Americans love to watch their sports, evidenced by the huge ratings numbers the college football playoffs received and the massive amount of dollars connected with next weekend's Super Bowl.

Imagine the furor if this government pulled the plug on televised sports and made watching games a crime? Last week in the Iraq city of Mosul, which is controlled by the Islamic State commonly known as ISIS a group of 13 teenage boys were punished for watching the televised Asian Cup soccer match between Iraq and Jordan.Watching soccer is a crime under Sharia law, which carries punishment but not the kind of wrist slap we're used to seeing under the American justice system.In Mosul, a masked Islamic State fighter announced the charges against the teens to an assembled crowd via loudspeaker.They were then executed by a firing squad with machine guns.A Syrian activist organization which closely monitors ISIS executions reported the bodies remained lying in the open since their parents were unable to recover them for fear of being murdered by the extremists.The more the world hears of the Islamic State and its radical interpretation of Sharia law, the more sickening it becomes. Just days before the teenagers were executed for watching televised soccer, ISIS released a video showing two men being thrown from the top of a tall brown brick building in Mosul.Again, a masked Islamic State fighter declared the men were guilty of engaging in homosexual activities and under Sharia law, that is a death sentence.Photos showed the gay men being prodded to the edge of the building's roof and then showed their mangled bodies lying on the ground for the crowd to see.In a separate case, photos showed two bandits being transported to the execution block in the back of a pickup with their wrists tied crucifixion style to a metal crosslike structure. After being shot, their bodies were left to dangle on the crosses.Other photos also showed a veiled woman accused of adultery being stoned to death.As the American economy has improved, the public's policy priorities have changed.For the first time in five years, a Pew research poll shows that people now consider defending the homeland against terrorism is a higher priority than jobs and the economy.Since the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, the concern over Islamic extremism has escalated both in America and abroad. It's time for our leadership in Washington to realize that ISIS is not a JV team but more like the SS arm of the Nazi party that world governments chose to ignore 75 years ago.Such ignorance resulted in the largest extermination campaign the world has ever seen.By JIM ZBICKtneditor@tnonline.com