Wednesday, May 12, 2004

NICK BERG
I watched just enough of the video of Berg's execution to say that it's the most brutal and disgusting thing I've ever seen. This was a 26 year American from Pennsylvania who went to Iraq, as far as I can tell, simply to do some good. He had previously done development work in Kenya and Ghana.

Partisans on both the right and the left are shamefully trying to use Berg's death to prop up their arguments. Some on the left claim that Berg's death is a direct result of the Iraq invasion, as if the Jihadists weren't brutally murdering civilians before the invasion. Some on the right claim that Berg's execution is the direct result of the media's (it's always the damn media with them) infatuation with the Abu Ghraib atrocities, as as if Jihadists weren't brutally murdering civilians before the Abu Ghraib photos showed up.

As Andrew Sullivan points out, this was a very stupid move on the part of al Qaeda. The U.S. is in the middle of a process of intense, public self-criticism over the Abu Ghraib atrocities, at the near nadir of its international credibility, and here comes al Qaeda to put things in perspective for everyone.

posted by Matt Duss @ 8:35 AM

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