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Why We Fight:The Murder of Nick Berg
Nick Berg was murdered this past weekend by the men pictured in the photograph above. As they murdered him, the killers shouted that God is great.
An American civilian who had gone to Iraq to look for work was captured last month by Islamic militants and beheaded, his family and American officials said, in an execution that was videotaped and briefly posted on a Web site today.
In the tape, which is of poor quality, masked men who claim to have ties to Al Qaeda say the execution is vengeance for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.
"The dignity of the Muslim men and women in Abu Ghraib and others is not redeemed except by blood and souls," one of the masked men said in a statement he read before the killing. "You will not receive anything from us but coffins after coffins ... slaughtered the same way."
American officials and the slain man's family, in West Chester, Pa., identified the victim as Nicholas Berg, 26, who had gone to Iraq on his own looking for contracting work. Officials said his body was found on Saturday in Baghdad.
An intelligence official said the Central Intelligence Agency was reviewing the videotape to see if it provided clues as to who might carry have carried it out.
The official also took note of Mr. Berg's decision to go to Iraq without an employer. "It was the wrong place for someone without a support structure to be," the intelligence official said.
In the videotape, parts of which were shown on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News, the man is shown sitting on a floor with five masked men behind him, and one of the masked men reads a statement.
In the portion of the tape that follows, which has not been broadcast in the United States, themasked men push the seated man to the floor, saw off his head as he screams and then hold it aloft, according to Reuters. The tape was briefly made public on a Web site linked to Islamic militants, Reuters and other news organizations said, but it quickly became inaccessible.
Allow me to ask a rhetorical question. What are we to make of a free press that decides, in its editorial wisdom, to hide the film of the planes crashing into the World Trade Center on September 11 a few days after the event...a press which hides the footage of victims leaping to their deaths from the burning towers on September 11...a press which hides the footage of the murder of Daniel Pearl and Nicholas Berg...a press that, at the same time, cannot get enough of the story of the American abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, running stories and photos of those crimes 24/7?
I think that it is important for us to understand the people who have declared war on western civilization. The images from September 11 and those of the Pearl and Berg murders show us the kind of people we are fighting, and I think it is also important for us to bear witness to the sacrifices of those we have lost.
For that reason, I am linking to the video of the murder of Nick Berg. It is horrible, and it is terribly difficult to watch. I watched it, and I'm linking to it, because I feel it is my duty to bear witness to his murder. If you feel the same way, you can watch the video clip here.
Will America and her allies win the Global War on Terror? I believe that we will. I also believe that the only way we can lose this war is if we allow ourselves to tire of the effort, if we allow ourselves to just give up.
As long as all of us remember why this war is being fought in the first place, we will never give up.
Never forget.
ceklundesq at 6:43:00 PM CDT Blog about this entry |
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Unfortunately, I don't think I have the stomach to watch it, so I'll have to demur. What I think is more preposterous than suppressing the video, though, is the press' insistence on repeating the laughable claim that the murder is some sort of retribution for the prison abuses. The main reason the latter has become such a big story is not sympathy for the detainees, but astonishment at what our soldiers did. Western society acknowledges that immorality debases not only its victims, but also its perpetrators. That's something the vicious thugs who cut off Berg's head will never understand.
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Such a thought provoking entry! I knew the photos of prisoner abuse would come back to haunt us! My God, how could anyone do anything like that to another human being...and I am talking prisoner abuse and the beheading of this young man. I am so sad. And, to think I planned on complaining about my day in my journal today. ::Sigh:: Lisa @ Wearin' My Heart on My Sleeve
5/12/04 1:15 AM