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NancyLebovitz comments on Open thread, 11-17 August 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Part of "us" is our culturally transmitted values.
My impression is that ISIS is mostly a new thing-- it's a matter of relatively new memes taken up by adolescents and adults rather than generational transmission.
I don't think it's practical to see one's enemies, even those who behave vilely and are ideologically committed to continuing to do so, as non-human. To see them as non-human is to commit oneself as framing them as incomprehensible. More exactly, the usual outcomes seems to be "all they understand is force" or "there's nothing to do but kill them". which makes it difficult to think of how to deal with them if victory by violence isn't a current option.
On the contrary, that's the attitude specifically trained in modern armies, US included. Otherwise not enough people shoot at the enemy :-/
I'm not sure about modern armies, but ancient and even medieval armies certainly didn't need this attitude to kill their enemies.
You might not be in an army.