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.
Weegee, wouldn't this include the majority of republicans currently in office?
"Over time it's going to be important for nations to know they will be held accountable for inactivity. You're either with us or against us in the fight against terror."
President Bush has been bold, consistent, and resolute, in his application of force during this "War on Terror". He has not been particularly forthcoming regarding who this "Terror" is that we are at war with. He has been loath to say "Islam", so the term "Jahidists" was coined somewhere up in "spin central" at the White House. I believe he has avoided identifying our "enemies" most Muslims, and Muslim nation-states in the world, both as strategic moves and compassionate action.
Strategically, while al'Qaeda sympathies and anti-American fervor is shared by a significant minority, and perhaps majority of Muslims in the world, it does U.S. interests no good to alienate the rest of the Muslims in the world. There are many who do not share the Wahabi world view of Islamic domination by force, who might desire a more free, democratic vision of an Islamic republic, and they can be useful in this war.
However, in the end, what matters is who wins or loses, or how many casualties the U.S. and our coalition partners take at home and in the field. If President Bush or Powell's State Department cannot subordinate the interests of Muslims to our own civilians and military personnel, we will not win the war.
Faluja, for example, must be completely flattened, if it is not too late. Women and children can leave the city, and enter camps until they can be documented. Men can leave if they surrender all arms; they too will enter separate camps, to be further segregated, identified, and documented. Those who choose not to leave the city will be buried there, with as little loss of life to our Marines as possible.
When the al'Qaeda terrorists have been killed or imprisoned, we can use Iraqi oil money to build a new Faluja, if we so choose.
THAT is a "serious" response to the war being waged upon us via proxies such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and perhaps Syria and Iran. Arabs respect strength, and in the case of the U.S.A., that is the only thing they respect or fear about America. But they also feel their god, Allah, the god of the murderers of innocents, is greater than the U.S.A., that we will collapse due to our own corruption. And, they are more than willing to give us a push, by killing as many American's as possible.
The Bush Administration needs to stand back, and assess exactly WHAT the U.S. priorities are in this war. Nation building and Democracy? Sure, that's fine, but not at "any cost" in American lives and treasure.
American interest must always come first, or the U.S. government will forfeit legitimacy in the eyes of Americans, and more importantly our many enemies in this World. If the U.S. government is ambivalent about the murder of Americans, e.g. it's just a "cost of doing business", the cost of war, then why should terrorists feel differently. The maniac leading those five murders might indeed be ignorant, but American must act in a way that has saner Muslims quaking in their sandals. When the U.S. states that "retribution will be swift and certain", it had better execute --- immediately. What's the life of one American worth? A mosque? A city? A city of terrorists?
Bush and his team had better figure out the math, and convincingly sell that "cost" to our enemies. The terrorists do have "interests" we can damage. Mecca and Medina? A few precision weapons could reduce those sites to ashes. Saudi oil fields? The same fate, on the same day as the U.S. opens the Alaskan oil reserves to aggressive and rapid development. Are Syria and Iran supporting insurgents with weapons or fighters (neither "grow on trees")? There are appropriate targets of interest to which we can apply "force".
American is at war. We are under sustained attack. We must respond in meaningful ways; we must carry the war to the enemies. Or we will lose.
SFS
They will skip 7-11 because to many of their relatives in the USA are running a business by that name.
Lets avenge the butcher murder of Nick Berg with an OVERWHELMING destructive force. We said we would never negotiate with terrorists. We've broken that promise and look where it got us!
Faluja, for example, must be completely flattened, if it is not too late.
Exactly. If Muslims use holy cities as defensive positions, they can't be that holy.
I had admired Bush for pressing on with his beliefs in spite of adversity and the leftist media. However, recently, I think he's been slipping. Is the 2004 election too close? I really hope Bush will take a fierce response or my confidence in him will slip.
If we are not prepared to do what it takes to win the war, we should never have gotten involved. If our floundering continues, Iraq WILL be a quagmire and WILL turn into a Vietnam.
Yep, good thing we rooted him out of that sophisticated underground war room of his.
IMO, the major problem is twofold - Iraqis have no experience with democracy and/or self-government, and Americans expect an instant solution to every problem.
Expecting the Iraqis to be instantly capable of self-government is like expecting the same from a group of middle school students. Ever read Lord of the Flies?
We Americans expect all problems to be solved and neatly wrapped up in a space of weeks, or at most, months. Life isn't a sitcom, and things rarely happen that way. We occupied Germany for nearly a decade after WWII, and we still have troops in Germany, Japan, and Korea 50+ years on.
More realistic expectations would be a good start.
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