Posted on 09/15/2014 7:42:54 AM PDT by SJackson
Four American noncombatants have been beheaded by Islamic fanatics, and the videos of their murders brazenly circulated over the internet for the world to witness. Another Westerner – David Cawthorne Haines, a security expert hired by international aid organizations – faces the same gruesome fate.
Why do they behead us?
The question goes to the method, not the motive, of the madness. Murderers’ motives don’t matter much in the Middle East. In local eyes, there are so many causes to kill for, and so many victims deserving death. But assuming one is inclined to butcher, why do so by the particularly peculiar method of beheading? Why not butcher by shooting, or by hanging, or by detonation?
This is, to put it mildly, a grim inquiry. But it is worth the trouble to explore. For the answer may tell us something about the nature of the evil we face.
Others have asked the same question and come up with their own theories. David Brooks of the New York Times believes Islamic fanatics choose beheading because the act represents a defilement of something sacred: the human body.
A beheading … is not just an injury or a crime. It is an indignity. A beheading is more like rape, castration or cannibalism. It is a defacement of something sacred that should be inviolable. ….We’re repulsed by a beheading because the body has a spiritual essence. The human head and body don’t just live and pass along genes. They paint, make ethical judgments, savor the beauty of a sunset and experience the transcendent. The body is material but surpasses the material. It’s spiritualized matter.
Brooks’ observations are eloquent, but they are not persuasive. The Islamic fanatics hold no monopoly on beheading. Until 1981, the sole method of execution allowed in France was the guillotine, which was viewed, at the time of its adoption during the Revolution, as “humane” (it was quick) and “democratic” (it was administered to aristocrats and peasants alike).
And contrary to Brooks, any method of execution – not just beheading – is an indignity and a defacement of the human body. For there is no way to snuff out a human life without doing grievous injury to the body. Hanging breaks the spinal cord. Shooting shreds vital organs. Even the supposedly “civilized” method of lethal injection defiles the body; it paralyzes the lungs and diaphragm, rendering the condemned unable to breathe.
Michael Rubin, writing in Commentary Magazine’s online blog, believes that the answer lies in the Qur’an. He cites sura (chapter) 47, containing this ayah (verse): “When you encounter the unbelievers on the battlefield, strike off their heads until you have crushed them completely; then bind the prisoners tightly.” He cites other scholars who have explained that the Qur’anic injunction to “strike at the necks” of non-Muslims means that no prisoners should be taken until the enemy has been completely crushed.
This theory too has some merit, but ultimately it does not fully answer the question. First, the Quar’anic passages cited by Rubin apply to enemies on the battlefield, not to civilians. Neither Pearl nor Berg nor Foley nor Sotloff was a combatant. Berg was a freelance radio tower repairman and the others were journalists. Second, the beheadings have not been limited to non-Muslims. Indeed, most victims have been Muslims. In Syria, ISIS murderers are beheading their co-religionists. On the other side, the Free Syrian Army, backed by the United States, has beheaded their fellow Muslim ISIS prisoners. So religious doctrine fails to provide a complete answer.
Explaining why Islamic fundamentalists behead us requires a deeper look into this dark subject. It requires examining the relationship between the executioner and the executed, and their strange and ancient mutual obligations.
An executioner – whether employed by a state, or a religious movement – must believe that he is not a common murderer. He must believe that his act of homicide deserves some kind of legal or moral sanction, and is not merely a callous act of violence. The best way to secure that sanction is to enlist the condemned in the process of his own death.
In many places, this involves allowing the condemned to have a say in the manner of his execution. In a number of American states, the law grants, or until recently, has granted, death row prisoners choices. Convicts in Alabama, Arkansas (convicted before 1988), Florida, Kentucky (1998), South Carolina, Tennessee (1998), and Virginia can choose between lethal injection and electrocution. Convicts in Arizona (convicted before 1992), California, Maryland (1994), and Missouri can choose between lethal injection and lethal gas. Convicts in Delaware (convicted before 1986) and Washington can choose between lethal injection and hanging. Convicts in Utah, until 2004, could choose between lethal injection and the firing squad.
Allowing choice is not an act of benevolence. Rather, it is an act of transformation. It elevates the process of execution above that of common murder. For a common murderer allows no such options to his victim.
Another obligation between executioner and condemned is the custom of granting the right to choose a last meal. This ritual finds its origin in the traditional code of conduct between guest and host. By accepting food from his host, the guest agrees to a state of peace. He agrees to forego violence or vengeance. Similarly, by choosing and accepting his last meal, the convict symbolically makes peace with his executioner, and forswears vengeance from beyond the grave.
The last meal tradition is widespread, provided even to the most odious criminals. The Israelis followed it before hanging Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi mass murderer. He declined the offer of a special meal, preferring instead a bottle of Carmel, a dry red Israeli wine. He drank about half of it.
It hardly needs saying that observance of these obligations does not placate the condemned. He may go to his death hating his executioner, and bitterly resenting his fate. He may fervently wish that he could turn the tables, and kill his killer. But even if he does not agree that his executioner is meting out justice, he must concede that his executioner thinks that he is meting out justice. Thus, even the condemned is unlikely to consider his executioner a mere murderer.
When officers of civilized states carry out a sentence of execution, the process is designed to convey this message to the world:
This condemned man deserves to die. His sentence has been delivered and is being implemented in accordance with a set of legal and moral principles. The condemned man may hate and curse us for executing him. But by witnessing and participating in the rituals surrounding his death, he has acknowledged that we, his executioners, are trying to do justice, at least by our lights. Therefore, even if we are wrong, we are not mere murderers.
Those who decapitated Daniel Pearl, Nicholas Berg, James Foley, and Steven Sotloff, on the other hand, had no interest in observing any mutual obligations between themselves and the condemned. They allowed them no say in the manner of their execution. On the contrary, they selected a method as alien as possible, because, for these butchers, there was no need to persuade the world of anything, not even that that their victims deserved to die. Note that in the speeches written by the executioners and recited by their victims under duress shortly before their deaths, there were no arguments to show that the men were guilty or that they deserved their fate.
When Islamic fundamentalists behead Western civilians, and publicize their grisly acts to the world, their process is designed to convey this message to the world:
These condemned men do not deserve to die. They have done nothing wrong. Yet we kill them anyway, and we do so in our own way, without any pretense of any relationship between us. We do not recognize any mutual obligations between us and our victims. We do not seek their sanction, nor do we seek the world’s. We do not pretend to care about justice. We kill because we can.
Theirs is a message intended not to pacify, but to terrify. It is highly doubtful any of these murderers ever read Percy Bysshe Shelley, but if they did, they might be tempted to paraphrase his poem Ozymandias, set, like the executions, in the desert, and to point to the severed heads and tell us: “Look on my works, oh ye moral, and despair!”
It is the Islamic version of “Random Acts of Kindness.”
Not in our view but we continually misapply the self-reference criterion: We concern ourselves with non-combatants (thus assume everyone else does too); to them we're all combatants. We value human life; to them it has little or no value. WAKE UP, PEOPLE!
Seems like it would be far easier for us to ‘defile’ these superstitious primitives than the other way around. See Black Jack Pershing.
They don’t convert you from reason, goodwill and kindness but by the threat of death and fear of the edge of sword to the neck. But if one does convert then to which brand of islam to choose since it all seems to be at war with each sect within?
This is a group that has acquired a little geography, but remains in a precarious position. The last thing that they should have wanted to do is to encourage a world power to come in and give them a butt-kicking. Their provocation of the Western World is really stupid from a strategic standpoint.
But losers tend to do stupid things. And, nature has many ways of disposing of stupid losers.
I know the history. But hate is not going to win. You can kill them to protect your country and family but never play into their game of hate.
The same reason that they gang-rape underage white girls.
Beheading always struck me that it has something to do with the belief where the spirit of the person lays and reincarnation. If the head is severed it cannot reconnect with the body in an afterlife.
This guy is not reading his own article.
The passage read “unbelievers” not military combatants. It does matter if they were reporters, doctors or generals.
Anyone who is an unbeliever is susceptible to beheading.
Its all part of the deception of radical islam right? They behead doing the ‘will of allah’ hence their yelling out alahu ahkbar’. So allah will either grant/reward them holy victory over infidels or assure a holy warrior/martyr status in the hereafter. Its like a sanctioned thrill and high to participate is grisly death’s sanctioned by allah with rewards. Religion designed for losers with no hope of a happy earthly existence and its been around since the 7th century. Mankind is just as stupid now despite technology and other scientific advancements. Deception of false religion is powerful, enduring stuff.
Because they can
Proper authority and dispassionate justice make for a civilized world. As much as one may like to inflict harm personally, one must defer to others who have authority and let them exercise the proper discipline, whether its jail time, fines, banishment, or execution. But there is much confusion today as to the origin of legitimate authority. Due to strong evidence of malpractice in allowing Barack Hussein Obama to be allowed on the ballot, I do not consider his authority to be legitimate. Somewhere down the road I may suffer for that. So be it. Meanwhile I pray for the world and all its inhabitants that they may enjoy temporal peace and prosperity.
Even simpler.... because we let them.
Because we are created in God’s image and Satan hates us because we remind him of God.
I’m sure we can think of something. Shooting back when their neighborhoods are rocketed. You’ve seen of course reports that ISIS is an Israeli plot to make muslims look bad...
Whatever the jihadis do, no one ever seriously refers to it as a war crime. They can slaughter prisoners from now til the cows come home. If Israelis defend themselves, they face the whole weight of an amorphous “international law”.
Simply put: It is ISLAM; Those perpetrating these heinous murders and crimes against humanity are true Muslims following the dictates and directives of Islam and its founder.
These condemned men do not deserve to die. They have done nothing wrong. Yet we kill them anyway, and we do so in our own way, without any pretense of any relationship between us. We do not recognize any mutual obligations between us and our victims. We do not seek their sanction, nor do we seek the world’s. We do not pretend to care about justice. We kill because we can.
Islam must be destroyed if there is ever to be even a brief peace in the world. It has been attacking all over the world for 1400 years, subsides briefly when combatted with enough force, and then comes back again because that is what this nutty cult commands its followers to do. It must be entirely destroyed, root and branch.
Why?
Terror.
They do it to show they can do whatever they want, and to show they don’t need to accept Western morality or “rules of engagement” or logic or any other standard of behavior connected with the West.
In their view, Muslims have suffered hundreds of years of defeat and humiliation by the West - and this isn’t the way things should be, not the way the world should exist according to Allah, where Muslims should rule - so they wil show us, by breaking every rule espoused by the West, and asserting their identity as defined by the Koran.
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