Well, the groosome images never seem to cease, do they?
In response to the abuse commited by US forces at Abu-Ghraib, one of Bin Laden´s right hand man Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has captured an american (civilian?), and beheaded him on camera, after a proposal of exchanging the american for some prisioners in Abu-Ghraib had been refused by the Pentagon.

BE WARNED:
The video, allthough of very poor quality, is very graphic. Viewer discretion is advized. You can view/download the video at http://www.ogrish.com
If you right click and "save target as...", yoiu will see the video better than allowing it to stream. There is a huge traffic today.

Does anyone see a pattern forming here? Just like Palestine?
Agression breeds more agression. Violence breeds more violence.
The americans are shure to strike at Najaf in response, and that will cause even more such brutal acts of barbarism. Just like the Fallujah incident, and the subsequent destruction of the whole city...

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"Quincitilius Varus, give me back my legions!"
Emperor Augustus of Rome.

since when does al-qaeda bother with single civillians? their attacks are designed to kill scores, hundreds, thousands, if they are down to killing infidels one by one, that would be great progress.

Do you really think that the beheading was in "response" to the abuse at the prison or do you think that the beheading would have happened anyway? I think the abuse makes a fine excuse for barbarism on the part of the iraqis, but if the abuse didn't occur, they would have just found another excuse to do what they want.

And, that is what they do which is why we supposedly started this war. Little did we know that some of the Americans would commit atrocities as bad as the "evil" people we were going to "bring to justice."

I read that, at last count, 25 prisoners have been killed by their captures. I wonder what revelations will come to light next....

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The best daily political cartoons can be found here:

http://www.csmonitor.com/commentary/index.html

There´s a lot of thing we aren´t told directly and that we have to read between the lines.
Wether i think it would have happened anyway is beside the point. But if you must know, no i don´t.
The american had been in iraqi hands since April 6 or its whereabouts. He had been just released (so they say) from US custody, for wich the family sued the US army, for wrongfull arrest.
The voice in the tape, that the "comuniqué" perported to be from Al Zarqawi, has not been identified by various reporters that know his voice well. So we gather it wasn´t Al Zarqawi after all.
But the real point is, the iraqis (or whomever had him in custody), didn´t slay him for weeks. That it happened in this particular time, is of some importance.
Had there not been the Abu Ghraib scandall, this man might have been released, or at least not have been killed in this manner.
So there´s your answer.
But what bothers me, is why the US authorities refused to exchange him for other prisioners! It has been a current practice between parties at conflict, for since ever we can remember. Armies exchanged prisioners since the begining of time. Why not this time? Were they afraid of releasing some terrorist that would kill americans later on? It´s a risk, but a risk worth taking if it saves the man´s life. They could still pick up those released, after.
Of course, this is all academical now.
As for the abuse scandall posing a good excuse, it has been like that for both sides. The US used the Fallujah incident to begin a full scale campaign in the city, punishing thousands, when we know only a hand full wee responsible for the deed itself.
The point being, both sides are looking for ways to justify their actions, just like the Palestinian issue.
If anyone thinks this was another barbaric act of the iraqis, as in opposed to the "fairness" and "humanity" of the american side, think again. Although not on camera, the iraqis have been systematically murdered in horrifying ways, that never get this amount of media atention. Dozens died in the prisons at the american´s hands, some of them in a very slow and painfull way. And since the US decided to resort to an "eye for an eye" strategy, it is only fair to expect the iraqi resistence to adopt similar attitudes in response. What were they expecting?
Don´t get me wrong, here. I am not condoning any of this. It´s just the opposite. But i´m not so quick to demonize them, as the american media is doing. I guess they needed the public focus to swirve elsewhere, from the Abu Ghraib disaster. And this incident has given them the perfect decoy. Just as it happened during the Fallujah campaign.
And you know what´s worst? I see this conflict spreading, and gaining contours like the Balcans, with side to side acts of savagery and barbarity.
Bush´s decision to force the Congress into aproving sanctions to Syria is not helping. Especially now.

Just as a comparison, i´m shure some of you here have seen the footage where the tchechen resistence decapitaded a russian soldier. If you haven´t, you should. It´s 10 times more graphic, and it didn´t get a fraction of the western media´s attention. And why? Nobody cared...
Many americans still view Russia with cold war eyes, and they must have thought the russians "had it coming". There was not a peep. Just silence.
But now that the shoe is in the other foot, look at the frenzy!
Hipocrisy at it´s finest...

__________________
"Quincitilius Varus, give me back my legions!"
Emperor Augustus of Rome.

the people at DU now think, that it wasnt al-qaeda, but us-agents, who decapitated Berg on Rumsfelds order, because he knew too much and then to use the images as propaganda.

it is so funny watching the bush haters gaganess.
http://www.democraticunderground.com...x547443#547595

OK, now i´m having doubts about this video!!
I read a few of the points being brought up in that forum, and i double checked. I had only seen it twice, not paying much atention to any detail.
But i found one detail that might make me believe it´s a dummy. Check the video, wait for the end, and watch while he holds the head up. There is no blood dripping, not a single drop!!! The video was edited, it´s blurry, the guy doesn´t kick and squirm, an orange jumpsuit, the sound out of synch, no blood on the floor, no blood squishing like it should when you cut a man´s artery...
The Al Zarqawi thing, the lawsuit, the guy being in US custody, hummmm....
Seems like a Psy-Ops to me. Maybe the guy was killed WHILE still in US custody, and they used him to draw atention away from Abu Ghraib.
I´m definitely studying this some more.

Seems like we are being fed a bunch of BS. Like the british abuse photos.

__________________
"Quincitilius Varus, give me back my legions!"
Emperor Augustus of Rome.

Well it does look real enough to me...

what a bunch of twisted fucks.

looks pretty damn real too me, you can even hear the poor sod choking, how they can justify this in the name of a god I really don't know, but the one good point to this I suppose is that they have just undone all the positive press they had been recieving due to the abuse allegations, except of course in the mind of those westerners who hate their own nations so much that nothing said nation can do will ever be right, personally I hope U.S retribution is swift and without comparison in all human history.

After having watched this, does anybody here still believe that this war is "winnable"? As long as there are still a few angry muslim fanatics with kitchen knives left alive on this planet, won't this just continue? And on a broader scale, is a "war on terrorism" itself winnable? I honestly just don't see how it can be.

i did not watch the video, i dont want to. rush said something along the lines, that the cameraman had messed up the taping and they had to reenact cutting off the head, but i didnt really listen, as i was very tired and it does not matter that much.
Berg was just one man, who had made the mistake of being captured alive and they killed him. that was certainly not unique in human history nor exceptionally cruel compared to what can be done to humans nor does it surprise me. i would certainly want to see the decapitators neutralized asap, but looking back at falluja, where it seems the coalition has given up on apprehending and punishing the killers, i am not too optimistic about it.