After days of intense media coverage of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, one could easily get the impression that certain American soldiers and their commanders are the most evil people in the world, much less Iraq.
The latest news should put things back into perspective: Video Shows Be~heading of American in Iraq
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.
Perhaps now the media will have a better idea of who the real enemy is in Iraq. Perhaps CNN will create an in-depth investigation into the death-worship, oppression, racism and murderous barbarism that is "systemic" to the Islamist ideology driving the terrorists. Perhaps Reuters will pen an exposé on the insurgents' "chain of command" and shine the harsh light of journalistic truth on Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia for providing moral and material support to terrorists. Perhaps AP will ask Al Qaeda to apologize to the families of its victims. Then again, perhaps not.
At least President Bush seems to know better than the media who the enemy is. The question is: What's he doing about it? Will President Bush unleash our military to do whatever is necessary to arrest, kill or otherwise render harmless the Islamist threat in Iraq? Or are we going to risk still more American lives in deference to world opinion and Islamic sensibilities?
Regarding Ni~ck Be~rg, the victim of this Islamist atrocity, CBS News reports: Slain Man Thought He Could 'Help'
Last week, before Be~rg's fate was known, his father said that his son had gone to Iraq partly out of a sense of adventure, partly for the opportunity for work, and partly because he was a "staunch supporter of the government position in Iraq and he wanted to go over there and help."
UPDATE: It took mere hours. The story that displaced the Ni~ck Be~rg murder story on CNN's main page is about Abu Ghraib: Senators to view abuse images Wednesday. And The New York Times follow-up is focusing on the one aspect of the story involving the American government in Iraq instead of focusing on the killers: From a Strange Encounter With Iraqi Police to Fatal Capture.
UPDATE II: Here is a must-read editorial by Walid Phares on how the over-hyped media coverage of Abu Ghraib plays into Islamist hands: The Be~heading of an Innocent. (Via LGF)
At the Abu Ghraib of jihad, however, innocents are slaughtered at will at the discretion of unholy warriors. In the al Zarqawi "detention centers," there are no laws, there are no codes, and there is no humanity; only a cult of death exists that demands the slaughter of innocents and perpetuates itself without justice or reflection.Posted by Forkum at May 11, 2004 10:06 PMUnfortunately, some among us may have fuelled the blood fiesta that was shown on the website. While Abu Ghraib has now become another way in which terrorists can legitimize killing innocent people, liberal and anti-American voices from this end of the world re-perpetrate this horrid logic, excessively assessing the so-called impact of the Iraqi soldiers abuse by their guards and declaring that the "reactions will be violent and bloody." In other words, they morally legitimized these bloody acts by seeing them as mere responses, not actions that are in line with a culture of death and hatred. So when the slaughter of Be~rg took place and was posted online, these same voices rushed to establish a moral equality between Abu Ghraib and the savage be~heading of an innocent young man. But no such equality exists.
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