They Just Weren't That Into Him
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BY JAMES TARANTO
Friday, November 18, 2005
Remember Michael Berg? He was a proto-Sheehanoid, the father of Nick Berg, whom al Qaeda terrorists beheaded in Iraq last year. In May 2004, the elder Berg penned an op-ed for Britain's left-wing Guardian, attacking President Bush while excusing his son's murderers:
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People ask me why I focus on putting the blame for my son's tragic and atrocious end on the Bush administration. They ask: "Don't you blame the five men who killed him?" I have answered that I blame them no more or less than the Bush administration, but I am wrong: I am sure, knowing my son, that somewhere during their association with him these men became aware of what an extraordinary man my son was. I take comfort that when they did the awful thing they did, they weren't quite as in to [sic] it as they might have been. I am sure that they came to admire him.
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Today's New York Times reports from Milan on Islamist reaction to the scene of Nick Berg's murder:
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Playing an Internet video one evening last year, an Egyptian radical living in Milan reveled as the head of an American, Nicholas Berg, was sawed off by his Iraqi captors.
"Go to hell, enemy of God!" shouted the man, Rabei Osman
Sayed Ahmed, as Mr. Berg's screams were broadcast. "Kill
him! Kill him! Yes, like that! Cut his throat properly.
Cut his head off! If I had been there, I would have
burned him to make him already feel what hell was like.
Cut off his head! God is great! God is great!"
Yahia Ragheh, the Egyptian would-be suicide bomber sitting by Mr. Ahmed's side, clearly felt uncomfortable.
"Isn't it a sin?" he asked.
"Who said that?" Mr. Ahmed shot back. "It is never a sin!" He added: "We hope that even their parents will come to the same end. Dogs, all of them, all of them. You simply need to be convinced when you make the decision."
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But it's all Bush's fault! Oh, and al Qaeda has nothing to do with Iraq!
opinionjournal.com
guardian.co.uk
nytimes.com |
