Secretary of State Colin Powell (search) said on FOX News Sunday that the silence from the Arab world on the subject of Nick Berg (search) and the Al Qaeda guy who cut his head off is deafening.
The Arabs aren't talking about the terrorist who cut Berg's head off because there is only so much hypocrisy they can muster. The truth is they don't want to say how horrible it is, because they don't think it's all that horrible. It happened to an American... and the dirty little secret is that they like it. That's why they're so quiet. They couldn't keep a straight face while issuing a condemnation.
Over the weekend, I asked all my friends who had complained to me about how those American soldiers treated those prisoners in Abu Ghraib (search) to watch the Berg tape on the Internet.
Afterwards, I said: "Got anything more to say about the awful American guards now?"
Every one of them shook their head quietly. "No, nothing more to say."
The Berg tape puts things in perspective. Those Americans broke our law — never mind the Geneva Convention — by treating those prisoners as they did, but let's knock off the self-flagellation.
If one of those prisoners could tell you where insurgents were getting sarin gas shells to explode on the roadsides, how much humiliation and sleep deprivation would you allow? A lot, I'll bet.
So they had to wear women's underwear on their heads. They HAD heads, didn't they?
Ask Berg if ladies panties would have killed him. Oh, that's right. You can't ask him. He didn't have a head to wear underwear, because they cut his off.
Perspective. Remember, you need perspective. Forget feeling guilty. Watch the Berg tape and get angry.
That's My Word.
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