God Bless Atwar Bahjat

Now, someone might legitimately say, given all my calls for spine and resolution in our war effort (below), that this specific war is not right, or worthy. Germany and Japan were without question valid threats and we were rightly unified against them. However, he might conclude, until someone could prove that the current Islamic jihadists were actually a threat, or were actually, say, evil (to use a term problematic to our day and age but one that haunts us), dissent and not unity is not only permissable but perhaps even called for. After all, are the lives of our young men and women worth it?

To that challenge then, consider the following incident: the murder of a woman journalist Atwar Bahjat, one of the best examples of the future of a moderate, good Iraqi, and see where now things stand. --And it's not just that she was good that makes this threatening; she represents a western woman (at least, that's what the Iraqi terrorists seem to think....), someone who think women should be equal, who esteem a free and vigilant press and a tolerance of religions, and whose life and death speaks volumes for her faith in the hope and love of goodness to overcome evil.

Mind you, this is not for the faint of heart. But, then, neither is self-government or adulthood or anything great or that gives great joy.

In truth, it represents a depth of depravity achieved over centuries. From the description, her killers hadn't just conceived or improvised their method of execution on the spot - they seem to have been well practiced. But such is the nature of the enemy in this war, and perhaps this is their most sacred and well honed knowledge: if a brutality can be inflicted that exceeds all human ability to comprehend, the humans will find a way to deny it.

Or excuse it.

Or simply look the other way.