The English Teacher

As we witness our irreconcilable party of bitterness and defeat retreat from our shared comity through their eagerness to pillory our troops and equate our enemies as, in the words of Chris Matthews of MSNBC, "a rival, I mean they're not bad guys especially, just people who just disagree with us," we are reminded on the same day of the depravity they champion.

We are reminded by an execution a woman at the hands of animals. A woman whose video-taped execution was termed "too upsetting" to be viewed by Al-Jazerra. Too upsetting to be viewed? This from an Arab institution that has no qualms about airing in an endless loop war footage of shootings in mosques? That displays the dismembered remains of Americans hung like slabs of meat on bridges? From whence comes this new found daintiness and delicacy in an institution that both before and after this footage will be only too pleased to wallow in blood and offal?

May I suggest that it is too upsetting not because of the content, but because of what it reveals about the corrupted souls of our enemy, the friends and primary audience of Al-Jazerra. It is too "upsetting" because it does not advance the aspriations of Islamic jihad, but shows all too vividly what this religious disease looks like inside its rotted interior.

The video of this woman's slaughter, placed next to the beheading video of Nick Berg and the mass executions of children in Beslan, completes the trifecta of terror.

Last July, I wrote:

Our unluckiest citizens have had their heads severed from their bodies as pilot episodes of what promises to be a long running reality television series in which American heads are held up, to our horror and for the delight of those many millions that support those that take the heads. The message beyond this madness is that they would be pleased to extend this television series to 300 million beheadings in which each of us would have his "star" turn. Our enemy has not yet taken a woman or a child for a beheading, but both clearly on their programming schedule. -- American Digest: The Sacrifice and the Reckoning

This was written early last July. And now we are there. And it is only the very beginning. All this, and fresh horrors yet unknown except in the insect minds of those we fight, will be repeated and repeated until so common they are unworthy of comment at all, or until those that commit and relish them are expunged.

Who was Mrs. Hassan, the woman kidnapped, tortured for weeks and finally killed yesterday? There have been thousands of stories about her background published, but in the end, this from a young Iraqi woman in Baghdad, is the single brief testament that answers "Who was she?"

She was my English teacher

In the memory of my teacher and a fellow aid worker colleague Mrs. M. Hassan

Mrs. Hassan was my English teacher in The British Council in Baghdad in Al-Wazirya district, I remember her years ago with her Irish accent telling me it's not Important how many words I must learn but the pronunciation of the words I already knew must be perfected.

Mrs. Hassan speak s perfect Arabic and she has a heart of gold, she's been kidnapped today killed by (men in pajamas), turn Iraq upside down and save her find them.

-- Baghdad Dweller » Blog Archive » She was my English teacher

Late yesterday evening, my wife finally came home from an exceedingly long day at work. As she walked towards the door I said, as husbands will, "At last. How was your day?"

She paused and looked at me, "I'm not complaining. I wasn't killed for doing my job. I wasn't killed."

Posted by Vanderleun at November 17, 2004 1:09 PM