[Blunderov] I have a horror of executions and the execution of Berg was an appalling act.

http://www.reason.com/links/links051204.shtml

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What does Zarqawi do? In "retaliation" for the Abu Ghraib imagery, he stages a singularly nauseating "execution" of a private American citizen who has been wandering around Iraq. The probable effect is to offer many Americans an exit from their own moral horror.

Mind you, Zarqawi's ghouls in this video don't merely "behead" Berg, as most accounts indicate. "Beheading" suggests a quick severing and a quick death. What Zarqawi and his friends do is butcher Berg—there's no other word for it. They don't use a sword or an axe; they use a knife. You can hear Nicholas Berg screaming as Zarqawi's gang hacks at his neck and then pulls at his head until it comes off his body. They then hold his bleeding head in front of the camera. The tape is appalling not only for its utter bloodthirstiness, but also for the total absence of simple human empathy. Elemental empathy—for example, an unwillingness to rip a victim's head from his body—is a primary measure of civilization. (The shame Americans felt at the Abu Ghraib images is, after all, rooted in such empathy.) Even in the dehumanizing context of warfare, which strains the empathy of all its participants, this is savagery.

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Judging by accounts I have read, Berg was not just beheaded; it seems to me that he was halalled. His throat was ritually cut and he was slaughtered in the manner of an animal. (They could quite easily have shot him instead.)

Why? I don’t know if it is the same elsewhere, but in SA much of the media has favoured the pictures from Abu Ghraib that featured a woman, one Englund, humiliating prisoners, including leading a naked man around on a lead like a dog, and jeering at  male genitalia. The fact that she is a woman is crucial I think. In an Islamic society this could be regarded as going well beyond abuse and could be regarded as actual blasphemy.

So, what we perceive as savagery may have been perceived a religious necessity according another world-view.

Please note that this is not an attempt at justification of this deed, just an attempt to understand it. I would be interested if someone could point me to a translation of the videotape.

Best Regards.