May 18, 2004

Beheading Tape Overshadows Anti-Bush Hysteria

Don’t be alarmed! Those grinding noises you hear are attack dogs of the media and Congress gnashing their teeth.

Cause of their ire is the escape from their clutches by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his boss President George W. Bush.

There was a moment last week when CBS, New York Times and other left-wingers gloated over abuse photos of Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad’s infamous Abu Ghraib prison.

Keep in mind that 3,800 common criminals, anti-coalition street fighters and hardened terrorists were held there for sorting and interrogation.

The prisoners portrayed are suspected terrorists who may have information about plans to bomb our troops and Iraqi civilians.

Critics of the Bush administration were ecstatic. They thought they had a damaging incident to parlay.

Okay. It was a legitimate news story. Something disturbing, perverted, took place there. It should be discovered and investigated to determine the perpetrators and "bring them to justice."

Lead-dog media and yellow-dog Democrats called for the President to fire Rumsfeld.

Sen. Carl Levin insisted on impeaching the Secretary of Defense if Bush doesn’t dismiss him instanter.

Reform Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader called for Bush’s impeachment.

Nader once again is a loose cannon on the deck. He siphoned off enough votes in 2000 to deny Al Gore a winning margin. The Reform Party is qualified to field candidates in seven states – including crucial Florida and Michigan.

Just as Bush and Rumsfeld seemed to be goners, an even more disturbing video surfaced. It shows in color and sound the butcher-shop beheading of a young American businessman captured in Baghdad by Muntada al-Ansar terrorists.

Berg was attempting to start a cell phone business in the Iraq recovery. Traveling alone, he was caught by the terrorist cell closely allied with al-Queda.

While hooded henchmen chanted "Allah akhbar!" (God is great), notorious ringleader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi chopped off Berg’s head with five knife slashes -- amidst initial screams by the hog-tied victim.  

Zarqawi held up his bloody trophy for the camera and announced it was in "revenge" for the Abu Ghraib prison abuses.

The grisly film was aired on an Egyptian television station and quickly repeated in U.S. media.

Zarqawi’s evil rationale is no more related to the prison scandal than was his previous beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, or the recent murder of Italian hostage Fabrizio Quattrocchi.

Whatever Zarqawi’s intent, he inadvertently overshadowed the CBS and New York Times vendetta against Bush and Rumsfeld. Cooler heads regarding the controversy had a chance to be heard.

Cries by anti-war protesters that all the prison photos be released for public view have slacked off.

 Hey, we get the picture. Same goes for the beheading tape.

Congress has had an opportunity to see all the graphic images. Neither we nor anti-war Chicken Littles need to wallow in them.

The government has no mandate to cater morbid curiosity. The gory stuff will be leaked to supermarket tabloids and Internet bloggers. There is no need for government to sanction it.

Insistence that the head of a government, or the first rank of administrators, should resign for misbehavior of subordinates is irrational.

Jackassery and unforeseen glitches occur in all organizations and great endeavors. Only those directly responsible for insults and screw-ups can apologize.

Leaders can (should) only express regret for the actions of someone else and pledge to make amends.  

After getting off the hook of biased media, Rumsfeld flew to Iraq for the fifth time. There he toured the prison, ordered it be straightened out and then entranced cheering troops with the rightness of their mission.

Our soldiers in Iraq understand full well the importance of their historic role in eliminating terrorism – for homeland security and world democracy.

Bush and Rumsfeld have regained the stature and support needed to win the Iraq phase of the War on Terrorism.

Meanwhile, President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell keep a diplomatic lid on Iran, Syria and North Korea.

Two decades of living with terrorism -- rather than confronting it – has brought us to the field of Armageddon. The final battle between good and evil is underway.  

Lindsey Williams is a Sun columnist who can be reached at linwms@lindseywilliams.org