Jihadists claim beheading of U.S. journalist

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Agence France Presse


http://i.imgur.com/36qAl6l.jpg

Baghdad (AFP) - Jihadists released a video apparently showing the beheading of an American journalist kidnapped in Syria, in the most direct retaliation yet to nearly two weeks of US air strikes on Iraq.

As calls mounted for Washington to expand its military intervention against the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, it also threatened to kill another US reporter if the strikes did not stop.

The video posted online Tuesday showed a masked militant beheading a man resembling James Foley, who has been missing since he was seized in Syria in November 2012.

News of Foley's apparent beheading comes as US air strikes appeared to yield some results, helping Kurdish and federal forces push IS fighters back from some recently-conquered areas in northern Iraq, including the strategic Mosul dam.

According to Kurdish officers, another US air strike was carried out early Wednesday, targeting an apparent jihadist meeting at a school near the dam. Washington did not immediately confirm the raid.

"We have never been prouder of our son Jim. He gave his life trying to expose the world to the suffering of the Syrian people," Foley's mother Diane said in a Facebook message to supporters.

"We implore the kidnappers to spare the lives of the remaining hostages. Like Jim, they are innocents. They have no control over American government policy in Iraq, Syria or anywhere in the world."

The White House said US intelligence was studying the video, and that President Barack Obama had been briefed on it as he flew from Washington to resume his vacation on Martha's Vineyard.

"If genuine, we are appalled by the brutal murder of an innocent American journalist and we express our deepest condolences to his family and friends," National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said.

Foley was an experienced correspondent who had covered the war in Libya before heading to Syria to follow the revolt against Bashar al-Assad's regime, contributing to news site GlobalPost, Agence France-Presse (AFP) and other media outlets.

AFP chairman Emmanuel Hoog described Foley "as a brave, independent and impartial journalist" whose work in Syria and other war zones was "widely admired".

According to witnesses, Foley was seized in the northern Syrian province of Idlib on November 22, 2012.

- British accent -

In the nearly five-minute video, titled "A Message to America", IS declares that Foley was killed because Obama ordered air strikes against IS in northern Iraq.

The beheading is carried out in an open desert area with no immediate signs as to whether it is in Iraq or Syria by a black-clad masked militant who speaks English with a British accent.

Foley is seen kneeling on the ground, dressed in an orange outfit that resembles those worn by prisoners held at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay.

"Any aggression towards the Islamic State is an aggression towards Muslims from all walks of life who have accepted the Islamic caliphate as their leadership," the masked militant declares.

He threatens to kill another man shown in the video and said to be Steven Sotloff, whose kidnapping in August 2013 has not been widely reported.

He has written for several US newspapers and magazines, including Time, Foreign Policy and The Christian Science Monitor.

Formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the IS declared itself a caliphate -- a successor state to historic Muslim empires -- in June this year.

Formed by a mixture of Sunni insurgents who have fought US and Shiite-led government forces in Iraq and anti-regime rebels in Syria, it has attracted recruits from around the world.

- Expanded strikes -

It has laid claim to territory in eastern Syria and northern and western Iraq, and has headed a militant coalition that has seized large areas of five Iraqi provinces since June.

Earlier this month, Obama reacted by ordering US warplanes to strike the jihadists, arguing they threatened US personnel in the Kurdish regional capital Arbil and risked carrying out a genocide against religious minority groups.

Obama has insisted the scope of the strikes would remain limited but Iraqi officials and observers have argued only foreign intervention could turn the tide on jihadist expansion in Iraq.

Shiite militia, federal soldiers, Kurdish troops and Sunni Arab tribes have been battling IS for weeks in some areas but have been unable to clinch a decisive victory.

An offensive launched on Tuesday against Saddam Hussein's hometown Tikrit was presented as a major push to liberate the city, but it appeared to have stalled a few hours later.

Shellfire periodically hit the city on Wednesday while Iraqi security forces remained positioned outside it, police and witnesses said.

US and Iraqi officials say the strikes have already had an impact on IS morale but the intervention may also have galvanised some fighters as fighting Americans is a source of prestige in global jihad.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By LARA JAKES and BRADLEY KLAPPER - The Associated Press


WASHINGTON (AP) — A grisly video released Tuesday shows Islamic State militants beheading American journalist James Foley, U.S. officials said, in what the extremists called retribution for recent U.S. airstrikes in Iraq. The militants threatened to kill another captive they also identified as an American journalist.

Separately, Foley's family confirmed his death in a statement posted on a Facebook page that was created to rally support for his release, saying they "have never been prouder of him."

"He gave his life trying to expose the world to the suffering of the Syrian people," said the statement, which was attributed to Foley's mother, Diane Foley. She implored the militants to spare the lives of other hostages. "Like Jim, they are innocents. They have no control over American government policy in Iraq, Syria or anywhere in the world."

The statement was posted on a Facebook page called "Find James Foley," which his family has used a number of times since his November 2012 disappearance. Earlier Tuesday, a red-eyed but gracious Diane Foley said the family would not have an immediate statement when approached at her home by an Associated Press reporter. A priest arrived at the home several hours later.

Foley, a 40-year-old journalist from Rochester, New Hampshire, went missing in northern Syria while freelancing for Agence France-Presse and the Boston-based media company GlobalPost. The car he was riding in was stopped by four militants in a contested battle zone that both Sunni rebel fighters and government forces were trying to control. He had not been heard from since.

The video released on websites Tuesday appears to show the increasing sophistication of the Islamic State group's media arm and begins with scenes of President Barack Obama explaining his decision to order airstrikes.

It then cuts to a bald man in an orange jumpsuit kneeling in the desert, next to a black-clad militant with a knife to his throat. Foley's name appears in both English and Arabic graphics on screen, and he is wearing a clip-on microphone as he begins his statement. The scene is captured on at least two video cameras and has been edited in a professional style.

After the captive speaks, the masked man is shown apparently beginning to cut at the neck of the captive; the video fades to black before the beheading is completed. The next shot appears to show the captive lying dead on the ground, his head on his body. The video appears to have been shot in an arid area; there is no vegetation to be seen and the horizon is in the distance where the sand meets the gray-blue sky. The sound quality is sharp.

At the end of the video, a militant shows a second man, who was identified as another American journalist, Steven Sotloff, and warns that he could be next captive killed. Sotloff was kidnapped near the Syrian-Turkish border in August 2013 and freelanced for Time, the National Interest and MediaLine.

One U.S. official said the video appeared to be authentic, and two other U.S. officials said the victim was Foley. All three officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the killing by name.

One of the officials said Obama was expected to make a statement about the killing on Wednesday. Obama was briefed about the video on Air Force One on Tuesday as he flew from Washington to resume his vacation on the resort island of Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. A White House statement said he would continue to receive regular updates.

The beheading marks the first time the Islamic State has killed an American citizen since the Syrian conflict broke out in March 2011, upping the stakes in an increasingly chaotic and multilayered war. The killing is likely to complicate U.S. involvement in Iraq and the Obama administration's efforts to contain the group as it expands in both Iraq and Syria.

The group is the heir apparent of the militancy known as al-Qaida in Iraq, which beheaded many of its victims, including American businessman Nicholas Berg in 2004.

The Islamic State militant group is so ruthless in its attacks against all people they consider heretics or infidels that it has been disowned by al-Qaida's leaders. In seeking to impose its harsh interpretation of Islamic law in the lands it is trying to control, the extremists have slain soldiers and civilians alike in horrifying killings — including mounting the decapitated heads of some of its victims on spikes.

Several senior U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the situation said the Islamic State very recently threatened to kill Foley to avenge the crushing airstrikes over the last two weeks against militants advancing on Mount Sinjar, the Mosul dam and the Kurdish capital of Irbil.

Both areas are in northern Iraq, which has become a key front for the Islamic State as its fighters travel to and from Syria.

Since Aug. 8, the U.S. military has struck more than 70 Islamic State targets — including security checkpoints, vehicles and weapons caches. It's not clear how many militants have been killed in the strikes, although it's likely that some were.

Officials from the State Department and Pentagon contacted social media sites Tuesday to inform them of the video and ask them to remove it. White House National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said the Obama administration asked the sites to "take appropriate action consistent with their stated usage policies."

In 2011, Foley was among a small group of journalists held captive for six weeks by the government in Libya and was released after receiving a one-year suspended sentence on charges of illegally entering the country. In a May 2011 interview about his experience, he recounted watching a fellow journalist being killed in a firefight and said he would regret that day for the rest of his life. At the time, Foley said he would "would love to go back" to Libya to report on the conflict and spoke of his enduring commitment to the profession of journalism.

"Journalism is journalism," Foley said during the AP interview, which was held in GlobalPost's office in Boston. "If I had a choice to do Nashua (New Hampshire) zoning meetings or give up journalism, I'll do it. I love writing and reporting."

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists estimated Tuesday that about 20 journalists are missing in Syria, and has not released their nationalities. In its annual report last November, CPJ concluded that the missing journalists are either being held and threatened with death by extremists, or taken captive by gangs seeking ransom. The group's report described the widespread seizure of journalists as unprecedented and largely unreported by news organizations in the hope that keeping the kidnappings out of public view may help in the captives' release.

Earlier Tuesday, GlobalPost CEO and co-founder Philip Balboni in a statement asked "for your prayers for Jim and his family." AFP chairman Emmanuel Hoog said the French news agency was "horrified" by the video and called Foley "a brave, independent and impartial journalist."

[RBP]

Awful story.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

http://i.imgur.com/IhlJ0qv.jpg

Here's the side by side images....

[KevinD]

Seriously, we need to nuke these bastards into oblivion

[perrhaps]

Seriously, we need to nuke these bastards into oblivion

The only argument I have against that is that death by napalm is slower and more painful.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Okay, here's where I am on this shit now. I am sick and tired of the US and Europe going out of their way to minimize civilian casualties all the time yet get lambasted when some civilians get killed accidentally. It's a war zone, the terrorists hide amongst the civilians, casualties are going to happen, yet we painstakingly try and keep them to a minimum.

Then shit like this happens. These terrorists are TRYING to kill civilians. They don't care about the rules of war. They are just barely one step above being fucking animals. They have one goal in life and that is to reign terror on civilian populations. It is beyond obvious that there is no way there will ever be a peace between radical Muslims and anyone else that doesn't conform to they're warped perception of reality. And all they do is breed more children and fill those kids minds with hatred so they can keep continuing on and on and on with the terror campaign. I'm tired of seeing our men and women, both military and civilian, being killed in this war. It's time to destroy these people once and for all. There is no need to put any fucking boots on the ground either. We have enough air power and ordinance to flatten all these cities in these godforsaken countries. They want war? It's time to show them war. Load up the bombers with all the conventional weapons we have and bomb these places into oblivion. Fuck them, they don't deserve any warning, any sympathy, any respect. They are vile and evil and until they are wiped off the face of the earth, this will never end. And just you wait, because if we don't do something drastic soon, one of these days in the near future, one of these fucking whack-jobs is gonna get their hands on a nuke and I can guarantee they are going to hit something that will kill tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of civilians somewhere in Europe or the United States.

[RBP]

:nono: Obama knows best. If we stop being so arrogant and seek to understand, it will all be okay.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By LEE FERRAN - ABC News


http://i.imgur.com/r0fpa4i.jpg

A top British official said today it was “apparent” the masked figure dressed in all black who appeared to murder American journalist James Foley on camera was from the United Kingdom.

“We’re very concerned by the apparent fact that the murderer in question is British and we are urgently investigating – agencies on both sides of the Atlantic – first of all looking to authenticate the video, to make sure that it is genuine, sadly it appears to be, and then to see if we can identify the individual in question,” British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond told ITV News British.

Hammond was referring to a gruesome video released online Tuesday that appeared to show an armed militant, who identifies himself as with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, beheading Foley. Before his death, Foley delivered a halting, potentially coerced statement condemning U.S. military efforts against ISIS, and the figure clad in black spoke directly to President Obama in fluent English with what seemed to be a British accent.

“Today your military air force has attacked us daily… Your strikes have caused casualties amongst Muslims,” the figure says in the video.

http://i.imgur.com/AcV8yBC.jpg
A screengrab from a video posted online appears to show American journalist James Foley shortly before he is killed by a masked captor.

After the figure in black kills Foley, he threatens another American hostage, Steven Sotloff, saying, “The life of this American citizen, Obama, depends on your next decision.”

Prior to the video’s release, the U.S. military launched dozens of airstrikes on ISIS targets in support of a Kurdish and Iraqi military offensive against the terror group at and around the Mosul Dam, eventually pushing the extremists off the key piece of infrastructure.

A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said Tuesday that U.S. intelligence agencies were working “as quickly as possible” to determine the video’s authenticity, but said if real, “we are appalled by the brutal murder of an innocent American journalist.”

http://i.imgur.com/a7nMFRY.jpg
American Steven Sotloff is threatened but left alive in a gruesome video posted online that earlier appears to show the murder of American journalist James Foley.

GlobalPost, the news organization for which Foley worked when he was abducted in November 2012, said today that the FBI told Foley’s family that preliminary analysis did not lead them to doubt the video was real.

In a statement posted on a Facebook page for Foley, his mother appeared to confirm that the man in the video was her son, saying the family has “never been prouder” of Foley, who “gave his life trying to expose the world to the suffering of the Syrian people.”

Top officials in the U.S. and the U.K. have long been aware of fighters from their nations joining ISIS. Officials have estimated that ISIS has managed to recruit more than 12,000 foreign fighters to their cause – including more than 400 Brits and at least 100 Americans.

“Yes, we’ve been saying for years that part of the problem here, part of the reason this matters to us, is because there are significant numbers of British jihadists inside these organizations, learning skills, being brutalized, if you like, by their experiences in Iraq and Syria, many of whom will come back to the U.K. if they’re able to at some point and who pose a threat to us here, some of whom may be sent back here by ISIL (ISIS) for the purpose of conducting attacks on the West,” Hammond said. “We know that it is ISIL’s intention to launch attacks on the west when it is able.”

[perrhaps]

:nono: Obama knows best. If we stop being so arrogant and seek to understand, it will all be okay.

Or, he can glib-talking, teleprompter-using orate the bastards to death.

[Hal-9000]

Okay, here's where I am on this shit now. I am sick and tired of the US and Europe going out of their way to minimize civilian casualties all the time yet get lambasted when some civilians get killed accidentally. It's a war zone, the terrorists hide amongst the civilians, casualties are going to happen, yet we painstakingly try and keep them to a minimum.

Then shit like this happens. These terrorists are TRYING to kill civilians. They don't care about the rules of war. They are just barely one step above being fucking animals. They have one goal in life and that is to reign terror on civilian populations. It is beyond obvious that there is no way there will ever be a peace between radical Muslims and anyone else that doesn't conform to they're warped perception of reality. And all they do is breed more children and fill those kids minds with hatred so they can keep continuing on and on and on with the terror campaign. I'm tired of seeing our men and women, both military and civilian, being killed in this war. It's time to destroy these people once and for all. There is no need to put any fucking boots on the ground either. We have enough air power and ordinance to flatten all these cities in these godforsaken countries. They want war? It's time to show them war. Load up the bombers with all the conventional weapons we have and bomb these places into oblivion. Fuck them, they don't deserve any warning, any sympathy, any respect. They are vile and evil and until they are wiped off the face of the earth, this will never end. And just you wait, because if we don't do something drastic soon, one of these days in the near future, one of these fucking whack-jobs is gonna get their hands on a nuke and I can guarantee they are going to hit something that will kill tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of civilians somewhere in Europe or the United States.

Or line up 10 captured radicals and start sawing off heads and sending videos.....Gandhi said an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind, but this keeps escalating because they know we're hesitant to demonstrate full on brutality or carpet bomb certain areas because of the civilian collateral damage.

Maybe it's time to step up to the plate and demonstrate that we can be cruel too...

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By Michael Georgy and Mariam Karouny


BAGHDAD/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Islamic State's beheading of a U.S. journalist and its threat to "destroy the American cross" suggests it has gained enough confidence seizing large areas of Iraq and Syria to take aim at American targets despite the risks.

On Tuesday night, Islamic State released a video of its fighters beheading James Foley, who was kidnapped in Syria nearly two years ago.

The black-clad executioner, who spoke English with a British accent, also produced another American journalist and said his fate depends on President Barack Obama's next move.

Islamic State had previously seemed focused on proclaiming a caliphate in the parts of Iraq and Syria it controls, marching on Baghdad and redrawing the map of the Middle East.

But in several telephone conversations with a Reuters reporter over the past few months, Islamic State fighters had indicated that their leader, Iraqi Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, had several surprises in store for the West.

They hinted that attacks on American interests or even U.S. soil were possible through sleeper cells in Europe and the United States.

“The West are idiots and fools. They think we are waiting for them to give us visas to go and attack them or that we will attack with our beards or even Islamic outfits," said one.

"They think they can distinguish us these days – they are fools, and, more than that, they don’t know we can play their game in intelligence. They infiltrated us with those who pretend to be Muslims and we have also penetrated them with those who look like them."

HESITANT BROTHERS

Another Islamic State militant said the group had practical reasons for taking on the United States.

“The stronger the war against the States gets, the better this will help hesitant brothers to join us. America will send its rockets, and we will send our bombs. Our land will not be attacked while their land is safe.”

Unlike al Qaeda, Islamic State did not at first seem bent on spectacular attacks on the West: it used fear to tighten its grip on the towns it seized in northern Iraq after facing little resistance from the U.S.-trained Iraqi army and Kurdish peshmerga fighters who held parts of the area.

But a series of videos it released recently, culminating with the one that showed Foley's death, resembled footage that al-Qaeda produced while killing U.S. soldiers, beheading Americans and slaughtering Shi'ites during the U.S. occupation.

The videos followed the first U.S. air strikes in Iraq - targeting Islamic State militants - since American forces withdrew from the country in 2011.

It seems clear that Islamic State is raising the stakes, aware that the gruesome death of an American and the image of another one at the mercy of an executioner who is taunting a U.S. president could invite retaliation - heavier air strikes at least.

Responding to the killing, U.S. President Barack Obama condemned Islamic State as a "cancer" and said "their ideology is bankrupt".

He said the United States would continue to do "what we must do to protect our people".

The Islamic State's new front may be a way of improving its jihad credentials and attracting more followers and prestige in an Islamist militant world where taking on the "infidel" United States is almost an article of faith.

Perhaps the most telling video was one released just before Foley was shown in an orange jumpsuit to remind Americans that Islamic militants are still angry at the treatment of Muslims at Guantanamo Bay, where detainees had to wear the same outfit.

The earlier video suggested Islamic State was gearing up for an existential holy war between the caliphate and the crusader America, with the threat to destroy "The American Cross".

WESTERN PASSPORTS

In one scene an American soldier weeps after losing a comrade and the Christian hymn "Amazing Grace" can be heard. In another, there is heavy breathing from the Star Wars movie character Darth Vader.

Reacting to the video, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari called on the international community to help his country battle the "savage" Islamic State.

But the United States and other Western powers may now be diverting their attention away from the Sunni insurgents in northern Iraq to what they are capable of doing overseas.

The group can draw on hundreds if not thousands of foreigners with Western passports that can keep them below the radar, like the British-sounding man who appeared to have killed Foley, to carry out its threats.

Masrour Barzani, head of the Kurdish region's National Security Council, recently told Reuters he was concerned about Islamic State sleeper cells in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in the north.

But he seemed equally anxious about a broader problem.

“Many of the members of (Islamic State) that have come from abroad have come from Europe, from the U.S., from the Middle East and North Africa - all over the world," said Barzani.

"These are people that are not going to die in battles in Iraq and Syria. Many of these people will go back to their countries of origin, becoming potential leaders or terrorist operatives, which could really become a bigger threat to their own countries."

GRAVE SITUATION

Western countries are well aware of the issue - nine people suspected of planning to join Islamist militants in Syria were detained in Austria on Wednesday.

"We are absolutely aware that there are significant numbers of British nationals involved in terrible crimes, probably in the commission of atrocities, making Jihad with (Islamic State) and other extremist organizations," British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond told the BBC.

"I don't think this video changes anything. It just heightens awareness of a situation which is very grave and which we've been working on for several months."

Jamal Khashoggi, a long-time expert on al Qaeda who interviewed Osama bin Laden, said caution and concerns over security may have kept Islamic State from carrying out attacks on Western targets so far, but they would not hesitate under the right conditions.

"If they can blow up a suicide bomber in Times Square this afternoon they’ll do it. What is keeping them from doing that is vigilance and security," he said.

"But we have to admit that they are targeting all of us. If they can launch a terrorist attack in Riyadh, New York or London, they'll do that."

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By Catherine Thompson - Talking Points Memo


The New York Post stretched the boundaries of poor taste to their limits Wednesday by splashing an image of the moment just before an American journalist was executed by Islamic militants across the tabloid's front page.

The Islamic State, a militant group that has overrun certain parts of Iraq and Syria, released a video Tuesday that purported to show the beheading of James Foley, a photojournalist who went missing in Syria in 2012.

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press that the video appeared to be authentic and said the victim was Foley.

The Post's Wednesday cover can be viewed here (http://nypost.com/cover/), though WARNING: the image is graphic and disturbing.

[lost in melb.]

Okay, here's where I am on this shit now. I am sick and tired of the US and Europe going out of their way to minimize civilian casualties all the time yet get lambasted when some civilians get killed accidentally. It's a war zone, the terrorists hide amongst the civilians, casualties are going to happen, yet we painstakingly try and keep them to a minimum.

Then shit like this happens. These terrorists are TRYING to kill civilians. They don't care about the rules of war. They are just barely one step above being fucking animals. They have one goal in life and that is to reign terror on civilian populations. It is beyond obvious that there is no way there will ever be a peace between radical Muslims and anyone else that doesn't conform to they're warped perception of reality. And all they do is breed more children and fill those kids minds with hatred so they can keep continuing on and on and on with the terror campaign. I'm tired of seeing our men and women, both military and civilian, being killed in this war. It's time to destroy these people once and for all. There is no need to put any fucking boots on the ground either. We have enough air power and ordinance to flatten all these cities in these godforsaken countries. They want war? It's time to show them war. Load up the bombers with all the conventional weapons we have and bomb these places into oblivion. Fuck them, they don't deserve any warning, any sympathy, any respect. They are vile and evil and until they are wiped off the face of the earth, this will never end. And just you wait, because if we don't do something drastic soon, one of these days in the near future, one of these fucking whack-jobs is gonna get their hands on a nuke and I can guarantee they are going to hit something that will kill tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of civilians somewhere in Europe or the United States.

Understandable feelings. But can you really attribute the behaviour of a few to an entire population and kill the lot. Isn't that also savagery?

[DemonGeminiX]

Understandable feelings. But can you really attribute the behaviour of a few to an entire population and kill the lot. Isn't that also savagery?

Yes, but brutality's the only thing they understand. So let's escalate it and show them that our will is stronger than theirs. If they kill one of ours, we should kill 100 of theirs. If they behead one of ours, we impale a hundred of theirs and drape their corpses with pig entrails and stuff pig shit in their mouths. If they use civilians as human shields, we should shoot through the civilian to get to the terrorist. If they bomb our lands, we should nuke theirs.

If a country is willingly harboring these savages, then we obliterate the country. I don't care if we become the bad guys. This world has ceased to fear our strength. It's time we showed them how much stronger and more vicious we are than what they believe us to be.

I'm tired of just taking it. Let's make an example of them and show Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea that we are still the baddest motherfuckers on this planet and we should be feared.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Understandable feelings. But can you really attribute the behaviour of a few to an entire population and kill the lot.

Yes


Isn't that also savagery?

Not anywhere nearly as savage as sitting by and doing nothing while they spread terror around the globe killing innocent people. How many more people have to die at the hands of the "Religion Of Peace" before something is done? Do you see the images of an innocent journalist getting his head cut off with a knife by an animal and think that we should just sit idly by and do nothing? What do you propose we, the civilized people of the world, do about this? Just stand around with our hands in our pockets and shrug it off?

[Pony]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfYxTRx0vRc

[perrhaps]

By Catherine Thompson - Talking Points Memo


The New York Post stretched the boundaries of poor taste to their limits Wednesday by splashing an image of the moment just before an American journalist was executed by Islamic militants across the tabloid's front page.

The Islamic State, a militant group that has overrun certain parts of Iraq and Syria, released a video Tuesday that purported to show the beheading of James Foley, a photojournalist who went missing in Syria in 2012.

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press that the video appeared to be authentic and said the victim was Foley.

The Post's Wednesday cover can be viewed here (http://nypost.com/cover/), though WARNING: the image is graphic and disturbing.

Bullshit! We need to keep having this sort of picture thrown in our faces, so we wake the Hell up!

[Teh One Who Knocks]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6yLQRF-cEU

[Goofy]

Should've nuked the lot of the cunts after 9/11...........