Another deadline has passed for the negotiation of a possible hostage swap between Jordan and ISIS. One of the big stumbling blocks seems to be that ISIS has yet to prove that their hostage is actually alive and available to be swapped in exchange for the prisoner that Jordan is holding, failed suicide bomber Sajida al-Rishawi. As the week drew to a close, Jordan seems to have upped the ante quite a bit, saying that ISIS can either produce the pilot in a still upright condition or they’re going to start taking some scalps themselves.

Jordan has threatened to fast-track the execution of a would-be suicide bomber the Islamic State is trying to free if the terror group kills its captured pilot, it was reported today.

The government has apparently warned that Sajida al-Rishawi and other jailed ISIS commanders would be ‘quickly judged and sentenced’ in revenge for Muath al-Kaseasbeh’s death.

It comes after a deadline for a possible prisoner swap allegedly set by ISIS passed yesterday with no clue over the fate of al-Kaseasbeh or fellow Japanese hostage Kenji Goto.

Intelligence sources said ISIS’s refusal to prove that al-Kaseasbeh was alive meant any deal with the militants was doomed.

Now Jordan has reportedly stepped up its rhetoric by warning of its intent to retaliate if the negotiations end in bloodshed.

If this were the United States on Jordan’s end of the negotiations, you’d probably never see something like this. It smacks of treating the criminal justice system as some sort of wispy, flexible fabric which can be bent or torn as circumstances demand in the name of revenge. But Jordan doesn’t labor under any such lofty ideals and can probably make good on the promise. Does that help anything? In one sense, it may not look all that productive, as our Red State colleague Cassy Fiano argues.

Jordan, at least, is willing to do something to keep their pilot alive. But what they fail to realize is that ISIS, like all good terrorist groups, doesn’t care if their fighters are captured and killed — after all, dying a martyr’s death is what every terrorist dreams of, so their threat may not mean very much to ISIS.

Cassy may well be correct about the effect of the threat on the terrorists. They’re probably planning on their fighters dying anyway, so it’s not much of a threat if they will just announce to their followers that the dead terrorists have gone on to collect their 72 virgins. But that doesn’t invalidate the idea for Jordan or any other civilized nation. When you attempt to enter into negotiations with sub-human animals, continuing to behave in a high minded, civilized fashion is really only for the benefit of your own audience. Surely the rest of the world has had enough of ISIS by this point and somebody needs to step up and demonstrate that civilized societies may indeed have to act in a less civilized fashion when you’re forced into the business of exterminating monsters.

String up a bunch of their fighters, put the video of it on YouTube and let any prospective joiners know exactly what’s waiting for them if they take the field against the good guys. It may not produce any moderation in the actions of the existing ISIS forces, but it just might slow down their recruiting efforts, and every little bit helps.