The Washington Post columnist Max Boot penned an opinion piece insinuating blowing up three children with a suicide vest proves ISIS Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was not a coward.

“Trump could not have heard ‘whimpering and crying’ because there was no audio, and Esper and Milley refused to confirm those details. The assertion that Baghdadi died as a coward was contradicted by the fact that rather than be captured he blew himself up,” Boot wrote.

Regardless of whether Trump heard whimpering or crying, Baghdadi did, in fact, die a coward. He took three young children with him as he fled American soldiers, likely in hopes that they would deter an attack, and then detonated his own suicide vest while they were all cornered in a dead-end tunnel. Risking and taking the lives of three, innocent children is cowardly.

No one who claims to be an ally to western civilization should say that an ISIS leader was anything but a coward. Terrorist organizations elevate atrocious leaders like Osama Bin Laden and al-Baghdadi to attract recruits and inspire Islamic State fighters. A comment like Boot’s should never be made by an individual that considers themselves an ally of freedom.

Of course, we should consider that this opinion comes from the same columnist who previously claimed he would rather vote for Josef Stalin, the Soviet dictator whose regime killed tens of millions of its own people, than Donald Trump.

Boot’s sympathetic portrayal of a terrorists not only plays into the hands of ISIS propaganda, but shows just how far NeverTrumpers will go for the sake of opposing anything that President Trump does.