[QUOTE=Paul in Saudi]
Slitting an animal’s throat is very commonly done even my urbanized Arabs. When a child is born for example, dad slaughters some sheep. It is required to drain the blood away from the meat, so a neck slice is the required method.
[QUOTE]
Isn’t that how some Kosher stuff is killed as well? Heck, it’s popularly done where I’m at in the US when barbecueing a goat.
I timidly propose that a person having his head cut off is probably, for the time he remains conscious, too full of horror to worry about or even notice the pain. People I know who have had serious injuries (arm cut off by a power boat, for instance) say that they felt no pain until long after the actual injury.
Agreed. I don’t see how anyone could blame 60 Minutes for this. First of all, my understanding is that Mr. Berg was captured on or around April 10th - long before 60 Minutes aired the photographs. While one will never know for sure, I have a hard time believing they would have let him go but for the release of the pictures. Secondly, any fault assigned to 60 Minutes because of their release of the photos would implicitly acknowledge that the terrorists were somehow justified in their actions. There is no justification for their barbarity and therefore any attempt to blame anyone else for their actions is misplaced. Finally, news is news. If 60 Minutes hadn’t published the photos, someone else would have done it.
Obviously, no one can tell exactly how long he lived before dying. He, of course suffered some initial pain from the neck wound. At what exact point he lost conciousness, stopped feeling pain, and actually died, is not specifically determinable. There were no medically qualified personnel there to give any specific answers regarding these questions. Is this a general “how long does a decapitated person feel things” thread? This has been answered, if you want the link, go find it. I’m a bit disgusted that this situation is being looked at in the same way that a slaughter of an animal is looked at.
Nick Berg was a person. He was killed in front of the general public in a horrible fashion. To look at his death, at this time, in such a cold, medical manner, is IMO disrespectfull to his family. Why use a victim of a war crime as an example for a hypothetical question?
If your question was specific to Mr. Berg, you’re a sick bastard.
Look in your medical dictionaries if you want to objectify decapitation.
That’s my question as well.
That’s a little harsh, I think.
This murder was bizarre and horrific …It’s simple human curiosity to want to learn more about something like that. Whatever else you might call such curiosity—untactful or impolite to voice, or whatever—I don’t think it’s right to condemn it, or the person who asks the question.
BTW, the video I saw was far too blurry and indistinct to try and glean any meaningful information from.
Well actually, I may indeed be a sick bastard (or as my wife believes a sociopath, with anti-social personality disorder and Asperger’s as well), but that’s not the point. I think everyone should be offered the opportunity to view the video so that the realize the nature of the opponent that we face.
Here’s another question that occured to me after watching the video and contemplating the situation. Do you think that he could have avoided being executed by converting to Islam? Personally, I’m sufficiently in love with my hide that I would pray to Mecca five times a day, if that is what it took to save my neck from being cut. Dosn’t Islam have a code against executing someone who is Islamic who hasn’t comitted a crime witnessed by at least two people?
It may do, but I’m willing to bet that it also frowns upon the arbitrary execution of captives of any religion.
It would be a mistake to see the actions of Al Qaeda as essentially religious in their motivation. Their stance is basically a politically and broad cultural one; they adjust their understanding of Islam to fit it. As I understand it, their religious perspectives are not widely accepted by mainstream Muslims; if anything, they are derided as facile, self-serving and divorced from Islamic tradition. If there is a prohibition on the killing of Muslims that doesn’t apply to the killing of non-Muslims, and Berg had suddenly announced his conversion to Islam, I’m guess that these guys would have taken at most five minutes to reason out a basis for killing him anyway.
So if I was Berg, made my conversion (which very well might be dammed sincere given the stakes involved) and was praying to Allah they would have cut my neck even as I screamed Allah Akbar? At least I would have the satisfaction of knowing that Al Jazeera probably wouldn’t play the tape for fear of angering many other Arabs.
Also it was my understanding that Al Qaeda was an off shoot of the perspectives put forth by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. Who could be considered the father of modern Islamic fundamentalist. Mr Wahhab made the central thesis of his reform crusade the idea that absolutely every idea added to Islam after about the third century of the Muslim era (about 950 CE) was apostate and should be eliminated.
At least you are honest.
I think you will find that the actions of these people are totally against the tenets of Islam, so quibbling about a technicality is pointless.
Unlikely. Have you forgotten all of the bombings in the past few months that have killed Iraqis (Iraqi police stations seem to be/have been the main targets for most of them)? They’ve killed many, many Muslims already, I doubt that they would care.
Personally, I think that their political agenda is not really all that high up on their list of priorities. I think most of them (terrorists/insurgents) just like to kill people.
I am glad to see that most of the Muslim world is condemning this action.
Has there ever been a documented case of a hostage gaining their captors trust by “pretending” to join there cause, and then managing to escape? Let’s say that someone found themselves in a situation similar to this. What would your best strategy to survive actually be (understanding that your odds wouldn’t be good no matter what you did. It’s the “CPR” analogy. Even CPR given immediately by an experienced care giver will only save someone in V/fib maybe ten percent of the time, Automated, External, Defibulators probably double that number however we still spend a great deal of time and money in having a strategy to save the lives that we can)
Like these guys are caring about rules. Also, wouldn’t this rule apply as much to a a Jew or a christan? Besides, I doubt that they would thought that a conversion in such a circumstances would be sincere.
Finally, the similarily-minded GIA members killed in similarily gory ways plenty of fellow muslims in Algeria, even random people, and didn’t seem to have any major issue with doing so.
Converting to Muslim might work in a cartoon but I doubt it would help a non-animated person one bit.
At the risk of getting off topic, I’d like to point out that many self-described devout Christians (e.g. Bush) manage to routinely justify killing (i.e. violating one of the 10 Commandments) for a variety of reasons (avenging 9/11, destroying WMD, following orders). Why would anyone think that terrorists aren’t equally capable of rationalizing behavior that conflicts with Muslim beliefs?
*Note that I’m not condemning all killing here – just pointing out that people (myself included to be sure) have a general tendency to abandon religious principles when it suits their needs.
OK, but what would you learn about “the nature of the opponent that we face” by viewing the video that you would not have learned via the news story describing what had taken place with Mr Berg?
It’s been said so many times on these boards. But it needs saying again. There is no commandment against killing. There’s a commandment against murder. Very different things.
yeah I mean one kills people the other ki…damnit
The closest I can think of would be the “Stockholm Syndrome”. But, not sure if that’s really what you’re asking.
There was/is a video floating around the net from a few years ago of a captured soviet soldier having his throat cut and head severed by Chechnians (or so the story said)… apparently the captors were asking for a ransom which they didn’t get. That video was very close up and it didn’t look like the victim enjoyed the experience; he definately felt pain for at least a few seconds - the video didn’t show the whole process start to finish though. Those perpetrators definately weren’t experts and it was rather awkward.
This wasn’t the first time this type of thing has been done on camera for shock value unfortunately.
I just heard a news report on the radio that said there Berg had been under investigation for links to terrorists after 9-11. Thus, my question about converting to Islam may indeed be moot!