Posted on 05/20/2004 1:59:10 PM PDT by quidnunc
You probably thought Nick Berg was slaughtered by Islamic militants, didn't you?
Just because, in an Arab country teeming with jihadists who target Americans every day, an American got butchered by hooded assassins who read a proclamation of grievances, laced with allusions to Islam, in Arabic, before hacking his head off while his shrieking agony was drowned out by that now-familiar soundtrack of atrocity, the Allahu akbar ("God is great!") chant, you probably rushed to judgment, right? Just because the barbarians recorded their handiwork and the tape, voila, instantly ended up on a website that reliably promotes militant Islam, which bragged that the decapitation was executed by none other than Abu Musab Zarqawi — whose extensive jihadist rap sheet defies accurate accounting in our limited space — you no doubt found yourself leaping to the rash conclusion that Berg's killing was carried out by Muslim extremists.
Fortunately, now comes al-Jazeera's Sam Hamod to straighten you out. Hamod, a 68-year-old Lebanese American (born in Indiana), is not only an esteemed member of the American academy — a retired professor at Princeton, Iowa, Howard, and Michigan Universities, according to one of his recent screeds — but also a poet, author, former director of the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C., and, according to his own assertion in several published stories, a former adviser to the United States Department of State. Never one to engage in bombast or draw extravagant conclusions on less than airtight proof, it was only about a week ago that we found Professor Hamod helpfully explaining how the Abu Ghraib prison abuse illustrated that … George W. Bush is not a real Christian. ("No matter what President Bush says about being a 'born again Christian,' I think he is a false witness to Christ, and that God will deal with Mr. Bush in this life and certainly in the next." To see the rest of this scintillating essay, entitled "A Muslim Leader Speaks Out", it is here ).
Now he is back with a new piece: the "Muslim Perspective" on the Berg homicide. And what might that perspective be? Well, that Berg almost certainly was not killed by Muslims.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
All human beings must give their condolences to the family of Nick Berg who was ignominously beheaded. This is a heinous and brutal crime, and anyone who would do this is a sinner, an animal, a brute; if captured and proven guilty, those who perpetrated this crime should be punished to the full extent of the law.
If it was Muslims in Iraq, or wherever, because we actually don't know if he was beheaded in Iraq or elsewhere, we as Muslims condemn such behavior by whoever did it. Mr. Berg, from my understanding, was a person who was working on communications towers for the good of the Iraqi people; he was not a combatant or a mercenary who might have killed or hurt anyone. Islam makes clear, you do not kill innocent people. The Qur'an states, "To kill one innocent man or woman is to kill all of humanity; to save one human is to save all of humanity."
I say, "If it was Muslims" because there are many other players in Iraq at this time, and we can't be sure it was Muslims or Arabs. There are elements of the slaying that make it appear it may not have been Muslims. When Muslims execute a person, it must be after a proper trial, with credible witnesses, and the person who does the execution must say a prayer for the person being killed and to ask forgiveness for doing the killing. None of this was done. Also, a proper way of killing in this situation is to cut the throat in one swoop, not to hack at a person's neck. Muslims do not often cut off the head, but do execute by law, but not by revenge as in this case, though some Middle Easterners may do it by culture and tradition (that is still not allowed in Islam)
I say this because it may have been Muslims in Iraq who were taking revenge for the torture at Abu Ghraib as was alleged in the tape, but if it was, then they were acting as part of the culture of the middle east and not as Muslims. There is a long tradition, practiced by the Arabs (Muslims and Christians) and Jews of revenge for a misdeed against one's family or people; but this is against Islamic law.
There is another strange matter to this situation that troubles me. Why was Mr. Berg picked up by coalition forces and imprisoned, so much so that his family sued Donald Rumsfeld for his release and information on him. The military says it released him, but suddenly then, he disappeared becausse when people went to see him at the hotel he was allegedly registered at, he wasn't there and no one there knew of him. Very strange point number two is, why was Mr. Berg in an American issued orange jump suit — the kind Americans put prisoners in, when he was photographed and killed? The Iraqis or other Arabs would have had him in Arab clothing so as not to draw suspicion to him of his being a prisoner — not an orange jump suit. Also, the way the men were standing, and their size, as a person experienced in the middle east, most Arabs don't stand that way and most Iraqis are not that tall — the men stand more like Westerners of some sort, or even Israelis, but not like Arabs or Iraqis.
As to the Arabic, there are many Americans and Israelis who speak excellent Arabic. But, no Muslim would do that awkward "Allahu Ahkbar" — it was strained, it was not a natural voicing of that phrase, "God is great." I don't know who did this heinous crime, and it could have been bad Muslims or Arabs, but I am now wondering more and more who actually did it because of so many strange things surrounding this heinous deed.
But, it may also be that this was perpetrated by Israeli agents, who have been operating in Iraq since the American invasion and have been advisors and combatants for Blackwater, and for the U.S. military, especially in interrogation techniques. I do not know if it was Israelis, but I do remember in the early 1980s when the Mossad of Israel shot Israel's own ambassador to London to help justify the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. You may recall the general who led the brutal assault was none other than Ariel Sharon; the present brutal prime minister of Israel.
-snip-
(Sam Hamod Al-Jazeerah, May 13, 2004)
To Read This Article Click Here
The slaughterers who murdered Nick Berg have much in common with our own brand of serial killers ... partial birth abortionists, excpet the screams of the unborn being slaughtered are not heard on tape. [Upon exposure to the incident, the unborn slaughtered at the rate of 15,000 per year in the U.S. is all I could think of! How would we react if we could hear the little ones screaming out like Nick did in that horrible 38 seconds?]
<**gag**>
" Islam makes clear, you do not kill innocent people."
Utter nonsense. Certainly clear to most practioners of Islam (a word I am coming to dislike intensely) that Jews are fair game for the slaughter.
This Sam Hamhock is like all Middle Easterners and American Democrats. Everything is a conspiracy. The sad part is both groups believe anything a member of the groups says.
Depends on your defination of the word innocent.
Their statements are always full of weasel words.
Bingo! Exactly right, and as an evil two-fer, Liberals hate Capitalism and handed out candy words as working men and women leaped to their deaths on 9/11 rather than be a human sacrifice to the that scum they call a god. We still hear them today, on live tv, shrill and full of venom...not for the terrorists, but for the US!
Another turd floating in the arab sewer. This Sam Hamond is a real POS.
Thank you. I was thinking I was the only one who heard the parallels! And the democrat Party continues to defend and support the slaughter. No wonder they don't want the American people to face the truth of Nick's murder and the nature of Islamofacism ... it's too close to home with democrats and partial birth abortion defense by the dems!
In famous Clintoonian fashion, it all depends on what the meaning of "innocent" is. To a Muslim, it means another Muslim. Christians and Jews are subhuman, therefore not innocent and definitely not human.
This is the kind of thinking that gives Arabs their well deserved reputation for obfuscation.
AND september eleven was carried out by the jews ,what a crock of poop this person is, I would not care if a muslim was acting kind or not I will not deal with them ever, they are told to decieve and to hate, three thousand AMERICANS died because of nicey nicey bullcrap, you would think we would have learned a lesson by now, I wonder what we will do when the next attack comes.
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