July 18, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) -- As much as four-fifths of Islamic terrorists' computers are filled with porn, and the former chief of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency says their porn use contributes to the atrocities they commit against women and children.

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn said computers seized from ISIS jihadists contained as much as 80 percent pornography and he speculated to a German newspaper that porn might be the driving force behind the plethora of rapes of women and children by Islamic militants.

"These sick, psychopathic enemies were not only unimaginably hideous but also treacherous and torn. ... Women and children, girls and boys, raped and exploited," Lt. Gen. Flynn said. He then tied the barbarism of Islamic terrorists to their obsession with pornography. "Beheadings were stored on a laptop next to pornography. At one point, we actually had determined that the material on the laptops was up to 80 percent pornography."

Even liberals, after decades of insisting that viewing pornography is a benign activity, are beginning to admit a connection between porn and violence. Former London Mayor Boris Johnson was criticized in early 2015 for observing that Islamic suicide bombers were "obsessed" with pornography. "If you look at all the psychological profiling about the bombers, they typically will look at porn. They are literally wankers. Severe onanists."

Several Islamicists went on porn binges before their attacks. In at least one case, the connection between a terrorist and his favorite porn star was so dependable, the government used the porn star as an agent to monitor and locate the terrorist’s cell.

Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad contained a “fairly extensive porn stash,” according to Reuters in 2011.

For years, numerous studies have shown that exposure to sexual violence breeds permissive attitudes toward rape. A 2009 study found a "significant positive association between pornography use and attitudes supporting violence against women."

Research into violent sexual criminals has found the common link is porn. A 1989 study of 2,380 victims and abusers determined that in 68 percent of abuse cases, the attacker viewed pornography immediately before abusing his victim. Serial killer Ted Bundy told James Dobson that his problems began with exposure to pornography at a young age. He also said every prison inmate he knew was affected by porn.

Sixteen years ago, a study was published analyzing women's experiences of sexual violence with their abusers' use of pornography. Data were collected at a rape crisis center from 100 survivors. The study found nearly 30 percent of victims of sexual violence reported that their abuser consumed pornography, and in an alarming number of cases, pornography was imitated in the abuse.

The Michigan State Police found that pornography was used or imitated in 41 percent of the sex crimes they have investigated. The Free Congress Research and Education Foundation found that half of all rapists studied used pornography to stimulate their passions before prowling for their victim.

In 1998, the FBI revealed that 83 percent of serial sexual sadists, 61 percent of serial killers, 90 percent of pedophiles, and 33 percent of serial rapists collected pornography.

In today’s world of readily accessible online pornography, the violence has hit home — even in rural America. This year, a southeastern Ohio study entitled, "Adult Pornography and Violence Against Women in the Heartland," concluded that "pornography is a major component of the problem of rural woman abuse."

Religious groups have long recognized the link between pornography and violence. In 1989, the Pontifical Council for Social Communications concluded, "Pornography can act as an inciting or reinforcing agent, a kind of accomplice, in the behavior of dangerous sex offenders — child molesters, rapists and killers."

The Vatican council explained, "A fundamental message of pornography and violence is disdain, the consideration of others as objects rather than as persons. Thus, pornography and violence can eat away at tenderness and compassion and can foster insensitivity and even brutality."