Al-Qaeda Video Outshines U.S. Torture

The Washington Administration as well as the U.S. media have begun using the video of the beheading as part of a counter attack to draw attention away from a government under fire for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. Some American television channels have launched broadcasts identifying the violence of Al-Qaeda with Islam.

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was accused of ‘inviting violence’. On the other side, the symbolic name of the Iraqi torture photos, American female Private Lynndie England, has said that her superiors congratulated her for those ‘inhumane poses with the captives’. Former commander of the Iraqi prisons, American Brigadier General Janis Karpinsky said that her predecessor, Geoffrey Miller, wanted her to ‘turn Abu Ghraib into Guantanamo’.

Elsewhere, U.S. President George W. Bush spoke out against the beheading of the American contractor, Nick Berg. He said that nothing could justify this retaliation. He insisted that this was an action meant to shake the US. This would not deter the U.S., said Bush, and they would decisively complete their mission.

On the other side, the family of Berg harshly criticized both the Iraqi Police and the American administration. The family said, "If our son had not been held in custody by the Iraqi police for two weeks, he would have been alive today."

Berg, taken in custody on March 24 by the Iraqi Police, was released on April 6. His father Michael and mother Suzanne said that their son was planning to return to the U.S. at the end of the month. Meanwhile, the U.S. administration in Iraq defends that Berg was not in custody and denied the Family’s accusations.

In the video showing Berg’s beheading, Pakistani Leader Pervez Musarraf was also threatened because of operations against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Meanwhile, English Prime Minister Tony Blair, in his fierce reaction to the video, described the beheading incident as ‘barbaric’.

Meanwhile, Rumsfeld answered questions from U.S. senators and defended that ‘excessive’ military interrogation techniques do not violate international conventions. On the contrary, the Senators argued that those tortures resulted in killing of Berg for ‘revenge’ and that Rumsfeld’s policies fomented these kinds of violent reactions. The Senators cornered Rumsfeld when they inquired about how the handover of the administration in Iraq on June 30 would be possible under these circumstances.