The Aerie

What can be said?

So Al Qaeda has crudely sawn through the neck of Paul Johnson, Jr.

Allah must indeed be infinitely merciful, because they have called out His name while they did this, and yet they continue to live and breathe.

What can be said? What can a person say to such behavior? Words like "brutality", "madness", and "barbarism" just fail to encompass the horror and the wrongness of what these people are doing. They've pushed a helpless man onto the floor, and used a dull machete to gouge their way through the man's neck.

There are no circumstances around this. Even the suggestion that it could be rationalized, explained, or justified is an insult to this man's pain and his family's mortifying horror. It doesn't matter what came before, and nothing positive can come hereafter. The people who've done this have placed themselves into a category of mankind for which the concept of a hell was first created.

Nick Berg, Paul Johnson. Berg was apparently trying to be a humanitarian. Johnson was apparently just trying to earn a living. Were these men wise? Had they thought through their choices? It doesn't matter. Whether they were wise or reckless, it doesn't matter. Because you can't justify this act.

Imagine if these, what word suits? Monsters? Barbarians? Thugs? Whatever - Imagine if the Al Qaeda terrorists had actually had some connection, however tenuous, to Allah and Islam. Imagine if they'd had, in essence, even the merest shred of humanity and common sense.

They could have let him go.

They could have made noises. They could have threatened future horrors. They could have taken Abu Ghraib-style humiliating photos of him, or painted him blue, or forced him to read a confession.

But they could have let him go.

They could have shown mercy. They could have claimed compassion. They could have, in the end, actually ACTED LIKE MUSLIMS. Angry, pissed-off Muslims on a warpath, but Muslims.

But. No.

Allah was shouting at them, but they plugged their ears. They could have elicited something other than raw digust from the world, but they decided the high road was not satisfying enough for their hatred and titillation. (Because you know that they do this because they enjoy it, you know they don't face this murder as a grim duty but as an exercise of their throbbing idea of machismo.)

No they shook with anticipation as they agreed who would hold the man down, who would point the camera, and who would take the machete and start sawing at his neck while he screamed in helpless agony. Afterwards they thrilled with the memory of their twisted "power," while further cretinous peers edited the video and prepared to put it on the Internet. And still others greedily loaded and watched this horror, and wondered how to turn it to their advantage.

What can you say in the face of such monstrosity? Yes there are other bad things happening in the world. I don't attempt to explain, explore or address them. When we contemplate how these brutal events are connected, we start justifying the unjustifiable. Events like this, like 9/11, like the murder of Nick Berg or any of the travesties and nightmares visited by this or any other nation upon the innocents of the world, these events need to be considered alone, and out of context, even as they need to be understood in a broader context as a means of preventing their repeat.

Whatever the history of these terrorists, whatever their backgrounds, whatever their hopes and dreams or lack thereof, they each were faced today with a choice: whether to commit an irrevocably foul and heinous act, or whether to live by the tenets of their faith and act as actual men of honor towards another man.

They chose. They each decided to do this most loathesome thing. However they rationalized it and justified it, they each know in their hearts that they are damned for their choice, however deeply they shove that knowledge down.

What can anyone say to that? What can anyone do?

Posted by Albatross at June 18, 2004 3:47 PM