PhotoDude.com

Sun. Jun 20, 2004

Missing News: Al Qaeda Still Hates Us

In the past few days, we’ve learned of another brutal murder of an American, Paul Johnson, by Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. The day the news broke, just beforehand I had seen an interview with Johnson’s wife, and it tore my heart out. Largely because even then I felt he was already dead, and had been since shortly after he was captured. Their issuance of demands was a farce, as they were demands they knew would never be met, and they never made any attempt to followup on them. They just set a deadline, and when it passed released their grisly film and photos.

It was a propaganda set piece, with the goal of trying to further terrorize Westerners: “‘It’s a political, psychological ploy to show the enemy is merciless, vengeful and will stop at nothing,’ Richard Murphy, a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, told The Associated Press. Militants know ‘what will cause maximum shock in the Western public and particularly the American public.’”

And we prove them right every time … so far. I don’t mean to diminish the horrible method by which Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg, and Paul Johnson were killed. But I will argue it is no more hideous than the death suffered by thousands in the World Trade Center, who were crushed either by the buildings collapsing on them, or jumping off of them. It is Al Qaeda killing more Americans by horrible means, something they’ve been doing for over six years now, and we are the ones who give it additional currency when we express “maximum shock” at these propaganda ploys.

Let’s have a little context. There are places in this world (Europe and Canada come to mind) that will not extradite criminals to the US who face the death penalty. They find the electric chair and gas chamber to be … merciless, vengeful, and/or shocking.

If you have a criminal who is guilty of what we call a “capital crime,” like premeditated murder, in Europe they might get life imprisonment. In the US, the same criminal might get the electric chair. And what is the penalty for this same criminal in the country where Paul Johnson was killed, Saudi Arabia?

Beheading.

Obviously, Paul Johnson was no criminal, he was a random innocent targeted because of his nationality. We should never minimize or forget that. But my point is that “shock” has very strong cultural context. Al Qaeda’s beheadings are an attack based almost entirely on that concept. They don’t “win” if we’re not shocked or terrorized, i.e., they don’t win unless we let them. And, sadly, we should not be shocked or terrorized any longer.

This is who they are. We’ve long known it.