Here's part of an e-mail I got this morning. I won't give the gent's name…
Question: What do www.newsfromme.com blog entries and radical islamo-fascist newspapers have in common?
Answer: A large number (10 seperate entries at last count) of articles on the abuse of muslim criminals at Abu Ghraib prison by relatively few US Army Soldiers. No mention of the murder of American Citizen Nick Berg by militant islamo-fascists.
You use terms like "ghastly", "horrifying imagery", and "horrible stuff" when describing Abu Ghraib. What descriptors do you have about the decapitation of Nick Berg? Your blog demonstrates where your priorities are.
Actually, I was working on a post about Nick Berg but hadn't come up with anything to say about it beyond the obvious. In the case of the torture stuff, you have some prominent folks out there trying to spin that all as a bunch of fraternity pranks and/or something that was commendable so I wanted to weigh in. In the matter of Berg, I think we're all pretty much on the same page, aren't we? There's no controversy there insofar as evaluating how horrible the act was. It's awful when anyone dies and particularly nauseating when it's done for show.
I think sometimes people don't get the way a weblog (and certainly this one) works. You don't comment on anything unless you think you have something noteworthy to say about it. Often when a celebrity dies, I get an e-mail from someone saying, "Well, since you didn't post an obit on So-and-so, obviously you hated him." Well, no. Maybe I just didn't think I had anything to say about him that was worth reading. It's also sometimes the case that we get busy and can't put aside paying work or personal obligations to post on the no-pay, no-deadline weblog…or at least to post something deep and thoughtful.
The piece I started to write about the murder of Mr. Berg was about the effects of the video being available for general viewing…but then I stopped because I hadn't viewed it and didn't really want to. I finally had a moment of curiosity since I was writing about it. I went over to a site where I'd noticed it had been posted and nervously clicked the viewing link. After about five seconds of Berg sitting there identifying himself, my screen froze up and I decided that if my computer didn't want to see it, I didn't either. (You'll note I'm not providing a direct link to the video. If anyone wants to see it, they can surely find it but I don't even feel comfortable linking to it.) Anyway, sight unseen, I agree it's what we all know it is…and I don't see that it makes the torture photos any easier to take. As others have noted, we expect more decent behavior of our soldiers than we do of "militant islamo-fascists." Our expressed outrage about the former might also cause such actions to be stopped, whereas the islamo-fascists aren't about to bow to American public pressure.
My above-quoted correspondent goes on to make some insulting remarks and to say that he used to enjoy my comic book and TV writing but apparently won't anymore. I think it's silly to link those things to this, too.