Another Beheading, More Outrage

Who amongst us -- liberal or conservative, left or right, Democrat or Republican, pro-war or anti-war -- isn't saddened by the beheading today of Paul Johnson in Saudi Arabia?

Via Jesus' General, I clicked through to a couple of Iraq War supporters' blogs and found exasperation, despondence and vitriol with regard to Mr. Johnson's death.

Michele at A Small Victory writes:

I do not blame Bush, just as I do not blame Clinton, Bush I or Carter. I do not blame America.

But that is what they want and by telling you that their cause in murdering Nick Berg and Paul Johnson, among many others, has anything to do with Iraq they are force feeding you the lie that America is to blame. Some of you are eating that crap up like it's a decadent dessert. Spit it out. It's poison. They want you to believe that they really care about Abu Ghraib. They don't. It's just an excuse to get you to hate yourself the way they hate you.

You should all be taking this very personally. Because it was personal. They would kill you just as swiftly as they killed Paul Johnson.

First of all, what I take personally is the way our government has -- over many years and many administrations -- aided and abetted corporate globalization at the risk and expense of its citizens. We have come to believe that the American Culture is the one true culture: "America... love it or love it." We bring our culture of the Almighty Dollar to others' homes and expect them to open their doors without hesitation.

For those of us who step back and try to gain some sort of insight about how we ("America") might be perceived, the Johnson execution doesn't come as much surprise. Michele, then, is correct in surmising that any one of us would have met the same fate -- regardless of our politics; regardless of our innocence. She is wrong, however, in believing that it's personal. It's not personal. It is political... no less political than our reasons for having initiated this war in the first place.

What many Americans don't seem to understand, or perhaps can't quite come to grips with, is that many of the "terrorists" we are in battle with in Iraq, or the "terrorists" who have brandished their weapons against us in Saudi Arabia (or other Middle East nations), feel as deeply about their faith or patriotism as we do. Like those who believe that this war in Iraq is just, the "terrorists" believe that their actions are equally as just.

We knew at the outset of this war that we were sticking our necks out in a land where "an eye for an eye" is a much-quoted, much acted-upon rule of law. Feigning disgust at this crude method of meting out "justice", however, is almost as sickening to me as the beheadings themselves.

For our part in this war, why should we be any more disgusted, outraged or abhorred at the beheading of one or more of our citizens when we have incinerated thousands of innocent Iraqis since this war began? The remains of Nicholas Berg and Paul Johnson are at least recognizable when they return home... no doubt to homes that are still standing.

George W. Bush is as much to blame for the deaths of Berg and Johnson as the men who put the knives to their throats. All of us who believe that we are some sort of "chosen" nation are equally as guilty, as are the extremist believers of fundamental writ.

Whomever we decide to blame, those of us who don't work for peace are apt to resort to war.

D Smith at The True Nature of Reality writes:

With each one of these incidents the tide rises higher, and takes a bit longer to recede.

Now imagine this goes on for months. Maybe a few years. And it will, even if Kerry is elected (you know they will not stop until they're dead or we are). And now imagine on top of that, that the terrorists get through and make a major attack in the US, worse than 9/11.

Imagine not just one Paul Johnson, but 10,000. American men, women, and children. Again.

And again (remember, the terrorists won't stop).

You want to sit there and tell me that eventually, in one of our spasms of grief and rage following one of these atrocities, that we aren't going to in fact start nuking first and taking names later?

Imagination isn't needed. There are already as many as 10,000 dead Iraqi civilians as a result of this war. For some reason, we seem to conveniently forget these casualties ("collateral damage") in our outrage over one American's death. Where is the outrage about the 800 American soldiers who have died? Those of us who express outrage over the deaths of all these people -- whichever "side" they're on -- are labelled, at most, anti-American [insert expletive here]s, or, at least, unsupportive of "the troops". It's a funny thing, outrage... one moment we let it fly over a beheading of a complete stranger; the next we're using it to denounce honoring dead soldiers on Nightline.

I am saddened for the family of Mr. Johnson. But I am also saddened for all the families of Iraq whose husbands, wives, sons, daughters, mothers and fathers will not come home whole or at all. I'm saddened that all of these lives are being lost, more or less, over property, petrodollars and power. I'm saddened that basically decent human beings in this country are being turned against each other when we should be working together trying to figure this out.

Not by nuking anybody, but by trying to make the killing stop.