Xenophobic Barbarism.

[den]

Nick Berg was killed, not because he was bad or evil or a criminal, but because he was an American. Hate crimes have no place in a civilized world but I don't have the words to express my feelings about this type of xenophobic barbarism. I haven't seen the videos. I don't want to see them. Just knowing what was done to him makes me ill.

What happened in the prison was nasty and to take photos was stupid, but to kill a man to make a point is evil of the worst sort. As level_head says "al-Zarqawi - remember the name"


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Several scholars from Al-Azhar, the world's highest Sunni religious authority, condemned the decapitation of an American civilian by unknown people in Iraq, saying Islam stands against such acts.

"Islam respects the human being, dead or alive, and cutting off the American's head was an act of mutilation forbidden by Islam," Ibrahim Al-Fayoumi, a member of Al-Azhar's Islamic Research Academy, told IslamOnline.net.
IslamOnline

"Hezbollah denounces this horrible act which does an immense wrong to Islam and Muslims by a group which falsely pretends to follow the precepts of the religion of pardon and essential human values," the party said in a statement.

Ezzedine Salim, this month's chief of the Iraq Governing Council, insisted that "decapitations and mutilations are unacceptable and have nothing to do with Islam".
SMH

Admittedly, Hezbollah are also upset that this barbarism has turned focus away from the prison abuses.

We'll be hearing for years from the talking heads on US cable news about how the Muslim world failed to condemn what was done to Berg. It would be as though a set of high-ranking cardinals in the Vatican condemned something unreservedly and then people kept saying the Church remained silent.
Juan Cole

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*sighs*

I dunno.

*edit* re-reading the condemnations, I notice they condemn the killing's link to Islam first, and the killing second.

Comments

[eozarth.livejournal.com]

I think it's a very nicely timed "stunt" to shift the world's attention away from the prison abuse and criticism of the American government. I'll even go so far as to put forward the possibility that it was organised and orchestrated by the American government in the first place for just that effect.

Stupid war games.

[makovette.livejournal.com]

That's insane. Sorry, but it is...

Mako

[eozarth.livejournal.com]

*shrug* I'll take on board your criticism if you can prove to me without a doubt that nothing like what I suggested has happened. We all just have opinions and theories on the stuff that happens on this mudball, but only the people who are there know the real truth.

But.. I don't actually care about any of it. Apathy is a godsend :)

[ursulav.livejournal.com]

Oh, I dunno...one could build a pretty elegant conspiracy theory based on the authorities first claiming that Berg was never in U.S. custody, then relenting, and saying "Okay, yeah, he was," and then claiming that he turned down offers of safe passage out of Iraq by the FBI, when all the e-mails he sent to his parents would indicate that he was, in fact, waiting on such passage at the time of his kidnapping. (I rather expect them to retract the second claim once they find the paperwork, myself.)

I don't happen to think that it WAS such a thing--I am a firm believer in bureaucratic snafus as a driving force in tragedy--but if one were particularly paranoid and had lost faith in our defense department to do the right thing, I can see how you could jump there.

[makovette.livejournal.com]

I am a firm believer in bureaucratic snafus as a driving force in tragedy

Precisely my feelings as well.

but if one were particularly paranoid and had lost faith in our defense department to do the right thing, I can see how you could jump there.

We have demonstrated gross incompetance on a grand scale certainly, but that level of barbarism being deliberately planned by GW as a publicity stunt? Please....

Mako