NICK BERG'S MURDER (A+ Op-ed)

NY Post ^

[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.

[wita]

I think I see the answer somewhere in these posts. It surely isn't politically correct, but then what winning strategy is? The enemy is Islam pure and simple, and does not necessarily involve wholesale annilation of people, but of the beast call islam. How on earth are there still name changing morons calling themselves Americans, who are aligning themselves with this 13 century religion I will never understand, and even less understandable is the willingness of some to even allow it under the banner of freedom of religion, considering what we now know of the enemy, but... remaining comments self censored.

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in which they express belief, said, "Thou shalt not kill", and He said it long before Mohammed came along and proved beyond a doubt that he is a false prophet.

[xzins]

Do you have a link to a picture of the descrated bodies of Americans at Fallujah?

I saw the Drudge link to the severed head of Nick Berg.

It's time to return to a serious war on terrorism.

[Maria S]

"Daniel Pearl was 3-11?
Nick Berg 5-11."


I don't know when Daniel Pearl was executed, but Nick Berg was executed last month, I believe. I think he was released from the detaining by the US on April 5, and after that was captured by the Iraqis. Michael Savage made the comment last night that the men responsible for killing Berg were claiming that it was done in retribution for the stuff at the Iraq prison camp...when in fact, Berg had already been killed before the prison revelations came out.

[Hewar]

Very Barbaric and brutal but, what about other murders that you do not see, for these people this is very natural and normal, we know what these people are capable of, have you heared about (Nugrat Salman)prison, it is the symbol of brutality and the criminal mind of these people it is a symbole of kurdish genocide, Go to kurdistan and ask any one what Nugrat Salman means to you and listen to their stories,it is aplace in Arab desert (south of Iraq) were kurds have never seen and imagin to see in their live even they could not talk the language these terrorists and murderers were speaking, there women
and small children who were dying of hunger and thirst were thrown to the desert for dogs to eat them, ask how many kurds have been eaten by dogs of their desert, not all the 182000 who disappeared during 1988
are in mass graves, Kurdish satellite channels have programs showing these real witnesses and a large number of documents showing these brutalities to the world if the world wants to listen and see. If they stay in power and supported by Arabs the world will see the real terror as we have seen.
Have we occupied their land ? have we waged war against them? have we terrorised their prisoners? we were " Iraqi's"
why these criminals have not retaliated from Saddam for his crimes against Iraqi's? now they are doing what Iraqi's have not asked them to do in the name of Iraqi's. They should disappear if not the world will be the most dangerous place to live in as we have lived with these criminals for last 80 years since world war one.

[Spirited]

" We are not at war with Arabs. We are at War with Islamic Fundamentalists. The ability to recognize this difference will be the difference between victory and defeat."

That is worth repeating. Problem is we do not have leaders who are willing to "see" this and by the time leadership does Islam may after all these centuries of trying have almost succeeded.

[deport]

Thanks.... war is hell. Things get broken, people get killed, injured , etc all in the name of freedom. I wonder how much this will get played across the news media and how many hearings we'll have in the Congress to denounce it's atrocity to the terrorist?

[arthurus]

Losing in Iraq will just mean that Israel will suddenly face more pressure than it ever has before and so will the US military everywhere else it is in Asia and Africa. If we chicken out in Iraq we will be foced out of Central Asia and the moslem countries that are cooperating with us will suddenly fear that cooperation much more than the islamists. Pakistan will flip again and Afghanistan will become quickly untenable. The Sauds will be chased out of Arabia and/or killed and the oil will be shut off. And all this stuff will very shortly start coming home to buildings and bridges and dams and cities in America.

[PleaseNoMore]

My 17 yo son and I watched the video last night. The young man Berg's screams haunted my mind all night long. I thought of the many that have been slaughtered in a like fashion in the name of Islam. Before I viewed the video I understood that our enemy is a perverse creature but now I sense the true nature of these monsters. We aren't dealing with a group of people with screwed up ideology. We are fighting evil and fighting for our very existance. My son asked me "Mom, what will it take for us to get "real" in Iraq? Will it take this sort of thing happening over here?" What do you tell your children of their future as long as these barbarians exist?

[txrangerette]

Scared of Leftist Media?

You made that up to slam the
President. For all ANYONE knows,
Bush, Rummy, Myers, Abizaid, the
regional Marine Commander, etc.
are doing what they believe to
be tactically wise. That's just
a truism; irrefutable. You shaft
truth, and them, by claiming to
know WHY they do what they do.

But I'll bet you already realize
that...how could you not? Gotta
assume you have a few marbles.

Doing it anyway is .... I better
not say more.

(My ... to the rest of the BOMB
'EM ALL Bush-slanderers.)

Prayers for America & her leaders

[Physicist]

What happened?

What happened is that after defeating Iraq we went to war with Syria and Iran, except that rather taking the fight to them, we have let (and are letting) them take the fight to us. The Syrians are fighting us in Fallujah, and the Iranians are fighting us in Najaf. When the battles are instead fought in Damascus and Teheran, we will stand a chance of winning them.

[arthurus]

they use the tools of those ages for their murderous ways.

It is worse than that. Dark Ages people have 20th century weapons and 21st century communications. I am afraid we must do this war quickly and with nukes even because it is being fought in our living rooms and the schlubs watching the screens will have no tolerance for it. They, even those that understand that quitting will bring it all to America and destroy their TVs, will force a surrender because the consequences won't occur before next Wednesday and a TV population simply cannot be bothered by something that is more than 24 hours distant. Fighting the war to win it quickly will cost the Republicans the elections but the nation and the population will survive without becoming moslem or dhimmi. It needs to be done fast enough that the moslems' dedicated allies on the left in America do not have time to paralyze the country.

[ought-six]

How many friggin' holy sites do these folks have? Is every place mad mo took a crap a holy site?

[RinaseaofDs]

I've said this from the beginning - there was no torture at Abu Gharib. In some cases, you have to say, "Job well done."

If the result of the humiliation is that the insurgents want to disappear in shame, then that's a fine technique.

We are starting, namely Bush is starting to make all of this sound like a police action again. We shouldn't be bringing these people to justice.

We should be about the pursuit, capture, and execution of the killers - and everyone that supports them.

[ought-six]

"The left would rather win the 2004 election than the war in Iraq. That's 'what happened'."

That is the awful truth. The left in this country is as much to blame for these heinous acts as the barbarians who actually committed them.

[Born Conservative]

The plan was to march on Bagdad, shock & awe until Saddam was killed or ran to Syria or somewhere, Have a parade, install Chalabi as Shah of Iraq, have a Fifth Avenue parade and regular unleaded would hover around .99 a gallon. What happened?

It's an election year...

[SuziQ]

Will his death go in vain? I think the deaths in Fallajah have. All that happened was a Mexican standoff.

I disagree. The Marines killed well over 1000 terrorists in Fallujah. My understanding is that they pulled back as a large force so that they could work in smaller groups with Iraqi forces to go after groups of terrorists in the city.

The majority of people in the city were not involved in this action. They were just as happy to see the backs (or dead bodies) of the terrorists. Sure, there were some who supported them, but they were a tiny number compared to the other folks in the city.

[Cobra64]

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.

Where can I find the video. I want my leftist acquaintences to see it.

[Cobra64]

Can you post a link to the video?

Me too. I want to send it to some people who think Americans are bastards for being in Iraq.

[Bikers4Bush]

What an excellent, excellent Op-ed.