WAR: Web Site Says Zarqawi Group Kills American Hostage UPDATE: Video on Web Site Shows Behead

Seems beheading originated out of Ancient Rome, Europe, and Asia later adopted by saudi arabia

Historical background


www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk...

Right in the "Art of War" by Sun Tzu which is 5,000 years old:

Two generals were having a bet about whether or not women could be soldiers. One general said yes, the other general said they were too stupid and silly.

So, general who said yes organizes 100 women into a formation.

"Riiight face!" his sergeant yells.

Women tee-hee and giggle.

Four women are pulled from the group and decapitated in front of all the others.

"Riiight face!" the sergeant yells. 96 women turn right.

"Left face!" All women turn left.

"About face!" All women turn around.

"Foorward march!" All women start marching.

General won the bet.

Yeah, decapitation has gotten peoples' attention for a long, long time.

I think that ole Rummy just got confused and thought he was asked about Osama. Makes for an interesting quote or soundbite though doesn't it?

I'd like to take a moment and say I respect ATS/NN for taking the links to the video off the thread. I'm not offended that anyone may want to view it, especially for intel/research reasons. But, I think that it should be acquired outside of this forum for those who wish to find and download it. This however is the perfect forum to discuss it so that those of us who don't wish to view can still understand the horrific and graphic nature of these acts of violence. So ritualistic and sacrificial.

I also saw that Se7en pointed out an adidis logo on some pants in the video. I thought I saw references to similar observations on attire in the other beheading related threads. This is obviously not standard jihad attire. Does this indicate that these are professional mercinaries or foriegners. Or both?
I can't stomach the videos but I'd like to know what other odd things have been noticed in retrospect to the killers and thier general appearance.

doctorduh

Why, are these guys supposed to be wearing Lawrence of Arabia stuff? Ever notice that UBL was often in videos clearly wearing a US Army-issued field jacket?

American clothing can be found just about anywhere in the world. Ever wonder what happens to the clothes you donate to Goodwill? The bundle it into a cardboard crusher, make a huge cube out of it, and ship it to 3rd world countries. They are sold by the ton. I got the 411 from a friend who used to coordiante those shipments etc. Thats why when you see those report coming out of a third world country and see a kid with a Simpsons T-Shirt on. So to see one of the terroist with an Addidas shoe or sweats on is not a smoking gun IMHO

I may go fight a war in the desert in my military issue field jacket but I don't think that sweat pants are first choice fighting gear even for a radical on a tight budget.

These people aren't going to the Sporting Goods store, picking out some color-coordinated fabrics and sewing their own uniforms. They're pretty poor and all the legal Army and Navy stores are closed. So having poor clothes makes them look even more authentic than running around in fatigues or Ali-Babba robes.

I'm totally sick of these mindless barbarians now .Iraq is just not worth the effort that the coalition is putting in to rebuild it.
The Briton who is being held is from my home town ...I hate to think what his poor family must be going through.(and the US families too)
when you see these unfortunate captives on TV with those mindless bastards all dressed in black with their faces covered up...It sends a chill down your spine(As it's supposed to I presume).
Bring everyone home ...then bomb the whole bloody country into total oblivion.
I've really had enough of the whole lot.

Well I know That the Britons son, brother, have been making appeals on TV for Tony Blair to give in to the demands.

Its heart breaking, And you know that Tony can’t really do anything and that giving in to the terrorists would just cause more kidnappings. My heart really goes out to these families,

skynews

Do you know how expensive a pair of Adidas wind pants are? $40 retail in the United States. True, Adidas clothing are made in the far east, but to purchase them in the middle east costs at least 2 to 3 months of average citizens' pay. American sneakers cost twice as much. As a counterpoint, however, I know that Adidas clothing is made in sweatshops in India or Nepal..(?) I own the same pair of pants, and I'd grab them to tell ya, but my S/O thinks I'm crazy enough, and is currently asleep.

From what I know of Iraq, there are virtually no thrift shops or Wal-Marts. In lower and middle class families, clothing is passed down from family members, and traditional clothing is usually hand-made either by female family members or by purchasing it at the outdoor market, at a much cheaper rate than American logo'd clothing. I studied the Westernization of third-world countries, and in one of the books I read children and adults love English-logo'd shirts, but only a small fraction knew what the words said.

I had noticed the Western clothing on several of their beheading videos. I wondered why so-called freedom fighters would be wearing bold American brands. It is because FILMED beheadings are their assignments. Almost every human being photographed, filmed, or portraited wants to look their sunday-best. It is a middle-class show of wealth, and this shows us how well-funded they are.

They know their films will be seen my millions, and the clothing, video quality, and sound quality of the films have been slowly escalating with time. I don't think they figured the videos would reach us, as their culture has been suppressed from information for decades. They intended the United States Government to see it, and only them, but ta dah, with sites like those removed above, we all get the opportunity to see the worst of the worst of war...a civilian casualty from the United States.

To those posting that our soldiers are doing terrible things to the Iraqi civilians (which we sometimes do), remember that the Abu Gharib incidents received more mainstream coverage than the beheadings. All photographs were picked apart and shown to the general populace. Thankfully, this video wasn't. It's true proof that our media is censored, and it's videos such as this that show us why censorship can be a good thing. I never in my life thought I'd say it, but it's true.

Dot.

Edited for editing.

[edit on 21-9-2004 by dotgov101]

Haha, censorship is absolute #, pure and simple.

Let's censor beheadings, and then on to any scenes of violence. There's a nice clip of a US Abrams tank being destroyed by a recovered 500 # MK-82 dumb bomb I posted earlier. Let's censor that, too.

Why not censor out the whole war, and only show propaganda movies of innocent, brave Westerners fighting evil-doers?

You know that during Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, when Russians were resorting to mass bombing of civilians, that Soviet people thought Russians were going there and rebuilding churches and schools destroyed by American assasins and mercenaries.

These anonymous videos of beheadings shock the public. Shock being the operative word. They reduce your ability to think and only let you choose retaliation, which only helps the guerillas and further erodes your support base as you obliterate more civilians in the inevitable collateral damage. People have an interest in this - Nick Berg beheading thread is the most popular one on ATS. Let them see what we're honestly getting into over there so we can come to an honest opinion of what's going on.

Censorship... it's the worst idea ever and should be a curse word in a free society. If you aren't allowed data you can't come up with a sound opinion. "But it's for your own good." # that, an adult does not need a Big Brother telling them what they are adult enough to watch. "It only aids the insurgents." Uh-huh, just like terror bombing ever aided the perpetrators.

Ahhh nothin' like a good ole' beheading to get the public fired up.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims family, but in truth I don't beleive this was radical fundamentalists...

Think about it - who has more to gain from these executions, who needs the public hating muslims and terrorists and ultimately who has displayed a distinct lack of concern for "american" citizens time and time again...

Smells like CIA to me...

The kind of sentiment displayed in many posts here is exactly the outcry the US government are looking for and it seems the "mass media shock treatment" is working very well ...

[edit on 21-9-2004 by webvida]

Webdiva:

Terrorists have plenty to gain from this. Beheading causes US public to go into shock. The reaction from Washington is will unlikely be to keep the status quo. The reaction the terrorists want is either an escalation conventional attacks on insurgents, and inevitably cause more insurgency and less stability through destruction of civilians and infrastructure, or for the US public to get fed up and demand a pull out.

But like all random video clips without attribution offered out of that part of the country, identifying who did the act is difficult.

I understand where you are coming from, but it just seems a little too convenient for me, what with elections and public opinion woes.

Anyway, as you were saying "identifying who did the act is difficult" and I might add, impossible, but I would like people to consider other less orthodox theories as to who may have perpetrated this act.

Whoever the culprit it still remains fact that this was a terrible and evil crime to commit on a Person and I hope those responsible (whoever they are) suffer a similair fate.

Well yet again anthor innocent guy has had his life taken from him by terriost's, what do they hope that these vid's will achive the US & UK and their allies to pull out of iraq and leave them to deal with all the problems that would cause.

Or is their goal to get every contracter in iraq to pull out and stop the rebuilding process. So what if they happen to american or british or a westerner, they are trying to help rebuild iraq.

The one who i feel sorry for is the familes of these guys, having to watch the news and see over and over again reports of their loved ones being beheaded on prime time tv, while they beg for mercy. I hope and pray that when these people meet their maker, he has a special word with them and send's then straight to hell.

I've gotta disagree there. We need to see these horrific videos -- we need to see what it is we're fighting against, and we need to make sure that no one hides how barbaric these people actually are.

If I was killed like that, I'd want millions of people to see it -- that way the chances that the people that killed me would be "brought to justice" (the politically correct term for "killed") would greatly increase. Otherwise, I'd just end up as another statistic and they'd get away with doing that to me...

The fact that these people are kidnapping civilians working on rebuilding Iraq -- engineers, carpenters, translators, etc. -- as well as journalists who are simply reporting the story, illustrates that these are indeed terrorists, and that many of them are foreign, because they have a complete disregard for the Iraqi people. Heck, they're even kidnapping Iraqi civilians now! If they were actually Iraqi insurgents, they'd at least be fighting U.S. soldiers, and protecting the people buliding schools, hospitals, and electrical power plants, regardless of their nationality. These are truly sick and demented people, and, simply stated, these terrorists need to be killed. Or, "brought to justice," I should say...

Concerning Censorship, this thread would not be allowed to exist if we were censoring. The only place you will see in depth analysis and actual "talk" about these types of things is on sites like ATS. You can not go to MSNBC.com, Cnn.com, Reuters, AP, BBC, Skynews, Drudge, ABC, CBS, FOX, Boston Globe, NY Times, Washington Post, USA Today (I think I've named enough) and find links to the videos, nor will you find any other discussions or analysis, Only the story itself. If you want to scream Censorship, Attack them. Besides if you want to see these videos, many search engines will take you there. If you look through all the threads on ATSNN concerning "Beheading's and kidnappings" you will not see much intrest besides the Berg Thread. Reason this became a popular thread (IMHO) is because of the many Anomolies associated with the video itself. Aside from ATSNN, I believe only one other site was doing an analysis on a daily basis.

Terrorsists are not gaining anything from this except more hate. None of their direct demands are being met, and will not be met. There is no way in hell the US will pull out of Iraq pre-maturely based on demands from terrorists. The only way would be from International pressure, and that's even too far fetched for me.

The purpose of this is to drive every foreigner out of Iraq, and to scare off every Iraqi who ever wanted to collaborate with the US. This leaves the Allawi govt and the American administration isolated and not being able to do much. Which is exactly in the interest of teh insurgents.

It should be pointed out, that these acts aren't being done by the Iraqis....

Zarqawi is a JORDANIAN terrorist, and the son of Palestinian parents. He isn't doing this out of any reason of the Iraqi interest, but to further his own anti-western agenda. Like most of the insurgents, he is a foreigner.

True, or is it? I bet many of the terrorists are ex-army or Republican Guards that are performing the exact tactics Iraqi officials said they would.

Or how about the people that killed and burned the four Blackwater operators who drove into Fallujah? Or the 60-some odd people who were climbing over the Bradley when the Apache opened fire on them?

I'd say the minority of the resistance is foreigners and the majority is pissed off Iraqis joining out of despair for their country and greivance against too-large retaliations that claim the lives of people they know as collateral damage.