American hostage reportedly beheaded

I find Al Q's rhetoric of reasoning almost as vile as their acts.

I think that his buddies have taken to calling him "Lucky".

And again I'll ask: if these attacks are designed to disrupt the kingdom's oil sector, as the U.S. media frequently claims, why not just bomb some pipelines or some storage facilties? That would have an economic impact of about 1000 times the magnitude of killing a few non-Muslim hostages. And another thing, and as much as I hate to say it: nobody is going to remember Paul Johnson's name in six weeks. Do we remember the names of any of the people killed in the attack on the housing facility? What's more, the terrorists have shown no compunction about attacking heavily fortified foreign housing projects, so why would they wobble on overtaking a few security guards at a refinery? Why deal with messy human hostages? There's a huge chunk of the narrative missing here.

sorry, I know this shit ain't funny.

So true stence. Obviously while everyone is talking about scary monsters like AQ and Wahhabism and all this other stuff, there's a lot of money changing hands. And it's not just oil anymore. Exxon and a bunch of others have just signed huge natural-gas exploration contracts in the peninsula. And Johnson was building a helicopter, fer cryin out loud.

I think it's dangerous to believe Al Q is simply a bogeyman, h. There are definitely more groups then them responsible for attacks, but it seems pretty certain that their presence is there and having an effect.

And fwiw, nobody is going to remember what oil refinery got attacked in 6 weeks (more like two days). For sure it'll have an economic effect, but so does fear, if more indirectly.

when's pakistan's turn? thats my question..

They learned it from us. TS: Glorious Martyrdom vs. Golden Arches

i don't even want to comment about your decision to post a "silly" photo in a thread like this.

sadly this is an essential component of capitalism, i think.

For example, such nuggets as, "That said, I feel nothing over the death of merceneries. They aren’t in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them."

He conceded it was a dumb thing to say, but I consider it an understandable bit of hotheadedness, given his background. Do you spend time reading his posts (which shouldn't be attributed to the 80,000 unique visitors to his community, many of whom post there on their own) or only know what Glenn Reynolds tells you about him?

there are plenty of cases where hostages threatened with death are let go relatively unharmed despite the hostage-takers' initial demands not being met.

This does not describe the world I see. There are some hostage-takers who would release people, but it seems naive in the extreme to expect the same from anyone who declares themselves allied with Al Qaeda or its ideology, as the hostage-takers in this instance did.

didn't SA just give women the right to work?

I don't know, but Prince Abdullah (the most liberal of them all) just attributed the last Al Qaeda attack in SA to "zionists." He's 95% certain.

http://www.drudgereport.com/jp.htm

Gabbneb, I've told you once before: you know next to nothing about me. I don't know what exactly you're implying here about the life I've lived, but I resent your condescension and assumptions thereof. I have no problem with you being skeptical of my political bent, my presentation of facts, or even alerting me to my ignorance. In fact, I enjoy debating things from time to time with you. But when you make assumptions about my experience, something you know virtually nothing about, I must assume that you are merely desperate to assasinate my character by any means necessary. To wit, for me to defend myself in the context you've outlined above requires that I relinquish a significant amount of personal information. It's an intellectually dishonest way of presenting an argument, and I'm not interested in participating. And frankly, I don't give a fuck what Zuniga saw. His comments then were dispicable, just as they would be now if he repeated them.

He conceded it was a dumb thing to say, but I consider it an understandable bit of hotheadedness, given his background.

Yeah, and so with this logic we should just refer to all hotheadedness given a person's background? I mean, given my background, maybe you should consider all my posts understandable as well, right? So what you're saying is that if Zuniga repeats his comments again we should all just dismiss his "hotheadedness" to his background once again.

Do you spend time reading his posts (which shouldn't be attributed to the 80,000 unique visitors to his community, many of whom post there on their own) or only know what Glenn Reynolds tells you about him?

And then this ripe one...I've followed links to Daily Kos probably a dozen times in the past year. I have no idea what Glenn Reynolds thinks about him, and since I read six or seven liberal blogs every single day, I really have no idea who first sent me in the direction of Zuniga's original hate-filled comment. Lots and lots of blogs were linking to that stupid fucking comment when it was posted, and to assume that I'm worshipping at the altar of Instapundit is, well, an assumption of lazy convenience.

By the same token, the viewing of such an image might actually affect someone so deeply that it causes them to sit up and take notice, no?

Uh, no. Not. Even. Close.

And for the record a) Daily Kos Zuniga didn't serve in any war and b) there's no reason to believe that witnessing murder "as an infant" would result in recollection of the event as an adult. Zuniga made asinine, heartless comments for which there was and is no excuse, except, apparently, to people who are sympathetic to his political POV. It's embarassing that people choose to make assumptions about me rather than condemning the hatred of a guy like Zuniga.

The word "patriot" in the PATRIOT Act is an acronym that spells out as "Providing Appropriate Tools Required
to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism."

I didn't know that! Sorry, resume thread.

My post was obviously sarcastic, pointing out that even when outrage and empathy are expected, some people can't get beyond their own personal politics. The moral high ground on this issue--not being dismissive about the death of an innocent person--is self evident and doesn't need claiming. In fact, it was Zuniga who tried to claim moral ground in his non-apology 26 hours later--prompted by outrage from others, including many comments on his own site--by saying that his experience in a "war zone" at age 8 made him somehow lose empathy for non-soldiers. It's a load of shit that only the truly desperate would use or accept as a rationalize for hateful thoughts.

I never once said Zuniga was repeating his comments, nor inferred it in the slightest. You made that up in order to deflect my criticism of Zuniga.

I'll link kos' biography here, and post his apologia (which will take you forever to load) so anyone interested can judge for themselves....

Mercenaries, war, and my childhood
by kos
Fri Apr 2nd, 2004 at 17:57:39 EDT
There's been much ado about my indifference to the Mercenary deaths in Falluja a couple days ago. I wrote in some diary comments somewhere that "I felt nothing" and "screw them".

My language was harsh, and, in reality, not true. Fact is, I did feel something. That's why I was so angry.

I was angry that five soldiers -- the real heroes in my mind -- were killed the same day and got far lower billing in the newscasts. I was angry that 51 American soldiers paid the ultimate price for Bush's folly in Iraq in March alone. I was angry that these mercenaries make more in a day than our brave men and women in uniform make in an entire month. I was angry that the US is funding private armies, paying them $30,000 per soldier, per month, while the Bush administration tries to cut our soldiers' hazard pay. I was angry that these mercenaries would leave their wives and children behind to enter a war zone on their own violition.

So I struck back.

Unlike the vast majority of people in this country, I actually grew up in a war zone. I witnessed communist guerillas execute students accused of being government collaborators. I was 8 years old, and I remember stepping over a dead body, warm blood flowing from a fresh wound. Dodging bullets while at market. I lived in the midsts of hate the likes of which most of you will never understand (Clinton and Bush hatred is nothing compared to that generated when people kill each other for politics or race or nationality). There's no way I could ever describe the ways this experience colors my worldview.

Back to Iraq, our men and women in uniform are there under orders, trying to make the best of an impossible situation. The war is not their fault, and I will always defend their honor and bravery to the end of my days. But the mercenary is a whole different deal. They willingly enter a war zone, and do so because of the paycheck. They're not there for humanitarian reasons (I doubt they'd donate half their paycheck to the Red Cross or whatever). They're there because the money is DAMN good. They answer to no one except their CEO. They are dangerous, hence international efforts (however fruitless they may be) to ban their use.

So not only was I wrong to say I felt nothing over their deaths, I was lying. I felt way too much. Nobody deserves to die. But in the greater scheme of things, there are a lot of greater tragedies going on in Iraq (51 last month, plus countless civilians and Iraqi police). That those tragedies are essentially ignored these days is, ultimately, the greatest tragedy of all.

Speaking of an army of tin men, there is and was absolutely no implication of anyone other than Zuniga by my post.

Time and time and again, people like (and me) post sarcastic political shit on ILX. Yet on this occasion, you aim your guns at me and what you imagine might be my own experiences. And I'm the one creating straw men and straw armies? Please. It's preposterous to draw a conclusion about my initial post with the entirety of the left or anyone else. The fact that you turned this thread into something about personal about me is your doing and not mine, and it's laughable that now you deny your own role.

If you believe his opinion is so marginal that there's no reason to think anyone else would share it, why would it be worthy of discussion? I think there is quite clearly a reason to believe that you implied others than Zuniga. "To wit"...

Zuniga made asinine, heartless comments for which there was and is no excuse, except, apparently, to people who are sympathetic to his political POV

because some people on ILX are sympathetic to Zuniga's political perspective, they choose to attack me for being sarcastic. Seems like you're one of those people.

You could have called me out for drawing an admittedly weak parallel between Paul Johnson and Zuniga's comments regarding Fallujah--clearly, others eventually did. Actually, that's what I fully expected. But that's not the route you chose when you first jumped in, so here we are. I can handle people giving me shit about a lapse (or void) in my intellect but there's simply no reason to start making assumptions about my background like Gabbneb did.

Is that true or false?

You'd not suggested in explicit terms that others shared his opinion. But you still haven't explained why kos' comment was even worthy of discussion - what other possible purpose could you have had in raising it in the first place? "I patiently await the genius of Daily Kos to weigh in on this matter," you said. Surely the 'context' here is that kos runs a highly successful Top 5 blog/community frequented by Democrats and leftists?

The conclusion that you're supposed to draw from my comments is that I consider kos' comments understandable in light of his background (just as, for instance, I consider Bob Dole's or John McCain's personality and politics understandable - even when I object to them - in light of their backgrounds; this is not to suggest that these three individuals have equivalent experiences). You really perceive no space between that sentiment and my sharing his sentiments, as an expression of my center-left politics?

In raising your experience, my purpose was to suggest that you might fail to understand his perspective because you have not had such experiences. I considered this a reasonable surmise given that those who have grown up in a 'war zone' are a distinct minority in this country, as are those who have served in the military (and I believed at the time that he had seen combat; while he served three years in the 3ID, and was called up for Iraq, he was not deployed there), which I consider quite good reasons to make assumptions about someone's background. I can understand being upset at my comments if I had had such experience. However, it did not occur to me that you would be discomfited by an apparent strong desire to withhold general personal information that would temper an apparent strong desire to respond. To the extent that you are, I apologize.

And yes, I understand why Zuniga's background are relevant to his comments, but they're hardly excuseable in any fashion. I see where you're coming from by bringing it up, but that latitude you give him is something you've never given me; in other words, for me to enjoy that kind of latitude, I have to respond to your comments by describing my personal background and how it relates to my reaction to deaths of "mercenaries" in Fallujah (or a beheading.) In other words, it seems like if you knew a lot more about me that somehow our political disagreements would be put into context. Can't you just assume that anyway, that my personal experiences and knowledge are no better or worse than Zuniga's, or at least as relevant?

the big upside to giving people this benefit of the doubt is that it actually makes it harder to argue from the "i served in [xxx] so my pro-war stance automatically means more than your limp-wristed civilian anti-war stance".

most of the pro-war letters to newspapers in my pro-war navy/marine hometown use that argument.

You would think that after three tries, these people would notice that beheading their captives is not a very effective way to get troops to leave Iraq.