I participate on a forum with a number of great people around the country, many of whom have not ever met a Muslim at all.

The discussion of the beheading of Mr. Berg came up today and it was a real attention-getter.

The main issue seemed to me to be that some Christian Americans are expecting outrage from Muslims/Arabs. I will count myself as one Muslims who is outraged that such a thing occurred. But, a lot of things outrage me everyday! Maybe I am being desensitized, but we have children missing here and rapists and murderers in America as well. Why expect additional outrage because murder occured in Iraq? Iraq is a war-zone, and America is not. I am actually more outraged that things like this are happening in my own country: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20040512-1339-ca-xianamurder.html

Compare the murders by insane individuals to the authorized abuses of prisoners who are paid by my tax money, and I feel that what outrages me ‘more’ is the prison abuse scandal. Neither the beheading nor the murder above were committed by people that I feel betrayed my trust and the trust of Americans. We expect and pay our military to fight for what Americans believe in, I don’t have expections such as that from al-Qaeda and the child molester above.

I think the idea here is that non-Muslim Americans feel Muslims should feel ‘especially’ responsible for this beheading, and hence should apologize. I think the question that is at the root of this is, do -I- feel responsible?

I can easily answer, “No”. I don’t agree with anything terrorists do and I actively write about the problems in their irrational belief system. These are people that would kill me along with Mr. Berg, with no second thoughts.

Should I apologize for their actions? It seems irrational to expect me to apologize for my own enemy.

I’ve also noticed a tendency to merge Iraqi’s / Arab’s / al-Qaeda / Muslims into one large group, when it is not at all one big Borg-like entity. There are clear differences between the educated and uneducated, between the religious and nonreligious, between the murderers and the law-abiding citizens.

Grouping al-Qaeda with Iraqi’s is really in effect giving them more power, which is what they want.

Iraq’s are not ruled by al-Qaeda (Thank Allah!). They have no authority to take revenge for the Iraqi state or it’s people. Al-Qaeda cannot be allowed to usurp such authority from the Iraqi civilians with such an act. Iraqi prisoners are not vindicated by this beheading at all, and such an act cannot be used as an alternative form of judgement to deny them any damages.

There is also a difference between when a nation-state, representing millions of people, acts and when a terrorist organization acts. A nation is ruled by law, al-Qaeda is ruled by Osama’s instructional cave-video of the week. We as Americans should be outraged our military was used in such a way. To expect Iraqi’s to be similarly outraged that a terrorist organization acted in such a way is simply an act of mixing people and groups together.

Iraqi’s will be outraged as much as an Italian or a Russian. In fact, the only thing that would differentiate my anger, if I was an Iraqi, was that these people are saying that such beheadings are retaliation for actual abuses to my people. What I would want is answers, punishment, or monetary damages in the least.

Random acts of reckless retribution will only appeal to the most ignorant and uninvolved people, for those who families were not hurt at all by the abuses in the prison.

Who are these ‘al-Qaeda’ foreigners to be judge, jury, executioner for criminal acts that occured to the Iraqi people by the occupying American forces? Let’s stop talking about a few murderers here and there for whom the law does not matter. Instead, let’s talk about actual recompense and change of policy for the hundreds of people still in prison.