Friday, September 24, 2004
Beheading
Newsday runs an article that discusses the reason why certain groups are choosing beheading to both terrorize and probably recruit.
For centuries, it has been one of humanity's most graphic, gruesome ways to end a life: sever the head, home to thoughts, dreams and that most personal of features -- the face. Decapitation by hand, with sword or knife, smacks of ugly yesterdays -- things the West prefers to think it has left behind.
Now, as insurgents in Iraq commandeer a modern medium by bringing decapitation videos to the Internet, an ancient punishment has become a 24-hour news cycle's shocking message of defiance -- one that effectively both sows terror and shows off to the young Islamic men the militants are trying to recruit.
Read it here.
For centuries, it has been one of humanity's most graphic, gruesome ways to end a life: sever the head, home to thoughts, dreams and that most personal of features -- the face. Decapitation by hand, with sword or knife, smacks of ugly yesterdays -- things the West prefers to think it has left behind.
Now, as insurgents in Iraq commandeer a modern medium by bringing decapitation videos to the Internet, an ancient punishment has become a 24-hour news cycle's shocking message of defiance -- one that effectively both sows terror and shows off to the young Islamic men the militants are trying to recruit.
Read it here.
# posted by Knitting a Conundrum @ 5:11 AM 
