Boreal

The Serenity of Holy Warriors Going About their Business

The young men getting ready to decapitate 15 Syrian military personnel have more in common with the Prophet than just the beard. Mass beheadings were also God's Messenger's way of killing captives.

Notice the composure of those who are about to kill with their bare hands and a knife a human being they are holding like a sheep ready to cut its throat. They are totally unperturbed, they know how it's done.

The appalling cruelty found throughout the Koran may condition holy warriors to kill without remorse but how they slaughter their prisoners is probably learnt behavior. Where that method of killing is most often demonstrated is during the Feast of Sacrifice marking the end of the Hajj where Muslim fathers all over the world, in front of their families with a knife will butcher sheep, goats ... in their millions in a manner similar to what Islamic State does with their captives.

Remembering Nicholas Berg

What children raised on hate and mercilessness become capable of! The Ottawa Citizen’s description of the execution of Nicholas Berg by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (al-Qaeda’s top man in Iraq, at the time) on May 7, 2004:

Zarqawi literally hacked and sawed with his knife the neck of the young twenty-six year-old idealist from Pennsylvania while he screamed in agony. In the words of Dan Garner writing in the Ottawa Citizen, Zarqawi “sawed back and forth as if he were cutting a thick rope. Berg screamed and screamed and screamed. Zarqawi kept sawing back and forth, back and forth, cutting on this side, cutting on that. Finally, Nicholas Berg’s head left his body. Zarqawi clutched it by the hair and raised it to the camera as he and his men shouted Allahu Akbar! God is Great, God is Great.”

Bernard Payeur, November 18, 2014