Context

With the horrific beheading of Nick Berg, Zarqawi and his merry band of excrement sculptures have put the Abu Ghraib story in its rightful context. We punish depravity; they embody it, videotape it, and broadcast it. Now, Zarqawi has done us the supreme service of switching the reels in our election-year theater. Its us or them. This century or the 12th. Victory or extinction. Open debates about abortion and gay marriage or routine bus bombs and burkas for our daughters. The choice has been forced on us, and for all you Katie Couric fans out there, there is no easy, non-confrontational solution this time.

If you believe there is any negotiating with these people, or that sensitivity to their death-cult will appease them, be warned, then look here. You are in need of a dose of horrid reality. The “responsible journalists” who knew that the Arab world could handle the Abu Ghraib photos don’t think you’re mature enough to handle this.

For the best comment on the Arab world’s reaction, check this out. As if. For in the Muslim world, the value of human life is directly proportional to the victim’s religious, ethnic, and tribal affiliation to the viewer.

My own thoughts scare me for the first time ever. If Muslim terror continues to grow even more psychopathic, and the Muslim world, on the whole, continues to apologize for and support it in the name of its eternal and unquenchable grievances, I shudder at what even I would approve. Cowards in caves are beyond vengeance or deterrence, but throngs of smarmy, grinning pilgrims who drop money in their tip jars or dance on burning hummvees are not. Hatred threatens to consume conscience; there is still enough righteousness in my indignation for me to be afraid of that.

For a psychological epiphany on why the Muslim world is the way it is–one that’s sure to offend some–look here.