Believe it or not...

Yes. Someone was beheaded in Iraq by a bunch of terrorists. Sigh. Ridor said I'd defend the Iraqis again. Yes, Ridor, I defend iraqis, the same way i defend Americans. But TERRORISTS are another story. TERRORISTS are fucked up. These guys just used the prison abuse as an excuse to do what they would do anyway. The big problem with this war is, ok, terrorists will do whatever they do, BUT now we are in the Middle East and fucking it up, they can point to us and say SEE we did it because of them. But really they're doing it because of themselves. Kos says exactly what I think:

So what does the Berg murder tell us? That the prison torture scandal led to the killing? Not even close. Terrorists (and al-Zarqawi is undoubtedly one) don't need such excuses to do their dirty work.

The lesson is that not finishing the job in Afghanistan and invading Iraq with no good rationale gave Al Qaida and similar groups time to catch their breath, reorganize, and direct their efforts against a conveniently near target -- Iraq. This is the neocon "flypaper" theory in all its glory. It's working. The neocons WANTED it this way.

And they got it. Congratulations.

And in the process, the killing of thousands of innocent men, women and children by errant American bombs, artillery shells, mortars, and bullets have swelled the recruiting offices of every militia and terrorist organization in the Mideast, in and out of Iraq. Congrats with that as well. You can't have flypaper if you don't have an enemy shooting at you. So we energized our existing enemies and gave rise to new ones who didn't seem to understand that "collateral damage" is acceptable in war.

And the abuse of Iraqi prisoners -- up to 90 percent of which could be innocent according to the Red Cross -- just added fuel to the fire.

So no, the prison abuse didn't cause Berg's horrific murder. Bush's (inept) War, in all its glory, did. The Neocon agenda, in all its folly, did. The war cheerleaders now trying to use this for propaganda purposes, in all their idiocy, did.

Congrats. Your war spirals ever out of control. Good luck trying to wash the blood out of your hands.

I do think in the end the Iraqi people will be driven to commit desperate acts. Because many, many innocent Iraqi people are dying too. Problem is terrorism is a crime, not a war, but we fight it like a war, instead of a crime.