Posted on 05/13/2004 5:48:46 PM PDT by Lando Lincoln
If anyone in America “caused” the beheading of Nick Berg, it was those few sanctimonious, cynical Congressmen (like Teddy Kennedy) who were looking to “decapitate” Donald Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers--they are the ones with blood on their hands. Why, in time of war, could they not just accept the General’s plausible assertion that he sought to delay (not obstruct) the release of those photos from Abu Ghraib precisely in order to prevent such a “retaliatory” riposte?
Well, for one thing, that kind of responsible, forward-thinking behavior just isn't masochistic and self-flogging enough for these ruthless politicos who are forever “still in Saigon.” The culture of suspicion they were reared in, and which they unwisely continue to embrace (to everyone's peril--especially Nick Berg's) demands they never (so long as one of their own isn't Commander-in-Chief) trust their military; never attribute reasonable, just motives to the actions of U.S. military leaders; and never let slide an opportunity to undermine their political opponent.
They still don't get it--9/11 has receded too far from memory, and 11/2 is drawing nigh. Crass politicking in time of war is not only dangerous: it's deadly. And as Rumsfeld has so astutely observed, "Weakness is provocative, not strength." Our public groveling is interpreted by our enemies as a sign of weakness. And so the grovelers, in truth, are far more to blame for "provoking" the death of Nick Berg than all the miscreants at Abu Ghraib put together.
And honestly, war is war: it’s ugly and brutal. In this age of watered-down, sanitized conflict, we conveniently forget that war always carries with it the potential for warping the warrior. How else did the jihadists get that way? Their society has totally immersed itself in an ideology of war: the blood bath has become a kind of bizarre cultural bubble bath, at once grotesquely celebratory and defiant. (Join us in the Jihad Jacuzzi!) Centuries of conflict, meshed with their philosophy of hatred, have not only desensitized the Jihad warriors--they’ve dehumanized them, as well.
Those of us who refuse to cow-tow to the PC Brigade do not pretend to be surprised, however, that such things happen in the heat of battle. These “incidents” are as old as war itself. Who wouldn’t expect prison guards to occasionally succumb to the ever-present temptation to behave like animals, given that the prisoners they guard(in this case, terrorists) routinely behave like beasts? (Is it any wonder those guards mimed acts of domestication and humiliation? Do those acts not symbolically suggest that those captives, those dogs, wanted taming? Should the leashes astonish us, really?)
But we endlessly apoplectic, apologetic Americans aren’t supposed to say this. We’re supposed to feign amazement; we’re supposed to act appalled even when we’re not. After what we witnessed on 9/11, can these pictures really shock us? Does their gruesomeness rival, let alone exceed, the ghoulish imagery of splattered carcasses, with entrails smoldering, piled up outside the WTC, like so much fleshy refuse outside a slaughterhouse? And shouldn’t we be showing those photos, too? Shouldn’t we show the video of Nick Berg’s beheading? In a more fair, equitable world--a world less distorted by double standards--we would. But Teddy Kennedy and his cronies would have you believe that a grandiose, even hysterical display of public outrage constitutes the only fit, politically correct way to respond to such “institutionalized” American “savagery.”
Not me. I’m discomfited, to be sure--but outraged? Not for a millisecond. After calling for Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s head (literally), I’m calling for Kennedy's (figuratively). The melodramatic tableau of American masochism he helped enact in Congress last week is even more sickening (and yes, outrageous), to my mind, than the images issuing from that prison.
Is it masochistic of me to suggest we metaphorically behead the bad Congressional stewardship that brought us to the barbarous death of Nick Berg? Hardly. Effectively suppressing the masochistic internal element during war helps ensure the victory and win the peace. When the peace is assured, then there will be time aplenty, to paraphrase T. S. Eliot, for endless revisions and re-revisions. We cannot send J. Alfred Prufrock in to do Richard B. Myers’ job. Our soldiers--the men of action among us, men like Rumsfeld and Myers--make Prufrock’s peacetime contemplations possible.
And as for those who would connect the dots between Abu and Berg? Any casuistic attempt to do so is destined to fail, relying, as it does, on nothing more solid than sophistry.
And as for the purple-throated pundits who roundly decry our “interrogation methods,” who extrapolate from this war-time incident an entire “culture” of condonation promulgated by the Department of Defense--a culture which not only condones, but facilitates and even encourages Abu Ghraib? To these people, I say: Watch, if you can, the Ansar video. It’s worth all the words a falsely livid, holier-than-thou Teddy Kennedy can muster.
If you seek to know yourself, in time of war, seek first to know your enemy. If you don’t, you won’t be here to agonize. All your conscientious objections will go unheard, and your noble attempts at self-examination will avail nothing.
Remember: The Grim Reaper’s got a knife in his hand, and he’s aiming for your jugular.
Karen Hathaway Pittman is a published poet and freelance writer. You can reach her at tpittman7@comcast.net.
And it's not a fun half-hour.
In spite of my great sympathy for his parents, I want to add that they are helping the enemy in their current, errant blasts at our President. Doncha' think those who slaughtered their son LOVE to hear them say this kind of tripe?
Right on the money. Although I wouldn't mind being rid of old fat's for good.
Bravo!
Kennedy needs to be dropped off in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and told to swim ashore!
Leahy needs to have his head held under water until he starts leaking.
Looks to me like the RATS played the long shot and lost big time. I doubt the average American is drinking the Kennedy/Finestein/Lehay/sKerry/Pelosi Kool-Aide.
"I’m calling for Kennedy's(Head)"
Should be an easy job,It's empty.
Be careful what you say only Dems can call for the death of republican figures and not expect law enforcement to come for them!!
These prisoners, if it were told by the military or press are: Al Qaeda, Saddam's Fedayeen, Saddam's 'Elite Republican Guard known as "M9" or "M-something", they are (I fully believe) largely foreigners which include Syrians, many Iranians, Palestinians (who do the suicide crap), Saudi Arabians, Pakis and an assortment of other foreign fighters. Whoever got these pictures out to expose them to the enemy-friendly-enemy-sympathizing-anti-Bush-Democratic-party-media-outlets is an internal enemy to this nation. Now, thanks to this internal enemy, many good loyal and true soldiers will be sacrificed at the alter of "PC".
They will be publicly humiliated, careers, reputations and futures will be destroyed and they probably didn't do anything wrong when you consider those they were dealing with.
I heard a Christian member of the Iraqi Council say that our military are being 'too nice and too easy on these prisoners'. He suggested that we should have used the actual torture and then the death penalty for these terrorist scum-bags.
What is going on with Berg's father? I heard today that he said that he had compassion and forgave the murderers of his son? He blames the death all on the U.S. government and G.W. Supposedly he is a flaming lib. I don't want to detract from the death of his son or give ammo to the libs to maybe say that Berg was some sort of government agent and deserved it or something.
Listening to Savage tonight, I heard something strange about what the Father said. I also saw it on FOX during a news break. *********************************************************
The FBI had a file on Berg. He apparently lent his PASSWORD , and it ended up that Mousaui (sp) had it. In COLORADO !!
The strange statement by the Father was:
"They killed their best friend" (meaning his son)..."They didn't know what they were doing"...." I'm sure he saw only the good in THEM till the end of his life"
Very odd statements that could have a new meaning being that Mousoui (sp) had his password. This is not finished. But no matter what...no one deserves to have this happen to him .
Isn't it funny....I have tried and as yet, can't find anyone who is enraged about the abuse scandal....anyone except the media talking heads who are not sincere.
I think Americans see through this. It will backfire against the Democrats and media.
The war on terror has taken these people off the front page. They are desperate.
I don't understand the attitude of the father? He is not putting blame on the killers?
"Yet with all the attention, the questions the Bergs have had for weeks remained unanswered yesterday: Why did it take so long for U.S. officials, who they say had Nicholas Berg in their custody, to sort out who he was? And why did it take so long to get him released?
The government has denied having him in custody, but Michael Berg maintains that it did. His son was arrested by Iraqi police, who he maintains are controlled by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority.
Holding his son without charges for 13 days was "the worst of civil rights abuses and bureaucracy - and I think it's both of those things that got him," Michael Berg said Tuesday. The FBI and the U.S. military "didn't care if they abused his rights, and they didn't care how long they abused them," he said."
What in the hell does this mean? That Nick Berg was on the side of the the terrorists a la John Lind Walker?
If Nick was pro-war and pro-Bush as the dad has said, why would the dad say that Nick that he's sure 'his son only saw the good in them'? This totally does not make sense AT ALL.
This does not sound like the words of a grieving father, in my opinion.
Here is an idea: Slaughter 5 pigs and decapitate them. Next, slaughter the 5 responsible for this atrocity and sew their heads to the pigs bodys. Then hang them from the bridge in Falujah (sp?).
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