I saw the video of Nick Berg being decapitated. I’m generally fairly immune to digust (I’ve seen my share of snuff), but even without sound (it’s apparently more disturbing with), it managed to knock a little wind out of me.
Sure, it’s grainy, to the point where one can’t even distinguish blood from the floor he’s on. But to watch a living person having his neck sawn through… it’s rough. Very rough.
So rough, in fact, that it’s easy, even for people who haven’t seen it, to take up a stance of extreme moral outrage all over again. The informational/memorial/editorial deluge that proceeded Mr. Berg’s untimely demise reiterated for the nth time America’s obsession —spearheaded by the one and only Cowboy George— with the novel (and obliquely genocidal) idea of a Crusade. And oh, what a miserable concept that is! Embodying all the wrong elements of religion, imperialism, and xenophobia, and all of them stubbornly forceful, our mission for Liberty, Democracy, and the American Way is going downhill faster than a soapbox derby.
The Boston Herald editorial staff claims that Berg went to Iraq to help an oppressed people. A few extreme left-wingers claim that he was a filthy opportunist there to capitalise on the plight of the Iraqi people. In truth, Berg’s motivation was probably an equal mix of entrepreneurial zeal and inflated patriotism. What Berg didn’t have was a lick of sense. Iraq is like cigarettes: there’s no excuse to be ignorant of the inherent dangers. Berg knew that Americans are killed every day in Iraq. Every goddamn day. The government says it warned him to leave. Maybe that’s true, maybe it’s not. I say, he shouldn’t have needed the government to tell him that.
Americans murdered Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Al Qaeda murdered an American. Is it a tragedy? Yes. Do I feel sorry for Berg’s family? Yes. Do I think that his death was anything out of the ordinary? No. You can thank media sensationalism and knee/tear-jerk American antipathy for that.