I'm not shocked that a journalist was beheaded and I'm not outraged

Was the two men that were beheaded a horrible act, of course. Is it shocking that someone from a jihadist group committed the atrocity, it shouldn't be.

As far as I'm concerned you go to some third world country to work with Ebola patients than chances are you will die and the same goes for a journalist working in a some war torn area...all kinds of bad things can happen. I'm not outraged at this point but surprised the President has not put a block on any American's going overseas to cover these events but I understand that these particular people have been held captive for a year or two +. Oddly I don't ever recall hearing about Americans taken hostage but maybe I just was not paying attention.

Sorry if I sound insensitive but most don't feel outraged when a cop is shot/murdered because they know just as the cop know that it comes with the territory..it's awful but not shocking...

If the President were to put a block stopping reporters from going into these areas then people will start crying freedom of the press because a fraction of Americans get off on the blood and war. But you are right if these people want to go into these dangerous areas then they are putting their life at risk of their own free will.
After the American people put their foot and and said no about going into Syria the war mongers who profit from these wars got pissed about it and had to come up with another way to get America to go into Syria. So now we have some rag tag group that was suddenly able to be able to take over anything they please so now there is a "threat" to America that we will have to fight against.

originally posted by: chrismarco
Was the two men that were beheaded a horrible act, of course. Is it shocking that someone from a jihadist group committed the atrocity, it shouldn't be.

As far as I'm concerned you go to some third world country to work with Ebola patients than chances are you will die and the same goes for a journalist working in a some war torn area...all kinds of bad things can happen. I'm not outraged at this point but surprised the President has not put a block on any American's going overseas to cover these events but I understand that these particular people have been held captive for a year or two +. Oddly I don't ever recall hearing about Americans taken hostage but maybe I just was not paying attention.

Sorry if I sound insensitive but most don't feel outraged when a cop is shot/murdered because they know just as the cop know that it comes with the territory..it's awful but not shocking...

How many times must there be for it to be shocking then? Ten, a hundred.. a million. A Journalist today, tomorrow you. Do you not understand IS is out to get everybody, that includes every other Muslim sect, just about every other religion..well maybe Westboro might get let off. At least that's what they say, personally I don't think there is a truly religious bone in their bodies, and so far they behave like criminals, thieves, robbers, and murderers and would be committing of genocide.

Both kinds are the people who take too many risks in zombie movies.

Am I conditioned? LOL

originally posted by: buster2010
If the President were to put a block stopping reporters from going into these areas then people will start crying freedom of the press because a fraction of Americans get off on the blood and war. But you are right if these people want to go into these dangerous areas then they are putting their life at risk of their own free will.
After the American people put their foot and and said no about going into Syria the war mongers who profit from these wars got pissed about it and had to come up with another way to get America to go into Syria. So now we have some rag tag group that was suddenly able to be able to take over anything they please so now there is a "threat" to America that we will have to fight against.

That's about right, you can see how government spokesmen are NOW talking about how wealthy IS is, and all the revenue from the stolen oil fields blah blah..but they had to steal that first? No guessing where the 'Start-up money' came from though, and they don't mention that, even though it was blindingly obvious IS was big money from the start.

a reply to: chrismarco

Ordinarily speaking, journalists are not executed on video as part of a psyop against the nation from which they come, so YES, this is a shocking case, and YES, it is terrible.

I am not saying that journalists do not die on the job, of course they do. They get within the splash damage radius of a mortar shell, or pinned down and shredded in a hotel or a block of apartments during a protracted bout of urban warfare, often having been mistaken for someone else, or they are simply, and quietly done away with, either never to be seen again, or found months later when the dust has settled, in a shallow grave.

But this IS not a normal occurance. I have seen countless examples of AQ and Taliban commanders, sitting down drinking tea, and conducting interveiws with journalists over the course of the War on Terror, and some militant groups WELCOME the journalistic community, because they realise that by presenting as human a face as they can to the world, they will receive more support than if they only show a face of barbarism.

However, this situation is the first I have heard of, which features not only the death, but the creating of a spectacle out of the execution of a journalist.

I cannot remember where, but I am sure I remember reading that since 1992, more than one thousand journalists have lost their lives while in pursuit of a story. Of those, only two deaths of journalists that I know of, were ever broadcast in such a way as to be accessible to the entire world.

That is the shocking aspect here.

a reply to: TrueBrit

True Brit,

I often find myself agreeing with you, this is one of those times. The strange thing about this to me, being in the States, is they banned showing causalities or even the caskets of soldiers that died in the war. So why all the hype and drama over these victims?

We heard reports of soldier's bodies being dragged around and hung up for everyone to see, but no pictures. How could they put a clamp on that, but not this?

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Well, the military had assets on the ground during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which might have made it easier to block the broadcasts of the defilement of the bodies of dead soldiers. I imagine that if they had a good idea of where the data was being sent from, some sort of signals intelligence system could have been activated to block it from servers elsewhere.

In this situation however, what with an all natural back drop, lacking any discerning features, it would be pretty hard to figure out where the videos of the executions were even made, until well after it had already done the rounds anyway. At least, that is the only reasonable theory I can come up with!

Mankind has always had to deal with the excesses of its maddest, and most barbaric members, but this bunch seem to be taking things further than any of the groups which came together to spawn them. Their rampant xenophobia is on a par with that of the Nazis, and their lust for bloody sacrifice and murder puts one in mind of the mighty Vlad the Impaler. This is a combination which needs addressing. As I have stated before though, in my opinion the application of a traditional military assault on this organisation would be about as much use as a chocolate firefighting outfit, in the middle of a fire tornado.

All the operations designed to take these guys out, should be so deep under the radar, that not a single person outside of the operators themselves, and the leaders of their nations, should know about it until every single one of those ISIS nut cases has been neutralised.

a reply to: smurfy

I know enough from Daniel Pearl that terrorist behead those that they refer to as infidels...I am not shocked when pit bull attacks a child or a abalone diver is attacked by a great white shark...with that said you should not be surprised if journalists, soldiers or other people get beheaded in the name of radical Islam...




Daniel Pearl (October 10, 1963 – February 1, 2002) was a journalist with American and Israeli citizenship. He was kidnapped by Pakistani militants and later murdered by Al-Qaeda member Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Pakistan...

a reply to: TrueBrit

It's not a normal occurrence but it is not beneath them...I guess that's my point...if they are beheading children, beheading people of other faith why is it so shocking that they would behead a journalist? Do you think because that he's an American it's shocking? I'm not following why it's shocking?

a reply to: chrismarco

Its nothing to do with where the journalist is from!

I made the points which state exactly what is shocking about this situation and why in my first post in this thread. If you are not seeing it my way, then thats fair enough, but the argument is there for the comprehending if you have a mind to do so!

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck


Mankind has always had to deal with the excesses of its maddest, and most barbaric members, but this bunch seem to be taking things further than any of the groups which came together to spawn them. Their rampant xenophobia is on a par with that of the Nazis, and their lust for bloody sacrifice and murder puts one in mind of the mighty Vlad the Impaler. This is a combination which needs addressing. As I have stated before though, in my opinion the application of a traditional military assault on this organisation would be about as much use as a chocolate firefighting outfit, in the middle of a fire tornado.

We have seen more vicious atrocities in other countries such as Africa or more precisely Rwanda, babies and families not only beheaded but raped and tortured...organs eaten by Congolese Rebels that have turned to cannibalism to instill fear in the people in that area...so again I say I am not shocked by the beheading and as many ATS people have pointed out...I don't see anybody in this administration or former that took a heavy hand to those atrocities..

Maybe I am missing some of your points and I'm not looking to get on the bad side of folks here on ATS...I was ranting and I'm about cooled off now. I just keep pointing back to another journalist that was beheaded many years ago and folks are looking at the most recent beheadings as if it's new...

a reply to: chrismarco

Well, we precisely have not SEEN them at all. We have heard about them, we have read reports of the aftermath in the papers, and perhaps some of us have seen blurred out shots of crumpled heaps of what was once people, with no detail as to what wounds felled them. A great many things have happened on this planet which are horrific and terrible, but we hear of them second hand.

However, there is a great difference between reading of those things, and actually SEEING a mans head being cut from his shoulders with a knife. Even when veiwed from the safety of ones living room, on a laptop screen, such a thing is BOUND to be shocking, and it is the creation of that manner of spectacle which makes this so shocking.

a reply to: TrueBrit

You can see the Daniel Pearl video online...that actual beheading and I did see it and I will never watch another video like it ever again...it bothered me for months and I had wished I had never looked at it....it's out there and it is horrible...

Yes the act it self is shocking but I think most people are shocked that someone was beheaded by a terrorist organization as if to say it has never happened...happens all the time in their country...check out VICE they did a great story on ISIS and that in some ways is more shocking than the beheading to see how this organization is rolling through towns...

a reply to: TrueBrit

Did you forget Daniel Perl? He was a Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and beheaded in 2002 in Pakistan. There is even a video for it.

Then there was Lara Logan who was gang raped in Tahrir Square covering the protests of President Morsi in Egypt. No, she wasn't killed, but she was brutalized.

I am not surprised these two were beheaded, either. A journalist's life is respected only as long as the militants figure their PR has value. Watching ISIS, it's obvious that they don't care about good PR. Therefore, the journalists serve a greater purpose dying than they do alive and reporting.

a reply to: chrismarco

To be fair, what most people think during a given day, seems to be printable on the back of a postage stamp. In size seventy two font. Therefore, it hardly matters a damn.

The point is that all these things should continue to shock us, for ever and ever and so on and so forth, because the moment these things stop affecting us is the moment when we let our grip on our humanity slip through our fingers. We must always be enraged, outraged, appalled, disgusted, sickened, and despair for the future of our species in reaction to these terrible things.

At the same time, we should always be happy, joyous, and enlivened by the good things that happen in the world, as far and as few between as they can seem in the face of these things.

a reply to: ketsuko

I am sorry. I had forgotten. For shame.

It happens, I have some memory problems which flare up from time to time, owing to a pethadine overdose administered to my mother while I was in the womb, by the crappy student doctor who presided over my birth.

a reply to: TrueBrit

I see the execution as a brilliant political move, a ghastly one from a personal perspective.

The timing was good, it was after US/NATO airstrikes.

this beheading said in clear, bold terms, that they were serious.

a reply to: TrueBrit

It happens.

Fact is, there is a history of this sort of thing happening to people, even journalists, in this area of the world. If they are going to go there, they are taking just exactly this sort of risk, same as the contractors, same as the soldiers.

We are talking about a group that doesn't even respect other Muslims.