[lbo-talk] beheading (was: stats)

[Dennis Perrin]

> The deed was done using a knife held with bare hands. It's very messy - 
> lots of hacking, punctuated initially by screams. Lots of spurting blood. 
> I watched some videos of guys being shot (on the same Ogrish site), but 
> those are relatively quick and clean. The beheading was drawn out, and it 
> seemed that the victim experienced lots of pain and terror before the 
> lights dimmed. It's a very intense dose of pure horror.
>
> There's a political angle to it as well. A few days ago, a veteran peace 
> activist whom I admire quite a lot (I'm not mentioning his name because I 
> didn't ask if it was ok to quote him) told me that one reason he thinks 
> the antiwar movement has nearly died out is because of the brutality of 
> the resistance. As he put it, that means that it "lacks a certain 'edge' 
> of legitimacy which the Vietnam war had. Personally I support the right of 
> people to resist in their own way - but in Iraq this has become very 
> confused. Perhaps only the harder part of the US Left can rejoice over the 
> chaos." I felt something like that watching the video - that anyone who 
> could cut off someone's head with a knife held in his bare hands is so 
> debased that it messes with one's political clarity about the war. Yes, I 
> know the US military is far more murderous, and it's our military, and 
> yes, I agree that people have the right to resist in their own way, but it 
> takes some kind of hardness not to be knocked a bit off political course 
> by the unmediated brutality of a beheading.
>
> Doug

The whole war is an obscenity, from beheaders to city destroyers. And I fear 
it's gonna spread. For all those "rads" who got some kind of visceral, 
anti-imperial kick outta 9/11, the bottom line is that whoever crashed those 
planes -- al-Q, etc. -- handed our domestic phalange an enormous gift, one 
that will keep giving, I fear, for decades, esp if another attack occurs.

Are beheadings brutal? Oh yeah. I too watched one, and like Doug I was 
shaken for hours. My hands went damp and my heart rate soared. Like a bad 
speed trip. But what do you expect? These are many of the same people who 
once served US interests in the region. And as we know, the USG prefers its 
regional actors to be esp violent and crazed. Why any pwog would even 
remotely identify or sympathize with such religious/political nazis is 
beyond me. These thugs also target Iraqi trade union members and leaders, 
activists and workers who are striving for some kind of progressive, secular 
Iraq, and most of whom oppose the occupation. Looking for a decent 
resistance? We can start with them.

DP
<http://redstateson.blogspot.com/>