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Nick Berg's Murder
NICK BERG'S MURDER
Wed May 12, 3:31 AM ET Add Op/Ed - New York Post to My Yahoo!
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.
Wed May 12, 3:31 AM ET Add Op/Ed - New York Post to My Yahoo!
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.
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