Res Publica 2005

There had been some speculation that the woman's body found hideously mutilated during the attack on Fallujah was that of Margaret Hassan.

I am not sure yet if that was her body, but there is a video going around that purports to be her execution.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The husband of British-Iraqi aid worker Margaret Hassan said on Tuesday a video tape had been discovered which appeared to show her murder by hostage-takers.

"I have been told that there is a video of Margaret which appears to show her murder. The video may be genuine but I do not know," Tahsin Hassan told Reuters in Baghdad.

"I want to know if she is alive or dead. If she's dead I want to know where she is so I can bury her in peace."

Dublin-born Margaret Hassan, who has joint British and Iraqi nationality and had lived in Baghdad for some 30 years, was seized on Oct. 19 while on her way to work at Care International, the charity where she was country director.

Hassan had appeared in video tapes released by her unknown captors calling on the British government to withdraw its troops from Iraq.

Killing women is supposed to be against the Koranic teachings, although in this day and age those bent on destruction and hate can find someone to give them a fatwah to excuse whatever barbarity. Moverover, she had been living in the country a long time, working to do good.

That wasn't good enough for her slayers. She had symbolic value, and like people like Ted Bundy, they worked out their fantasy of destruction on this poor woman.

This is what we are fighting against. It's not that we are there. It's that we represent another way of life, one they want to destroy. And they will justify doing whatever they want to do to try to get their way.

Eternal rest grant her, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon her, this poor woman who was a martyr to trying to do good in a land aching for release. Amen.



UPDATE -

From the Captain's Quarters

Kidnaping civilians as hostages paints a cowardly enough picture of Islamist lunatics, and carving their heads off for the camera makes them look almost infantile in their perversity. Putting a bullet into a woman's hooded head is so cowardly that it takes one's breath away. Together with the discovery of the Polish woman's mutilated and disemboweled corpse yesterday and it's difficult to conclude anything except that those responsible have to be tracked down and killed at all costs.

These are not freedom fighters or Minutemen, as Michael Moore notoriously proclaimed them earlier; these aren't even animals, as animals kill to eat or defend themselves. I can only describe them as ghouls, living demons who live to smell the blood of others in what appears to be some pseudosexual release. They live without a shred of honor or dignity, and like any other psychopath, only derive pleasure from the torture of others.

We can never take the pressure off of these "people." No matter what we do, they will never stop killing, and if we're not careful they'll come here for their next victims. Only when we have stamped the last of these sick bastards into the next world will we have any security in this one.