Heart of Darkness

Will the American media cover the murder of Atwar Bahjat, an Iraqi television reporter for Al Arabiya, as broadly as they did the taking of Jill Carroll. Explain to me, please, why we should flee before such cowards and bullies as those who sawed of a pious Muslim woman on video.

The men who did this were reciting "Allahu akbar" as they slaughtered an innocent woman. What kind of Muslim believes in human sacrifice? That's what this amounts to, in truth. Where are the Imams condemning this? How can Arabs expect anyone to believe that they are capable of self-government when they tolerate such horrors.

And what kind of Americans avert their eyes and still demand that we flee from Iraq in the face of such atrocities? Where is the feminist movement? Where is Amnesty International. Where is the Democratic Party? As if the 9/11 attacks weren't enough, we've had this sick, depraved ritual repeated over and over ever since, and yet no one on the left seems to be moved by the human tragedy of it to do anything about it.

Update: I just did a Technorati search on Atwar Bahjat and was truly shocked at the number of bloggers who's reaction was to blame this on President Bush and the war in Iraq. This sort of thing happened in Germany as Nazis dropped back into a guerrilla role. It took about 10 years to wipe it out.

This sort of thing is also described in the Book of Mormon. The terrorists of the time were called the Gadianton Robbers. They grew so numerous that they were able to threaten the government, through assassinations of the chief rulers. The only thing that worked against them was preaching, and conversion. We can't reach these people with the gospel, however, until they have a civil society which enforces freedom of religion.