Sick.
…
Video Posted on Islamic Militant Web Site Appears to Show Beheading of American
CAIRO, Egypt May 11, 2004 — A video posted Tuesday on an Islamic militant Web site appeared to show a group affiliated with al-Qaida beheading an American in Iraq, saying the death was revenge for the prisoner-abuse scandal.
The video showed five men wearing headscarves and black ski masks, standing over a bound man in an orange jumpsuit who identified himself as an American from Philadelphia.
After reading a statement, the men were seen pulling the man to his side and cutting off his head with a large knife. They then held the head out before the camera.
The video showed five men wearing headscarves and black ski masks, standing over a bound man in an orange jumpsuit – similar to a prisoner’s uniform – who identified himself as Nick Berg, a U.S. contractor whose body was found on a highway overpass in Baghdad on Saturday.
“My name is Nick Berg, my father’s name is Michael, my mother’s name is Susan,” the man said on the video. “I have a brother and sister, David and Sarah. I live in … Philadelphia.”
After reading a statement, the men were seen pulling the man to his side and putting a large knife to his neck. A scream sounded as the men cut his head off, shouting “Allahu Akbar!” – “God is great.” They then held the head out before the camera.
This is disgusting, and the poor guy went there to help in rebuilding of the infrastructure of the country.
if these murdereres had some cajones, they could have gone after the soldiers, but as lil cowards, they get an un armed innocent civilian and murder him.
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*Originally posted by Imdad Ali: *
Who in the Muslim world will be fired for this?
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You're a dumbass. Are you really proud of that kind of equivalence?
What these people did is disgusting. It shows what we are fighting, but also reminds us of why we must fight well.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Fraudz: *
This is disgusting, and the poor guy went there to help in rebuilding of the infrastructure of the country.
if these murdereres had some cajones, they could have gone after the soldiers, but as lil cowards, they get an un armed innocent civilian and murder him.
My question is legitimate. Is there any authority that can be held responsible for the "freedom fihgters" who did this? Any court martials, congressional hearings, media frenzy in islamic world?
do these people have a direct reporting relationship to anyone except their own terrorist group leaders?
No authjority can be held responsible for these guys..just the leaders of their organizations.
As far as whats next. Heck it happened in Iraq, falls under Iraqi jurisdiction, investigations, hearings, punishments should be handled by Paul Bremmer as he is running the country. if this means that the perps are lynched or fried, thats a-ok by me.
It's stuff like this has has a tendency to densensitize people to the type of abuse that occured to the Iraqi prisoners.
If you asked ten Americans if it would be OK to humiliate the "five men wearing headscarves and black ski masks" who decapitated this guy on videotape by forcing them to simulate sex with each other or masturbate in front of their friends, I bet a great majority would say "sure."
These acts permit blowhards like Rush to argue/claim that all of the Iraqis that were abused by US soldiers were the same type of terrorists as the five guys in ski-masks. If the American people see a whole bunch of celebrating in the Muslim/Arab world or excusing or attempts to justify this beheading, my guess is that the Iraqi prisoner abuse will not stay on the front burners of our conscience for too long.
Imdad's question of "Who in the Muslim world will be fired for this?" is actually quite a good one when looked at in this context. It's not so much a literal question of which person will be fired, but how outrage and accountability will be expressed. If these five guys are invited to dinner at the local cleric's house for food and laughs, then we've got a pretty big issue.
and you are correct about the desensitizing aspect, just like people would be desensitized in US and say yeah do whatever with these type of guys.
I have read other message boards..BBC and yahoo and have seen enough people here saying that the treatment in the iraqi prison was fine and they deserved it etc..so there are people who are desensitized..but after facing what? and for how long?
That is the type of desensitization that has been going on there for sometime. The body count from war-sanctions-war has been high and has only played into the hands of the extremists who have used those numbers to justify their inhumane actions.
This is not a debate about the wars or the sanctions, but just that when americans who are not directly impacted by Iraq have become desensitized due to the killings of 600 or so soldiers...how do you think that the extremists play the same card using the casualties in Iraq...they densitize people and probably use all that data and info as the basis.
as far as local cleric goes, he is niether a representative of the people, or an authority. if some idiotic cleric would entertain guys like these, I would consider him misguided and an extremist but he is niether a n official representative of the people, nor is he an official authority.
These are the people who would be running Iraq if America leaves. Iraq, while formerly a fairly cosmopolitan educated country, became under Saddam, the land of the thug.
And, by the way, Ted Koppel should show the entire video of this late tonight. If we are going to have full disclosure of the Abu Graib photos, I think we should see the counter balance to that.
There are a lot of idiots and they’re not just on the BBC or Yahoo chat boards. A new one that I learned of today is a US Senator.
“WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As others condemned the reported abuse of Iraqi prisoners, U.S. Sen. James Inhofe on Tuesday expressed outrage at the worldwide outrage over the treatment by American soldiers of those he called “terrorists” and “murderers.” http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=5106409
I think you are focusing too narrowly on the events that seem to desensitize certain Americans to the prisoner abuse.
This beheading is one example.
The video tape of Daniel Pearl being beheaded is another.
Dismemberment of corpses with shovels and dragging the dead through the streets is another.
Flying planes into the WTC is a good one.
Blowing up commuter trains plays a part.
Dismemberment of women and children with bombs filled with nails and bolts in pizza parlors, in front of police stations, and on buses gets thrown into the mix.
After a while, it becomes very easy to generalize and associate these acts with those in the Iraqi prison. That’s what the idiot Senator has done. That’s what Rush is trying to do. If you believe that all of the people in the Iraqi prison are the same as the people who do the events listed above, sexual humiliation can easily be justified or excused. Come on now, really…. Cutting off a guy’s head is hands down worse than making a guy masturbate in public.
This is a two way street. Hopefully, the general bi-partisan repudiation by Americans of the events in the Iraq prison will make reasonable people in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East and world realize that we are not like as a people. Similar sentiments coming from Iraq, the Middle East and other parts of the world indicating that they are not like the five masked thugs beheading innocent people would help prevent the desensitizing process from going too far here.
Unfortunately it seems like a 'dog eat dog' scenario.
You abuse us, we kill you. You kill us, we abuse you. You abuse us, we abuse you. You kill us, we kill you. We kill you, you kill us. We abuse you, you abuse us. We kill you, you abuse us. We abuse you, you kill us.
The snow ball as already started to roll and will only get bigger.
Imdad
Bush, Rumsfield, Blair and Hoon were questioned about the West's abuse and it's only fair that the head of this group whoever it is and the second in command be questioned. There you have it.
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*Originally posted by sholay: *
Bush, Rumsfield, Blair and Hoon were questioned about the West's abuse and it's only fair that the head of this group whoever it is and the second in command be questioned. There you have it.
[/QUOTE]
And that is exactly what will never happen, since these terrorist groups live in shadows.