The Guardian has responded to the death of psychopathic ISIS terrorist Jihadi John as only the Guardian knows how: by reviving a charming, Facebook-style photo montage showing the martyred victim’s tragic journey from “shy, football-loving boy to Isis killer”.

If you read the sub-heading, you might even get the impression that the “Isis killer” part is in some doubt.

How high-profile target of a US airstrike evolved from a quiet child devoted to religion to become held responsible for the beheading of seven western hostages

“To become held responsible for”?

The clunky, clumsy construction is as ugly as the sentiment.

Does the Guardian really mean to suggest that it was a case of mistaken identity? Or that Jihadi John was just edited in to the before-and-after shots of all those snuff videos he made but someone else did the actual decapitating? Or that the true responsibility for his deeds lies elsewhere – perhaps with the British intelligence services which drove him deeper into radicalism by asking him awkward questions and by once, allegedly, buying his laptop, thus nearly driving him to suicide?

Mohammed Emwazi, we learn from the Guardian, was nice. Really, really nice. So nice – we are led to infer – that it is almost inconceivable that so very nice a chap could possibly have ended up becoming so nasty except by coming under extreme duress from dark outside forces. These dark outside forces have nothing to do with the peaceful religion of Islam to which Emwazi was devotedly attached. More likely they are a product of Islamophobia.

Of course, it’s always grimly fascinating looking at serial killers’ pasts in order to gain an insight into the murderous creatures they became. But I can’t, somehow, imagine the Guardian devoting quite such special pleading to the case of a less ideologically sympathetic psychopath. For example, I’ve looked at its profile of Anders Breivik from the time of the Norway massacre, and there’s definitely no attempt made to tell us what a cute, lovable kid he was. His racism, Islamophobia, and right-wing politics, it’s made clear, are the driving force behind his actions. No doubt they were but had the Guardian given the same treatment to Emwazi, it would surely have treated us to lavish detail about the terrorists and terrorist-sympathisers he hung out with and about the Islamofascist ideology with which he had so clearly been indoctrinated.

Instead, the Guardian treads on eggshells in its eagerness not say anything bad about Islamism. As witness this weaselly correction:

This article was amended on 17 March 2015. An earlier version said Emwazi was reported to have taken part in a demonstration outside the Harrow central mosque to “celebrate” the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The demonstration was not a celebration of the 9/11 attacks. It was a counter-demonstration against a protest organised by the English Defence League and Stop the Islamisation of Europe.

As we learn from the body of the Guardian’s report, one of the speakers at this “counter-demonstration” was one of the Islamists who subsequently murdered Lee Rigby on the streets of Greenwich. So: a hardcore event for seriously committed jihadists exulting on the anniversary of one of their biggest atrocities. Yet still, the Guardian insists on presenting it as an innocent response to provocation by the EDL and Stop the Islamisation of Europe.

Most of the Guardian’s readers aren’t on board with this, you’ll be pleased to hear. Or at least not to judge by the online comments to today’s news report, most of which are variations on the theme of “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke”.

But inevitably there are exceptions. Here’s a taste:

I hold no brief for ISIS at all, but no civilized country carries out extrajudicial killings.

Emwazi’s murders and atrocities of ISIS were aimed at creating the excuse to get the reluctant public to accept yet another invasion of the middle East giving cover for regime change in Syria which has all along been the long term aim.
That there are mercenaries running amuck in Syria is true but we have funded them directly and indirectly because there is a determination to break up Syria.
Nixon lied about the reasons for war, nothing has changed except the lie

Why are contribributors to this thread exulting in the murder of a British citizen at the hands of a foreign power, acting – incredibly – with the connivance of the British authorities*?

Yes, Emwazi had a case to answer in respect of his alleged participation in hideous crimes , but he deserved his day in court, like any other British citizen.

As is typical of targeted US strikes, it is likely dozens of civilians were also killed just to kill one high profile target for propaganda purposes.

Very depressing that extra-judicial assassinations are now seen as a good thing.

Assassination by drone is an abomination, and would not be carried out by a civilised nation.
The fact that it has become an acceptable Western practice says more about our complete disregard for the rule of law, and indifference to true justice. we have become as bad as the terrorists

Love the smell of propaganda in the morning, smells like…. bullshit.

and, my personal favourite

A totally outrageous illegal extrajudicial assassination killing of an Englishman not convicted of any crime. If he were so “guilty” why not try in in a Western court? This is “Guantanamo Bay from the skies” and it is a denial of the rights of everyone else in Britain we never got to give him his “Welcome Home, Emwazi” signs. I hope his family, like Shakir, sue the British government for millions of pounds. If everyone who voted Tory and Labour are partly responsible for the abuses Shakir and Emwazi have suffered, perhaps they should all be in jail. Perhaps on a rotational basis. Lie detectors could establish who voted for what party.

I think the last may be satire but you can never quite tell. That’s the problem with the liberal-left these days: its so lunatic extreme it’s forever threatening to put parody out of business.