First of all, I haven't seen the video and don't plan on seeing it. I've read enough descriptions to know what goes on.
Although it pisses me off that this happened to this guy, he willingly went to Iraq as an opportunist. He knew that something like this could have happened to him. I'm not saying that it makes it right, but he wasn't some dude at a shopping mall who was kidnapped and beheaded.
From a lot of what I've read (not just here, I'm not pointing fingers at anyone) and heard (mostly stupid talk radio garbage), Americans are trying to act like this makes the abuses we've dealt out during the war insignificant. Nothing could be further from the truth.
A lot of people were effected by the imagry and sounds of the video. Compare that video to the scenes of marketplaces that were hit by stray missiles. Several missiles that WE launched did not hit their intended target and hit very public places full of innocents (much more innocent than they man who was beheaded since they were just going about life in their homeland). I'm sure that if we had a camera there right afterwards the scene would be much worse. Sure in the beheading case it was one person singled out and knew he was about to die, and the public places hit were "unintentional" but we fired the missiles knowing that it could happen. The end results are similar.
People also commented about how sick it was that people cheered as the man's head was displayed. I'll counter by bringing up a vid that was posted on another thread (
http://www.informationclearinghouse....rticle5365.htm) in this vid (it's not graphic but it does show an Iraqi soldier being murdered) there is an Iraqi soldier laying face down, either wounded, surrendering, or both. One of our soldiers just shoots him and kills him (from a very safe distance). After he does, the camera pans over and the other soliders are all cheering. What is the difference? So it's cowardly to decapitate a man while covering your face but it's courageous to kill an equally defenseless man from a safe distance.... Of course, I get it.
The Red Cross has been screaming about the abuse of the Iraqi prisoners since they got there. 25 Iraqi prisoners have died while in custody, currently there is no explanation. Suddenly, pics surface that confirm that we have been sexually and psychologically abusing prisoners and NOW we finally are taking actions to curb abuse? The pics have been in existence for several months. CBS sat on the pics till another news agency got them and was going to run with them and yet we're supposed to believe that our President and other senior officials had NO FUCKING IDEA any of this is happening? It seems more like we got caught with out pants down and are scrambling to make it seem like we give a fuck.
People want to villify the "bad guys" a and act like our hands our clean. Our hands are just as dirty. The difference is that the enemy celebrates it while we act like we're sorry only when we get caught playing the same games.