How can a rational person turn the other cheek to this?

If I had my way, not only would every member of Western civilization watch United 93 but they'd also read this graphic description of murder:

EVEN by the stupefying standards of Iraq’s unspeakable violence, the murder of Atwar Bahjat, one of the country’s top television journalists, was an act of exceptional cruelty.

Nobody but her killers knew just how much she had suffered until a film showing her death on February 22 at the hands of two musclebound men in military uniforms emerged last week. Her family’s worst fears of what might have happened have been far exceeded by the reality.

Bahjat was abducted after making three live broadcasts from the edge of her native city of Samarra on the day its golden-domed Shi’ite mosque was blown up, allegedly by Sunni terrorists.

Roadblocks prevented her from entering the city and her anxiety was obvious to everyone who saw her final report. Night was falling and tensions were high.

Two men drove up in a pick-up truck, asking for her. She appealed to a small crowd that had gathered around her crew but nobody was willing to help her. It was reported at the time that she had been shot dead with her cameraman and sound man.

We now know that it was not that swift for Bahjat. First she was stripped to the waist, a humiliation for any woman but particularly so for a pious Muslim who concealed her hair, arms and legs from men other than her father and brother.

Then her arms were bound behind her back. A golden locket in the shape of Iraq that became her glittering trademark in front of the television cameras must have been removed at some point — it is nowhere to be seen in the grainy film, which was made by someone who pointed a mobile phone at her as she lay on a patch of earth in mortal terror.

By the time filming begins, the condemned woman has been blindfolded with a white bandage.

It is stained with blood that trickles from a wound on the left side of her head. She is moaning, although whether from the pain of what has already been done to her or from the fear of what is about to be inflicted is unclear.

Just as Bahjat bore witness to countless atrocities that she covered for her television station, Al-Arabiya, during Iraq’s descent into sectarian conflict, so the recording of her execution embodies the depths of the country’s depravity after three years of war.

A large man dressed in military fatigues, boots and cap approaches from behind and covers her mouth with his left hand. In his right hand, he clutches a large knife with a black handle and an 8in blade. He proceeds to cut her throat from the middle, slicing from side to side.

Her cries — “Ah, ah, ah” — can be heard above the “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) intoned by the holder of the mobile phone.

Even then, there is no quick release for Bahjat. Her executioner suddenly stands up, his job only half done. A second man in a dark T-shirt and camouflage trousers places his right khaki boot on her abdomen and pushes down hard eight times, forcing a rush of blood from her wounds as she moves her head from right to left.

Only now does the executioner return to finish the task. He hacks off her head and drops it to the ground, then picks it up again and perches it on her bare chest so that it faces the film-maker in a grotesque parody of one of her pieces to camera.

The voice of one of the Arab world’s most highly regarded and outspoken journalists has been silenced. She was 30.

Don't expect to see or hear about this on your nightly news.  After all, the MSM doesn't want to incite the masses, they don't want to inflame or perhaps encourage anti-Muslim sentiment.  And besides, they're much too busy covering more Abu Ghraib related stories, over and over and over again.  Or perhaps covering the latest Cindy Sheehan news over and over and over again.  Or how much John Kerry can't get over his election loss over and over and over again.

But heaven hell forbid the incessant coverage of that which would enlighten the West as to the nature of the beast that is our enemy in WWIII.

Evil, true evil, is suppressed.  While evil, false and even made up evil, is covered ad nauseum.

Sides are being chosen daily. 

What side are you on?

Kudos to PJMedia for countering the suppression.  And to uber bloggers like Michelle and GreyHawk.

Comments

[Gregdn]

This is horrible, but these may be the very people we're supporting in this stupid war.
Stay out of the Middle East and let them kill each other.

[Phil]

What is with all this talk of "evil"? This violence is primitive ignorance. Primitive, ignorant people made up the word "evil" to describe what they didn't understand. We understand these peopel.

They are us, 1000 or 2000 years ago. The killing of Atwar Bahjat is a mirror of the sort of thing the Romans did to terrify conquered nations, or the christians did to "heritics" during the inqusition, or the Iroquois did to white prisoners to strike fear in their enemies.

This phenominon is not "evil" unless you're too ignorant to recognize that it's you're own face staring back at you. I see across the blogosphere calls to nuke Iraq and Iran in response to the killing of Atwar Bahjat. Same phenominon -- human beings lashing out with hysterical violence at an enemy they can't comprehend and don't know how to beat in a fair fight.

[the snob]

A rational person can look at this and conclude that Iraq is a country peopled by savages more interested in settling centuries-old scores than living a reasonable life. I voted for W twice and continue to support a more "engaged" role for our forces in the Middle East, but this situation is not getting better, and I no longer get the sense that we have a plan for getting out of the hole.