Middle East loses its head over beheading

The spectacle of Nick Berg's beheading has seen airtime in some countries and for those with the stomach for gore, there's even the option of viewing the video via the web. For what it's worth, I could not bring myself to even consider any curiosity I may have in seeing how this monstrous act took place. Even the thought of it cringes my stomach to the core.

While Islamic law condones execution by beheading, I understand that Berg was heard screaming until he could scream no more, during the beheading. It wasn't the act of a executor... it was the crime of a very evil person. The same people who were protesting the presence of American forces in Iraq. The same people who lamented the cruelty of the Israeli "occupation" of Palestine. The same people who claimed to be champions of the true Islamic way. Yet, the same people who dealt Daniel Perl no mercy and who found reason to riddle a pregnant mother and her children with bullets of hatred.

In the same article, Jabar Khan, a Kabul shopkeeper, said: "This beheading is a good act because the Iraqis have been oppressed and whoever is oppressed should defend themselves. As a Muslim I support this act." The same people who cheered Saddam Hussein into the tunnel of shame against the US - the real Butcher of Baghdad and oppressor of his people.

Fears that a backlash on US troops and citizens because of the prison abuse scandal seem to have been realized with Berg's brutal killing. Yet taking the larger picture into consideration, this is merely the continuation of a terror-based strategy already entrenched in the minds of modern Islamic militants. A concession to such tactics will only bring the terrorists to the American door step, and Sept 11 proves that this is not unthinkable.

This is not an escalation of terror. This is not a new, more effective strategy. It only seems that way because in this day and age of connectivity and multimedia, brutality can be served and expedited at the click of a mouse. It also goes to show why one blameless Savior was needed to die a brutal death for our sinful ways...