of the traits of evil.  As psychiatrist Scott Peck’s book, “People of the Lie” suggests (a terrific book that I highly recommend), evil is always convinced that it is “right” or “righteous” or “good” and works hard to maintain that appearance. It projects evil onto others (scapegoating). It is strong-willed, controlling and intolerant. And it hides it motives by confusing others with lies and “magical thinking” (think 72 virgins for Allah’s martyrs).