Well, Reuter's today calls it "Video shows hostage killed" as it cleans up the savage act !! Hostage "killed"?  How weak can these news outlets be??  

DUBAI (Reuters) - An Iraqi al Qaeda-led group said on Sunday it had killed four Russian embassy staff it had taken hostage, according to a statement posted on the Internet.

The statement said the posting included footage of the "execution". The group had demanded that Russia withdraw its troops from Chechnya and release all Muslim prisoners.

The Web posting showed video footage of the killing of two men it said were Russian hostages and the beheaded body of a third man.

It showed two militants beheading one of the men and the shooting of a second, after showing four men speaking in Russian in video statements dated June 13, 2006.

No Russian troops in Iraq, they opposed the action ,remember ? Oh well, I guess the Chechnya problems cancel that out ?

Check out the video. WARNING Rated XXXX   http://michellemalkin.com/

No, clicking the link is crossing the boundary. Still, I know you're just baiting Raymond, CCC.

 
Seriously, I don't think I could view something like that, I watched a video of a stoning once and it made me feel ill for days after. But maybe that's the point.

x-ray
if your back's against the wall, turn around and write on it...

The link just sends you to Michelle Malkin's website, and she has a link to another site.

Jordan .

This is almost as cool as the time Booth posted what looked like a link to Tubgirl, but actually ended up going elsewhere. And someone freaked out about it and replied warning people not to click the link. Oh what crazy folks these mortals be.

Anyway, back to the topic. I couldn't ever watch any of these videos either. Videos, still shots, photographs...nope. Not for me. I remember when that first guy was beheaded last year...I had the (dis)pleasure of chatting on Yahoo with Req while he watched it. I have never been so disturbed by someone's words in my entire life. Req was so upset and disgusted afterwards, it made me feel ill. And I never even saw it! Just hearing someone's reaction to it was enough for me. You can't ever unwatch something...so the image of a person shrieking in pain and terror while being beheaded is burned into your brain for life. Who wants to live with that? I don't ever want to voluntarily view someone's death (or involuntarily, for that matter, but that I cannot control); there's enough sickness in this world without people finding entertainment in death.

BTW, this was not meant as a bash on Raymond. :) I was just opinionating.

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

When I come to the TPG,  I figure I am a guest of Jordan & Kelly, Amanda and Rebel. I like all these people. I don't want to cause them extra problems or be a lousy guest. I gave  a 3rd degree of seperation, indirect link to something questionable to in effect take it out of their house. Candy my friend, this approach made it so that someone would have to really want to see the subject. The choice would be available.

On a nice Sunday afternoon I elected not to view something disgusting. I did not want to have that image in my brain same as you guys. But now we all know that the story is more than an antiseptic " Hostages Killed" article would imply.

Jordan, would you watch it? I remember our discussions after the first video of a hostage being beheaded. You decided to watch that one, if I recall correctly.

I know its completely distasteful to most (and I fully agree with Amanda's comments about not wanting to have something like that etched into your memory) but sometimes...and just sometimes (mind) I wonder whether we should see things that disturb us deeply, to make us realise that these are real people dying at the hands of other real people. I know its absurdly simple logic, but it really makes one ask deep questions after witnessing something like this. Somehow it hits harder than any news commentary, journalistic observation or editorial ever could.

Am, I way off the mark, or should we be shocked to our very core, every once in a while? 

x-ray
if your back's against the wall, turn around and write on it...

I don't think you're spineless chickenshit at all. :) Better to be cautious than a bull in a china shop.

I personally don't need to see things to believe or know that they're happening. You give me a news article on this stuff and my brain does the rest. I can mentally establish what being beheaded must be like and extrapolate from there. I find even the most basic details about what is happening to hostages and insurgents alike to be horrific enough for me to understand and know and keep at the top of my mind what's going on in this world at this very moment. When the discovery of hostage bodies are being described as "remains", I can fill in the blanks and be sufficiently disturbed. I don't need to see their disgusting photographs and videos to understand. Not to mention that the insurgents? They want us to see this stuff. They're proud of what they're doing and who they're doing it to. The videos and images are simultaneously trophies and threats. I won't give them the satisfaction of validation.

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

I hate to admit it, but yes, I did watch that beheading. It was THE WORST thing I've ever watched in my life. In fact I had to turn away because it was too repulsive at one point. I won't ever watch it again - that's for sure - and I would tell everyone to NOT watch it because it is so horrific.

But there is somethign to be said about seeing the brutality of things. It reminds us (in living color dareIsay) of what we are dealing with. It's one thing to imagine it, but it 's quite another to actaully view it. Trust me, it's not a simple swipe of a knife and it's over. When you think of beheadings, I was thinking of the movie version of it - single drop of a blade and it's over. That's not what was in that one vidoe, and I highly doubt that is what is in one of the others. It's an extremely gruesome thing, and honestly, nothing someone can imagine will prepare them for it (at least that was the case for me). Even if you could, the fact that you are watching it happen makes it so much worse. Not only was I angry afterwards, but I felt sick for quite some time after

Jordan .

Beheadings like the kind we're being bombarded with in the middle East involve slow torturous sawing at the neck while the victim screams in terror and pain; in rare instances, the executioners are kind enough to take a swift whack instead, but even then it takes several hacks to finish the job. Occasionally the victim is quiet and dazed, probably from shock more than anything else. Either way, the victim doesn't die a quick, merciful death with no pain. If anyone thinks they do, they're kidding themselves. This isn't death by guillotine. It's meant to be torturous, cruel, and terrifying. It's meant to show us how serious the kidnappers are. It's meant to make us sick and make us think twice about who we are and what we stand for. And by god, it has every ounce of that effect on me just from reading news articles.

So no. I don't need to see anything to know how bad it is. My imagination fills in enough blanks for me. Movies lie, which is exactly what they're supposed to do.

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

Jordan .

I've seen more than one.

None were close to guillotine style.

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

PROS

- you can see the reality of what beheadings and other terrorist killings are.  Beyond the labels that can become blase, you see the real human suffering and impact.

- more information is generally better than less, especially if you wish to form a well-informed and carefully considered opinion on something.  When we're talking the threat islam poses to the rest of the world, you're talking a big picture, big ticket item - and I think more information is a helpful thing.  I've found the more people know about this issue, the more they have travelled, the more they have studied the underlying issues...the more concerned they become about how it's developing and the serious threat it poses to world peace.  Videos like the one posted offer an insight into how non-muslims (ie infidels) are viewed by some muslims.

CONS

- people can get emotive and respond emotively on a wider scale.  ie. see a beheading and decide that the best course of action is complete withdrawal from any conflict, followed by general head-burying ostrich-style.

- there is the obvious desensitisation that comes from viewing media that is initially shocking, but becomes less so with each repeated viewing.  Even the beheadings - we were collectively shocked to our guts when the first beheading incident in Iraq happened.  Now while we're still sickened by the depravity of the terrorists and the suffering of their victim, I dare say many of us have lost the edge of that intial shock.  We've moved to the next stage of trying to understand the mind and fanaticism of these people, and on a larger scale what's motivating their movement internationally.

So I say links like this are ok.  There's a warning there, and for the more sensitive there is a simple choice - don't click.

I don't have a problem with linking to it.

I haven't watched it though.  I haven't watched any of them.

I know I posed the question, so I should clarify that I couldn't watch a video like that. Just reading about it is enough to disturb me.

I've only ever seen one similar execution video, it was a public stoning, secretly filmed in Iran, it made me feel sickened to my very core. Sickened at what I had seen and sickened at myself for having watched it. It was morbid curiosity that had got the better of me at the time, but it really afffected me for quite a while afterwards. I'm sure it politicised some of my thoughts, maybe even it hit me on a spiritual level too. It made a big impression. Not a good one though.

So I wonder whether we should be exposed to the full ugliness of mankind, sometimes.

Just talking about such a choice has certainly produced some interesting views.

Jordan, sorry if I called you out. It wasn't meant that way, just that I know you well enough to guess you might have clicked the link.

I think Amanda makes a very good point, viewing the video is exactly what the perpetrators want. They want us to be scared witless, terrified, shocked, sickened, repulsed etc etc. Propaganda is one of the most powerful tools in any war. If you don't have the power of the mass media behind you then producing a very extreme video is one sure-fire way of maximising your exposure.

Is CybercaT right? Will watching execution videos polarise your opinion, reduce complex issues to emotive them or us type scenarios? I'd like to disagree* but from my own experience its really hard not to be forced into an emotional response when confronted with such onscreen violence.

Andrew, you didn't seem to have an emotional reaction to watching the video? Or did you? Why did you change your mind about viewing it? Curiosity?

*I generally like disagreeing with CybercaT

x-ray
if your back's against the wall, turn around and write on it...

I watched the video - it was fairly tame and not too detailed with only a couple of seconds of violence.  It's always disturbing seeing people alive and well and being killed needlessly - yet it happens every day.

It's gruesome stuff, but I'm pretty hardened in my views on the particular subject of terrorism and Islamists already, so it's done nothing to affect my opinions on those issues.

There's a school of thought that says the Islamists want to polarise opinion by making non-muslims hate all muslims by portraying muslims as violent anti-infidel killers.  They wish to bring on more conflict, not less, between the 2 Islam and the rest of the world - starting with christians and jews.  Therefore we are playing into their hands watching such material and viewing Islam with disdain.

I don't subscribe to that (rather lame) theory.

Rather, I see these Islamists as simply following the hadiths and koran, letter and verse.  Attacking those they feel are attacking them, using methods their holy book prescribes (beheading) and following the example of mohammed who himself acted much like a bloodthirsty terrorist.  I realise that most muslims are non-violent and just want to be left alone to live in peace...but I also realise they can only do so by ignoring the teachings of their own religion and religious leaders.  These "moderate" muslims are the ones who may be polarised by such videos, and it appears throughout some regions of the world it's drawing many to the cause of the terrorists.

This opinion doesn't change viewing this video - it just reinforces what I already believe.

Ray - I'm not sure why I didn't have much of a reaction to the video.  I had a lot of anticipatory dread as it was downloading, but like CybacaT says, it seems to be pretty tame in contrast to what has been described further up this thread.  I also didn't have a very strong emotional reaction September 11th footage, or the London terrorist attacks.  I did have a really strong reaction to Faces of Death when I saw that on video, so unless I've changed drastically in the 10-12 years inbetween, I'm not incapable of it.  I thought this would be similar because it is so personal and close-up, but the killing shown is very brief, just a few seconds.

 Apparently, though it is perhaps just an urban legend, many people will cynically encourage a 'jumper' on a high-rise building to 'get it over with' or jump if the jumper is above a certain height or number of stories up.  If he is only a few floors up, the very vast majority will encourage him to not jump.  So it must be that seeing people closer up (especially the face) creates a very strong reaction in people in how much they care about you personally.

 As regards emtional reactions - It is a fact that the more emtional you are, the less you are able to use your faculties of reason and see the subtleties in issues.  That is just how the brain works.  This is why it is impossible to reason with a very angry person - they are basically temporarily stupid for as long as they stay enraged.

Ray, I think the full ugliness of mankind exposure is not for everyone. Some people are going to be TOO negatively impacted.  They may be sickened.  They may be morbidly stimulated.  Or worst of all, they may be inspired to action.

To my knowledge, the first of these videos to appear to Western audiences was the Daniel Pearl beheading. That murder -- that slaughter -- affected me greatly for so many reasons, not the least of which being it was a senseless brutal killing of an innocent human being. Daniel Pearl, though I did not know him, was someone I could very well have known. He was from the community right next to mine -- Encino, California -- where his parents still live. His high school was the school our son would have attended had we lived two miles east of here. He seemed like such a good man eager to investigate a story wherever it took him. He wrote for the Wall Street Journal, a paper I like very much as well. His story has been told by those who knew him in our local papers. His parents are active in community politics. I remember sitting at an airport lounge watching the video footage while he was being held captive in what has now become a familiar tableau. At this time, threats of beheading seemed too far-fetched, and although everyone knew his chances for surviving were slim, BEHEADING???? Nahhhhhhh. His story was very well chronicled with vivid descriptions of the creepiest of Karachi's crew of Al Qaeda zealots in Bernard Henri Levy's book "Who Killed Daniel Pearl."

When the facts came out that, yes, indeed, those monsters had sawed off Daniel Pearl's head, it was hard to believe. Really shocking! The videos that began to appear on the Internet were not viewable on my Mac PowerBook, but yes, I would have watched if they had been. Something in me wanted to know as intimately as I could, without the jeopardy and horror of actually being there, what went on in those final moments. I wanted to watch Daniel deliver his last words about how his mother and father are JEWS and he himself was a JEW. Did he believe this "confession" would soften his captors and his forthrightness convince them to release him? At what point did he know it was over? I wanted to see his demeanor. What information could be extracted by observing the surroundings? Or the masked murderers themselves? The henchmen? I wanted to watch. I wanted to hear even though I would only be able to comprehend those few Arabic words -- Allahu Akbar! -- but little else of whatever language they spoke. But my memory might even betray me here as I'm not certain I HEARD the actual killing of Daniel Pearl. I KNOW I heard Nick Berg die. I KNOW I heard a Nepalese contract worker gurgle through his cut throat before his head was finally situated atop his back.

Eventually I added Windows Media to my computer. As each new beheading occurred, the videos were available. Over time, the press became comfortably numb as the dog-bites-man quality took hold. And, as I suspected would be the case, a beheading was no longer necessarily BREAKING NEWS. Oh sure, when the first woman was beheaded, that was news. I suppose when a child is beheaded, that too will be a major story. But these days there is a more business as usual tone to reporting of beheadings.

Now, some may say dead is dead. What's the difference a few minutes later if you die in a hospital bed from cancer or careening over a cliff in an auto accident or if some determined savage takes a rusty dull blade to your neck and slowly saws through your C-3 and C-4?  Ultimately, the end result is your heart no longer beats and your brain waves are flat-lined. But if I need to explain the differences, perhaps our respective views of the relevance of life's final moments are too vast to reach any accordance.

Is the main purpose of videotaped beheading to render us scared witless? Sure, that's an end product, but the choice of death by beheading is about much more than inducing fear. In the same way a so-called "Columbian Neck Tie," utilized by drug cartel hit men, where the victim's tongue is extracted through the throat and then wrapped around the neck, sends a specific MESSAGE (Squealer who will talk no more) so does decapitation by Jihadist.  Beheading is the preferred method of dispatching with one's enemies in the Koran, directed by Mohammed and we all know where his directives came from. Directly, too! "Slice off their heads. Slice off the heads of the infidels wherever you find them." And stuff like that. There are more than a few adherents who take these orders seriously. That is why, even though these folks are armed to the teeth with effective 21st-century weaponry that would achieve their ends more efficaciously, they opt for beheading. Remember, that of this group of four Russians, one is still alive (last I heard), two were beheaded but ONE WAS SHOT IN THE HEAD. WHY? I don't know, but I'm guessing he didn't totally cross over into the most abject infidel region and was afforded the more humane death of a bullet to the brain.

These snuff artists could be just as, or even more appalling, by slowiy removing limbs, eyeballs and skinning their victims, if rendering the enemy scared witless were their main objective. It isn't. These are religious edicts and True Believers do not go writing their own rule book to supercede the Koran.

So for whom are these videos propaganda? Not for the bulk of Americans or Westerners too repulsed to even watch them. For these people, words are sufficient to elicit their utter stomach-turning revulsion. The videos are propaganda for the same fellows who, following 9/11, had their cell phones programmed with tiny images of two planes flying into two towers. Hahaha. These videos are sold in Pakistani market places and throughout the Middle East. They are the blood lust impetus that heightens their desire to reach for their lofty aspirations of REVENGE and RETAKING the Arab Peninsula, or ridding the region of Crusaders, Infidels and Jews. Whatever.

To be more precise, when I say "their" -- meaning those whose hatred for the US, Israel, and other Western "entities" in whatever declining order of significance they so choose -- aspirations to be a part of what they believe will be a mass movement whose desired outcome is worldwide umma. That movement requires they have no mercy and that they follow a higher directive. What could be higher than the word of the "there is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his Messenger"?

Anyway, that's my take on the view of your run-of-the-mill madrassa-trained violent jihadist wannabee for whom these videos are marketed.

For me, yes, I can watch without turning away. In some otherwordly way I feel as if I'm extending a hand through the ether of time-gone-by, reaching out to my fellow humans who have been brutally slaughtered by monsters of misinterpretation -- by the bad thought of too many generations -- and I silently communicate these thoughts:

I'll stay with you until the end. You won't be alone in those moments where you sit facing a crappy videocam (by now all must know it's a grim moment when that tripod is set up) in some windowless hovel. I'll stay with you crouching on the bloodstained floors while bloodthirsty driven men who suffer from too little female interaction, lurk at your back, readying their primitive tools. (Not unlike that coicincidental sword on so many of your nations flags)

It may be ridiculous and it's purely personally symbolic to me alone, but that's why I do it. And that's why I will continue to do it.

I would have liked them to also have put out a special edition video of that one beautiful courageous Italian man they killed -- I think they shot him so he'd shut up. The man who ripped off his blindfold and shouted at his murderers, "I'll show you how an Italian dies!" He was not going to allow his final moments on earth to be appropriated for some mass-market jihadi motivational snuff film. That's the spirit!

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

An amazing post, Susan. I understand your reasoning for watching the execution videos, in fact your whole post quite moved me. If there is some way of bringing dignity and solidarity to these poor people in their grim, final moments, then I guess thats it. Defiance.

As a sidenote, I'm sure you know the sword is very symbolic in Islam. In particular, the double edged sword of Ali (Haydar) or Dhu al-Fiqar...

Its no coincidence this is the chosen tool of execution and symbol of Islamic victory.

x-ray
if your back's against the wall, turn around and write on it...