Posted on 05/12/2004 1:16:16 AM PDT by Barney Gumble
What cruel, sick bastards.
Indeed, you can't get much more barbaric than the filmed beheading of 26-year-old Nick Berg that splashed across a terrorist group's Web site yesterday.
In case the world needed a reminder of why America is waging its War on Terror, it got one yesterday.
It's hard to imagine the terror that must have filled Berg in those final moments as he realized his hooded captors really were going to kill him.
It wasn't enough that they slaughtered the young Philadelphia businessman like a sheep and held his severed head aloft as if it were a trophy. No, they filmed the whole thing for the world to see.
Soldiers don't behave like that.
Only cowards and thugs do.
Now it's time to ratchet up the response to this war.
Forget Abu Ghraib.
The abuse committed there by a handful of soldiers was not typical; nor is it acceptable.
But the beheading of Nick Berg is par for the course for al Qaeda.
Of course, the terrorists of Muntada al-Ansar, an al Qaeda offshoot, claimed they were acting in retaliation for the Abu Ghraib abuses.
Bull. There were no known abuses at Abu Ghraib when Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and Italian hostage Fabrizio Quattrocchi were murdered by Islamic terrorists.
And the events at Abu Ghraib had not yet come to light when frenzied crowds in Fallujah burned and mutilated the bodies of four Americans and strung them from a bridge.
No, the massacre of Nick Berg had nothing to do with Abu Ghraib.
Instead, this slaying was about the war against the West in general - and America, in particular. Indeed, the beheading may have been carried out personally by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a top aide of Osama bin Laden .
Some people - some Americans - have forgotten about 9/11.
That attack should have been enough to justify all-out war. But the hand-wringing over the war in Iraq (news - web sites) - and over even the modest steps America took to defend itself, like the Patriot Act - suggests that folks truly have lost sight of what the war is about.
Yesterday they got a shocking reminder. And now they know: This war cannot be waged with half-measures.
It can end only with the total annihilation of those who practice butchery and barbarism. Those who have set as their goal the destruction of America.
There is no negotiating with such people. There can be no compromise with those who mean to destroy us.
Yesterday, the White House promised to "pursue those responsible and bring them to justice." That's the least of it.
America has to come out swinging.
And not stop until every last one of the savage thugs is dead.
If that means a resumption of major combat in Iraq, so be it.
Would it mean another division or so of combat troops to get the job done?
Turn to our garrisons in Europe, or Korea, to get them.
In sufficient numbers to get the job done.
To hell with political sensitivities in the region.
To hell with negotiating with radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Najaf and the Sunni insurgents in Fallujah.
To hell with handing Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) over to Iraqis, as some want to do, and risking some reverse - perverse - kangaroo trial that results in his survival.
Evil, cutthroat terrorists need to be eradicated.
Let's face it: This is a job that's going to take overwhelming - yes, brutal - force. There is simply no "nice" or painless way to accomplish this.
As yesterday's slaughter showed (yet again), the enemy is bound by no moral compunctions.
America won't go that far.
But it had better steel it's backbone and get ready to fight like it means it.
It's the only way to win this war.
I am not sure what you mean, but I was responding to you stating we were taking back lands and fighting soldiers in uniforms. You said hit a military target. I was just stating we didn't just hit military targets in WWII we killed a lot of civilians to break the will.
I do not advocate killing a bunch of civilians but I think we can afford to play serious hardball with anyone who even thinks of defying us.
i am sure most people don't agree with cutting off heads in Iraq, but I bet you could find 100,000 who do.
I would just like to see us wory less about shooting at mosques when they are attacking us from them. I would like to see us flatten a couple of them and build them back later. I think we give these guys way to much credit for their religious practices.
All that being said I think the military leaders have a good plan and are prosecuting the war to win it. They are on the ground and I have faith in them and Bush to do whats best and not whats politicaly convenient.
Intel is key, but holding back does not get respect here. And Intel comes with respect. The Iraqis who would help us have to believe we will utterly destroy their enemies lest they come back for them. The population will ride the strongest horse (usama bin ladin quote) we must be that horse.
Every time we have used strength, contraty to what you say we have made progress. When we stop, show kindness, be willing to negotiate to save innocent lives, we are perceived as being weak. (Also our targets vanish in the night during such negotiations.) Perhaps it is because we don't randomly target, but the enemy hides behind the women and children. (Take these pictures, and release them.)
While I understand the need to wrap ourselves in the "high road" mantel, this war will be fought and won at the level of the side willing to go lowest. We unfortunatly should match their brutality. Leave bodies in the street, (dying with their guns and bombs in their hands.) Kill anyone who carries a weapon or walks after curfew in battle ground cities. Kill anyone tampering with the road side or oil lines or refineries. And finally, show photos of the insurgents firing from mosques etc to get the moderate religious leaders with us.
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