Evidently Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the new al-Qaeda honcho in Iraq, is feeling a need to assert himself, and he’s started with the abduction, brutal torture, and despicable beheading of two soldiers:
Two US soldiers, missing for three days since their abduction in an insurgent stronghold south of Baghdad, were found dead, a military spokesman said yesterday. An Iraqi official said the Americans had been tortured and killed in a “barbaric” way.
But wait! There’s more! This studly, shining example of manhood’s group has evidently decided to kill the four Russian hostages it was holding, also:
A militant group led by al-Qaida in Iraq said on Wednesday it has decided to kill four Russian hostages after Moscow failed to meet demands to withdraw from Chechnya and free Muslim prisoners, according to an Internet statement.
“After granting the Russian government 48 hours to meet our demands and their failure to do so … the Islamic court of the Mujahideen Shura Council ruled to kill them (hostages),” said the statement posted on a Web site often used by militants.
But why stop there? Today, apparently, some gentle, well-meaning souls absconded with five buses which were conveniently (for the abductors, not the passengers) filled with about 85 workers:.
Scores of factory workers were seized at gunpoint as they finished their shift at an industrial complex north of Baghdad today, in what appeared to be the latest mass kidnapping by insurgents bent on fomenting sectarian strife.
Yes indeed, these folks have obviously stepped up to the plate with a purpose, haven’t they. No girly men there!
Polimom realizes that the United States is not riding a snow-white horse; somewhere between Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, our halos have gone askew. Some folks have even written that the atrocities being carried out by these al-Qaeda monsters are merely retaliatory, and that in fact the US has tacitly fostered such behavior because of our own actions.
You know what? That’s hogwash.
I’m not at all proud of Abu Ghraib, and Guantanamo galls daily, but frankly, any comparison between them and the deliberate abduction and torture — including drilling holes in heads — and beheadings, is like apples to oranges.
These pathetic al-Qaeda excuses for human beings, masquerading as people, are monsters who seem to have some sick need to prove how very tough they are.
I wonder whether they realize that only the most impotent resort to pathological, mindless, animalistic murder…?
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Michael Stickings at TMV has more, including at least one commenter that apparently spends a great deal of time lost in the fruit section of the grocery store. (Is this an apple or an orange? Hmmm…..)