re: Nick Berg - Iraqis winning battle of "who is the most disgusting"

[dkf]

For a while I thought the US may win this contest, but the Iraqis have one-upped us here.

What the point of this beheading was, I have no idea.

I was outraged when I argued months ago with a co-worker who thought that middle-eastern people were less than us. Now he is going to use this to bash me whenever I try to argue that middle-easterners are human just like us and feel the same pain that we do.

Even I felt outrage and an urge to strike back when I heard this, and I'm against the war. I thought the torture would get us out. Now I think this beheading will keep us in. IMO, Americans will now advocate an iron fist. Ugh.

See, they are using the words cruel and barbaric. They are saying that this is what we are fighting against in the "war on terror".

It is possible that anti-war people have lost the argument. I'd say that Bush's chances of re-election are rising again.

[wickerwoman]

1. Al Qaeda took responsibility, not the Iraqi people.

[Piperay]

7. Unfortunately many people here

are too stupid to know the difference. :argh: :-(

[izzie]

30. I take it you mean the US. This site seems to know who is who.

----

[Piperay]

32. Yes, for sure I meant people in the US

NOT people here in the DU.

[girl gone mad]

2. It wasn't the Iraqis. n/t

[Flubadubya]

3. Who said they were Iraqis?

:shrug:

[JI7]

4. the iraqis ? i thought it was al qaeda

[Piperay]

5. I am in agreement with you

and sorry to have to be but I am afraid this is the way it will be now. :-(

[0rganism]

6. Relax, more pictures are coming soon from our friends in the 320th

We'll reclaim that title with some genital mutilation by dogs, or maybe a little electro-sodomy, and a variety of creative rapes.

[dkf]

8. Thanks for the correction but the people who are for the war

honestly see no distinction. I have been trying to tell them there is no connection, but all they see are "muslims" or "arabs".

It is a fight to keep them separated out, now I predict they will be lumped in again.

Frankly, I think the people who lump them together are scared out of their minds at muslims because they seem so much more extreme than we are used to.

[progdonkey]

29. Muslims aren't extreme

Muslims aren't any more extreme than Christians or Jews; every religion has its extremists. Unfortunately, the Christian extremists are in control of this country and the Jewish extremists are in charge of Israel.
The only reason Americans are more afraid of muslim extremists is because they saw a group of them attack a few buildings, but they don't see the Christian extremists (Ashcroft, especially) destroying the very institutions that make America great.
Anyone who lumps "Arabs" in with "Muslims" is a complete idiot, just the same as anyone who lumps "Christian" with "White," or "Buddhist" with "Chinese." It's a disservice to both Arabs (some of whom are Christian) and Muslims (a minority of whom are actually Arab).

[VolcanoJen]

9. Well, you sure do give up easy.

"It is possible that anti-war people have lost the argument. I'd say that Bush's chances of re-election are rising again."

At the very least, the US is responsible for the deaths of 10,000 Iraqi civilians. 10,000! Were you aware of that number? And now, one man who wasn't a soldier, and wasn't even an employed contractor, is decapitated, and you're ready to walk away from the anti-war side?

I'm as sickened and outraged as you are, whatever the circumstances surrounding this man's death were, but it just confirms my belief that this war is immoral and unjust, by all sides waging it. It's been a goddamned daily horror show, and I'm sticking around and fighting it until it's over.

I honestly don't even know where to begin with people who are so easily swayed. It's depressing, really.

Go right ahead and be pessimistic, or just take it all the way and become a flag-waving Bush-voting hawk. The anti-war side needs people who are a little tougher and more committed than you are.

[PsychoDad]

10. Please tell me...

How is the beheading of one man worse than blowing thousands of women and babies to bits?

Just wondering. I would have thought the deaths of thousands would have outweighed the death of one man who should not have been there...

Of course those wern't americans, and thus their lives were worth much less, right?

About 10,000 to 1 ?

[dkf]

12. The absolute gore of decapitating someone is beyond

the capability of most Americans. The average American could probably push a button in order to drop a bomb. Heck we mimic it all the time when we play video games.

Basically it takes a much stronger stomach to personally decapitate someone. Heck, I couldn't even kill a chicken for dinner if I needed to. I even have problems when a fish is squirming at the end of my hook.

[bklyncowgirl]

19. Americans are repulsed by beheading--I wonder if Al Queda knows this

Just as Muslims are particularly repulsed by sexual humiliation, Americans are repulsed by decapitation.

We Americans historically shoot, hang, electrocute, gas and now lethally inject people we intend to execute. We do do not do decapitations and consider this method to be particularly heinous and barbaric.

I think that the intent of this barbaric act was to inflame American opinion and drive us to do something equally horrible that will further drive the Islamic world into their camp.

Al Queda's goal is pretty simple. They want us all dead and Bush is blindly leading us into their trap.

[left is right]

14. The difference is in the pictures

It took pictures of tortured prisoners to stir this up. It took a video of a decapitation to frighten us back to silence. If we had seen the pictures of the dead women and children caused by our bombs, we as a nation would have been properly outraged to the point that we may have never gotten this far in this Iraqmire.

[dkf]

16. You're partly right.

But I've seen pictures of people bombed and it didn't turn my stomach half as much as when I accidently saw a Chechen man being decapitated when someone here referenced a sick website off of freeperville.

As soon as they started cutting his throat I thought I would throw up at the gurgle he made. I immediately turned it off but I was sick for the whole night after that and I can still remember it.

Maybe that is why I am so traumatized by what happened to Nick Berg. It was simply too much.

[0rganism]

17. Those pictures are available, but seldom discussed

I used to think people would care if they saw children shredded by the "smart" bombs, but they never make the news. If the Iraqi prisoners hadn't been performing quasi-sexual acts, Abu Ghraib probably wouldn't have been newsworthy either.

The snuff film is interesting to us only because it's an American getting butchered. Our good friends the Saudis conduct this kind of execution on a regular basis, along with a wide range of amputations for lesser crimes.

[dkf]

18. Yup, it's all about the sex.

I agree.

[Jim Warren]

11. hook, line and sinker

they gotcha

[dkf]

13. Oh good grief. I'm still against the war. I'm just predicting

where this is going next.

If you think this isn't going to swing things Bush's way in the near future, you guys are sticking your heads in the sand.

Why do you think so many people here want to think that Nick Berg's decapitation was faked? Or that it is a CIA plot?

It's all part of the big "MO", and it is swayed by events. This is the most interesting thing about watching a football game, how one play can change the entire direction, just like one incident like Mylai (sp?) can swing public opinion against the Vietnam war. The torture thing swayed opinion against the war because they thought we were being barbaric. This decapitation will sway things again.

For some reason, while the four contractors mutilation was hideous, I wasn't as affected as I am by this one. Berg really hit me right in the gut.

BTW, did you all notice that Berg's death is not being related to Al Queda but is being related to revenge for our treatment of Iraqis? I've been subjected to this via cable TV all day long.

[Jim Warren]

15. play against bushco

as event fatigue sets in

[Walt Starr]

20. That's if you believe the murderers were Iraqis

I'm still waiting for evidence that they were Al Queda as claimed.

Of course, I'm still waiting for evidence to prove the conspiracy theory that Al Queda was responsible for 9/11, too.

[xchrom]

21. remember the little boy who lost his arms and legs

as a result of our bombs? for weapons of mass destruction?
remember all the lives, american and iraqi, lost for saddam's imminent threat?
barbarous is as barbarous does -- to gumpify this scenario for americans.

[Domitan]

22. Oh please!

Yes, that beheading was grotesquely inhumane as were the humiliations, rapes, and deaths wrought against the Iraqis. That's why invading Iraq was utterly wrongheaded in the first place because of the evils that would follow. We antiwar protestors predicted many of the horrors that have followed. This is just the latest in the list of predictions: that retaliation or opportunistic attacks (e.g., if it's al Qaeda or its impersonators) would come as a result of the naked shame smacked against the Arabs for the world to see. No, the antiwar side has been grimly vindicated and shall continue to be so. Let us not repay inhumanity with more inhumanity.

[Vladimir]

23. So he was decapitated - so what?

Yeah its aweful. But you know what - compared to the 10,000+ dead Iraqi civilians, its really a bit irrelevant. Just because the dead Iraqis ain't on the front pages, it doesn't make them less worthwhile. Like being beheaded makes your more dead or something? Its a cleaner death than most Iraqi civilians have had the luxury of experiencing my friend.

[dkf]

24. Don't you get it! I think this beheading will result in

draconian measures against Iraqis who have already suffered enough at our hands. I am worried that we are going to pound them to smithereens.

This will escalate everything in the middle east.

Do you care about that?

[Vladimir]

25. The Middle East escalates every day

The attitude that one dead American should somehow be a trigger for a ME escalation is exactly the attitude I want to see purged. We should respond to wailings about a beheaded Nick Berg by shouting, no screaming until our faces turn blue, out the dead of Fallujah, Najaf, Kabul, Tikrit... Nick Berg chose to be there, they didn't. That would be my respones to your RW coworkers.

[dkf]

27. It's not a matter of "should be a trigger"

it's "will be a trigger". The Dems are outraged too. Frankly, your idea that he deserved it for being there in the first place will not ease many minds.

[Vladimir]

28. I am not saying he 'deserved it'

I am saying that you makes your choices and you lives with the consequences. If you choose to go to Iraq and work there then you'd better be prepared for the fact that some locals may wish to terminate you with extreme prejudice.

[Karenina]

31. "the attitude I want to see purged..."

is the underlying racist assumption of superiority. It is a stake in the heart of America and is crippling her ability to respond in an appropriate manner to a critical situation. How long will it take to disabuse Americans of the absurd notion that they are somehow the "GOOD GUYS?" :SIGH:

[Nobody]

26. Wasn't aware that this was a contest

It's a typical right wing ploy that you're worried about. If it isn't the biggest, baddest, bestest, longest, coolest, it's nothing.

You have a car, how can you be poor? (If you're not the poorest person on the planet, you're not poor to them)

The beheading was more barbaric than the torture of Iraqi prisoners. (Since there's something worse, the torture wasn't torture and we're still the good guys.)

Mommy, you don't love me. (How come my sister has one Xmas present more than me?)

It's toddler tactics to live your life in superlatives. If you're not the strongest, you're weak. If you don't have the most toys, you have nothing at all. Don't succumb to it. Even if someone somewhere is more barbaric than the prison guards, it doesn't in any way diminish the barbarity of the torture.

Either action was and is barbaric and not something that the people in the white hats do.