Sir Banagor deservedly fisks an idiotarian letter writer in the San Francisco Chronicle, who wonders: why don't we just give Osama what he wants?
For some people, of course, this event plus the stills and video, are a more eloquent answer to her question. If seeing that doesn't produce immediate enlightenment, perhaps the (sane and principled) British leftists over at Harry's Place can help.
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My knee-jerk reaction to that is "let's find them and kill them". Primal it may be, but that's what it is.
But our friend Esther has evolved to a higher state of morality...
Esther? Could Madonna be writing letters to the San Francisco Chronicle using her Jewish name? I'm not exactly sure why that letter was even printed. There are children who can do better.
OK, seriously, I'm going to say something kind of shocking and potentially strange. The beheadings don't scare me in the slightest. (I feel horribly for the families of these people, of course! And I don't think the people who do such things can die enough times.) But this is how I look at it: If we really examine all of the possible ways to go, there are ways of dying that are worse. Many of us will die long and excruciating deaths from injury or disease. Our nursing homes are full of these people. Is dying by beheading worse than being shot? Blown up? Cancer? MS? Terrorists, the enemy, whatever you want to call them, are putting on a performance designed to scare people. Don't let it. I'm left wondering if that's all they've got. Is that all they can do? Behead people back at the mud shack while their brothers and sisters are shoving dynamite in their undies and blowing up people waiting in line for jobs? These are the people who some in our country are willing to lose a war to? Give me a break.
Although I understand where you are coming from for the most part, I am left wondering where you were on 9/11. You wonder if beheadings are the worst they can come up with. They have shown us what they can do. Beware of what you ask for....you just might get it.
You have taken a rather clinical view of a person who was taken from his residence at gunpoint and blindfolded. Swept away and held hostage. Surely he was made to endure the torture of his roommates and know his time was coming. All the while being thousands of miles from anyone who truely cares about you and can give you any comfort.
Do you feel the difference?