Res Publica 2005

Theo van Gogh is killed because he makes a statement in his biting way that traditional Islamic societies mistreat women, and he is killed, his throat cut and a note stabbed into his body announcing why.

The AFP ran with this story yesterday out of Fallujah. The AP carried a cleaned up version of the same story, but without the details of mutilation:

The body of a blonde-haired woman with her legs and arms cut off and throat slit was found Sunday lying on a street in Fallujah, a notorious Iraqi enclave for hostage-takers, marines said.

"It is definitely a Caucasian woman with long blonde hair," said a military official, who cut open a cover that had been over the corpse.

The gruesome discovery was made as the marines moved through the south of Fallujah, hunting out the remaining rebels after a week of fierce fighting to regain control of the city.

"It is a female ... missing all four appendages, with a slashed throat and disemboweled, she has been dead for a while but only in this location for a day or two," said Benjamin Finnell, a hospital apprentice with the Navy Corps, who had inspected the body.

An AFP photographer embedded with the marines noted that the woman was wearing a blue dress and her face was completely disfigured.

The marines said she appeared to have been on the street for about two days.

Perhaps those who have been screaming about how Bush is going to turn the clock backwards on women's rights should think about the type of people we really are fighting. This particular brand of Islam, which sees cutting innocent men's throats as a recruitment tool, see no bad thing about marrying young teen girls, beating women for making too much noise, or using rape as a way to punish a woman's brother, and we see what they can do beyond that as well.

Hat tip to Backcountry Conservative