Hezbollah, Hamas, and Beheading

The AP is reporting from Lebanon that both Hezbollah and Hamas have been moved to condemn the butchering of Nicholas Berg by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. According to the wire's lede, "the language they used Thursday was unusually tough."

True, both organizations use terms like "grisly" and "brutal." Still, Hezbollah added that, "By its suspicious actions and links, this group belongs to the Pentagon school ? the school of killings, occupation, crime, torture and immoral practices as exposed by the big scandal in the occupation prisons." As for Hamas, its man in Beirut, Osama Hamdan, told AP that "U.S. President George Bush and [Berg's] killers are equally responsible."

Then there's the "militant" group Islamic Jihad. According to AP reporter Hussein Dakroub, Islamic Jihad spokesman Abu Imad Rifai "said he couldn't be sure Berg was dead."

Rifai explained that "I didn't see the man's body."

Comments

[Ruthless]

I have yet to see on Hit & Run a discussion of how to marginalize nut cases.

As Pogo said, "We have met the enemy, and it is us."

That is to say Hit & Run has marginalized a few of us nut cases, but there is much work to be done in the world at large.

Open borders are the safety valves for marginalizing nut cases.

Counterintuitive? Yep.
Incisive? Yep.

The peaceful anarchist at your service.

[Captain]

Re: Last Post

WTF?

[thoreau]

And if you can't take Hamas and Hezbollah at their word when they condemn violence, whom can you trust?

[The Lonewacko Blog]

"Why is Isreal against Ringo?"

Because Ringo and Yassir Arafat are the same person.

But, seriously, I think Israel initially funded Hamas as a counterweight to the PLO. I wouldn't be too surprised to learn that they funded Al Queda either.

[The Lonewacko Blog]

And if you can't take Hamas and Hezbollah at their word when they condemn violence, whom can you trust?

CAIR, you can trust CAIR.

Wasn't Hamas funded by Israel as a counterweight to Richard Starkey? I wonder how many other militant groups are secretly funded by Israel? That would certainly explain lots of things, no?

[ex-Nation reader]

Lonewacko

I heard the same thing. Since I can't remember the source (possibly A Cockburn or someone else at the Nation) I'm not sure of it's provenance.

Apparently the reasoning was thus. Fundamentalist islamism would discredit the Palestinian liberation movement in the eyes of American leftists (the secular, leftwing, Soviet-supported PLO was a darling of the Nation crowd).

[Douglas Fletcher]

It's just terrorist envy. They wish they'd thought of it first.

[Evan Williams]

As for Hamas, its man in Beirut, Osama Hamdan, told AP that "U.S. President George Bush and [Berg's] killers are equally responsible."

Jeez, I agree with Hamas on something, I guess. I've been saying this for days. Well, actually, I heap a little more blame on Bush than I do those hooded dudes. You know, considering that it's his regime that is responsible for ending many tens of thousands of human lives, including 10,000 civilians. I know, I know...since the ragheads are an inferior people, 10,000 dead civilians don't even matter as much as 1 dead American contractor who had been told repeatedly to leave the country.

Yes, as Fux n Friends has been bitching and moaning about all week long, the entire world should be expressing their utter outrage over the killing of one single person...yet nobody should really give a damn about the tens of thousands of other people who have died as a direct result of our misadventure.

Please.

[Smells of Toady Things]

Evan Williams,
Went to your URL. Alot of those dead were killed by their fellow inferiors.

Just to point that out.

[Aliandra]

10,000 is not tens of thousands. It is a single ten thousand.

Do you get your news from Al Jazeera?

[beiolli]

Lonewacko,

Why is Isreal against Ringo?

[R C Dean]

Evan - I think its perfectly clear that the people who held Nick Berg down and sawed his head off are "responsible" for his death in a way that is orders of magnitude beyond anyone else's responsibility. Their superiors and supporters bear a kind of second-order responsibility. I can't even see any third-order responsibility attaching to senior US officials.

[kevrob]

OK, the internet has gone too far. Someone has given Jihad a copy of the Evil Overlord List. As one version has it:

I will never assume that an enemy is dead unless the remains are available for examination, and will keep in mind the possibility of cloning technology or resurrection magic.

Seriously, if the people who killed Berg have their slightly less nuts co-terrorists condemning their actions, the threat that we will hunt down such killers must have some force.

Good.

Kevin

[Don]

"Evan Williams,
Went to your URL. Alot of those dead were killed by their fellow inferiors.

Just to point that out."

Many of them killed by our side were due to specific efforts on the other side to make us kill more civilians.

When you use hospitals and schools to house military forces, those things become targets--and you are committing an attrocity. Who's fault is it when they are hit, and civilians get hurt.

Saddam's people have made a point of hiding behind women, children, and other noncombatants. They no doubt realize that we try to avoid killing noncombatants (not surprizing--they apparently used Blackhawk Down as a training film), and they also realize the propaganda potential when we do end up killing civilians.

[MALAK]

He didn't see the body? I thought the only remains recovered WAS the body . . .

[esco]

Re:Re:Last Post

Agreed, WTF was that?

[Whatsisname]

joe, that's not grammar. It's arithmetic. One times ten equals ten. "Several" times ten means at twenty at least, but usually thirty or forty or more. If you pay "several" dollars for a candy bar instead of "one" dollar for a candy bar, you're paying more.

As for the people claiming that Israel funded Hamas, that's not exactly sensible. Then again, some wingnuts have claimed that "the Jews" planned the Holocaust. Their goal supposedly was to gain sympathy by exterminating themselves.

[callforjustice]

There is only one verdict, a cry for justice against these despicible perpetrators of genocidal murder. These "persons" who are not worthy to be included in the human race.

Haters of Jews, and haters of any other than their own, those Al-Qaeda and radical Islamic groups that slowly saw off one man's head after spewing out their doctrines of hate, saying that what they did to Nick Berg, they intend to do to us...

Justice is required, it is demanded, and this is what needs to be done with them, as history shows in the aftermath of WW II:

http://www.geocities.com/ayahave/index.htm

[joe]

"10,000 is not tens of thousands. It is a single ten thousand."

Several thousand dead human beings, and you're correcting grammar?

Way to put things in perspective.

[Julie]

Several thousand dead human beings, and you're criticizing other people's posts on a message board?

Way to put things in perspective.

[Julie]

Several thousand dead human beings, and you're criticizing other people's posts on a message board?

Way to put things in perspective.