12 Year Old Taliban Boy Beheads Man on Video

A few years back, the horrific videos of Islamic terrorists sawing off the heads of kidnapped hostages on video had the Internet abuzz. Eventually, though, the tactic lost its shock value and it seemed to backfire, causing disgust among the Muslim populations who had otherwise been sympathetic to the Islamist cause.

Indeed, there were so many that I’d forgotten the names of most of the victims, even those about whom I’d posted at the time. Nick Berg. Kim Sun-il. Keith Maupin. Raja Azad and Sajad Naeem. Murat Yuce. Paul Johnson. Georgi Lazov and Ivaylo Kepov. Three unnamed Turkish hostages. Eugene Armstrong. Jack Hensley. Barea Nafea Dawoud Ibrahim. Three unnamed members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party. Twelve Nepalese hostages. Jamal Tewefic Salman. Mohammed Fawzi Abdaal Mutwalli. Kenneth Bigley. Imad Jabouri. Salvatore Santoro. Margaret Hassan. Shosei Koda. Luqman Hussein and Maher Kemal. Jassim Mohammed Hussein Mahdi. Ronald Schulz. Tom Fox. Four Russian diplomats. Three Iraqi “Wolf Brigade” commandos. Kristian Menchaca and Thomas Tucker. Not to mention several hoaxes and dozens of hostages threatened with beheading who were eventually released or rescued. The incidents were so frequent that they became a blur.

Rusty Shackleford now reports on a variation on the theme that will outrage even the most jaded.

How bad are the Taliban? I thought I had seen horrible videos produced by al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other Islamist organizations. I’d seen the depth of their depravity when they beheaded Daniel Pearl. Experienced what I thought was the highest form of righteous indignation possible when they murdered dozens of other hostages. Felt like I knew what wrath was.

None of it even comes close. The images we posted earlier were bad. Add video and sound of a child—a child–slowly hacking away at a man’s head while he lives on…..no words can describe it.

I don’t need to watch snuff films to comprehend the “true face of our enemies” or to understand “why we fight” and “why we must win.” But the video and plenty of photos are available at the link for those otherwise inclined.

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. Triumph says:

    I don’t need to watch snuff films to comprehend the “true face of our enemies” or to understand “why we fight” and “why we must win.”

    This should cause Bush critics to re-think their opposition to his leadership.

    Our quest to stop the Taliban’s barbarity is precisely why we invaded Iraq.

  2. Eneils Bailey says:

    I watched a couple of these things….
    To treat human life as a simple pox upon a demented political system and and barbaric religious belief lowers you to the depths of absolute human existence. I would not treat rodentia that way. I would collect them up and call for proper disposal.
    Seems as though acts like this lost its disgusting significance on the far left when the MSM and the far left went out to declare George W. Bush’s WOT simply was to kill innocent people and conquer the world for oil resources and rack up up the number of human lives lost on a tote board in the Oval Office.
    So, the fight is not one here against Islamnic barbarianism, but a political fight here at home. People equating ridding the world of George W. Bush is better than ridding the world of terrorism and a belief that freedom and liberty is not not enforced with the sharp edge of a big hatchet or knife.
    Maybe, just maybe, when these people are over here, which they have been before, killing your families and relatives you will realize what used to seem like centuries of separation is now only a 12 to 15 hour plane flight away.

    To all you lefty’s, who think negotiating with Islanmic terrorist’ s is better than supporting a universal fight against them, tell Larry and Moe, I said Hi.
    Nyuck, Nyuck, Nyuck…..

  3. Tlaloc says:

    Rusty Shackleford now reports on a variation on the theme that will outrage even the most jaded.

    I guess I’m uber-jaded then because I’m not outraged. Sickened, certainly.

    What outrages me are the atrocities *we* commit. Not only because they are often of a much larger scale, but also because I am implicated by them by the taxes I pay. That’s what really gets to me.

    EB:

    To treat human life as a simple pox upon a demented political system and and barbaric religious belief lowers you to the depths of absolute human existence.

    Oh please. And I suppose us using white phosphorus to crisp up some kids in Fallujah was the height of civility. Want to see the pics?

    To all you lefty’s, who think negotiating with Islanmic terrorist’ s is better than supporting a universal fight against them, tell Larry and Moe, I said Hi.
    Nyuck, Nyuck, Nyuck…..

    So now that you know the US military can and has done far worse you’re against the war, right? Cause otherwise you’d be just another hypocritical right wing tool…

    Just saying, is all.

  4. Eneils Bailey says:

    So now that you know the US military can and has done far worse you’re against the war, right?

    Oh, yes Sir!

    You have convinced me, using sources that CNN or NBC NEWS would never dare use(Information Clearing House) because they are too reputable has me re-considering every political decision I have ever made.

    So, when is George Bush planning the next attack on mainland America?

    Tladoc, do you think he has my house targeted tonight? Maybe, I should stay home tonight. The cat does not go out till you send me the all clear sign.

    Tlaldoc, you are more of a nut that me. I have always considered myself on the edge, but you have slipped off and into a free fall.

  5. Patricia Brandenmaier says:

    I am angry, too, but at the people who armed these people to the teeth, 20-30 years ago, giving them permission to kill, and told them, “God is on your side!” I remember Zbigniew Brewzinski, over in Afghanistan, wagging a pudgy pink finger in the faces of these uneducated, single-minded zealots and exhorting them, including their young sons, to pick up the weapons supplied them by “Charlie Wilson’s War” and kill, kill, kill, because “God is on your side!” He sounded like a bad imitation of Billy Sunday, but it played well to the unsophisticated audience, and he knew it. I am not surprised that we have children beheading their perceived enemies. We had a hand in this, “My Friends.” The evil that Mssrs. Wilson, Reagan, North, Bush et al dreamed up and funded is going to be paying cheerful little dividends like this for generations to come. Yesterdays “freedom fighters” are the Taliban, and Zbig couldn’t see that coming? I hear he’s left Hillary’s campaign and is now advising Obama.

  6. lunacy says:

    The child is not using any of the weapons supplied by Reagan or Brewzinski or Bush or North or Mssr Wilson.

    And neither Reagan nor Bush nor North nor Brewzinski taught any of them to “kill the infidel”.

    Do you recall what the communists were doing to the Afghans at the time? Do you recall the history or Soviet meddling in Afghanistan, which was stable from the 30s to the 70s?

    Please avail yourself of the internet and learn some history of Soviet interference and the Leninist purges of elites and intellectuals in Afghanistan by the Soviet backed government. Learn about the sovietization, brain drain and property seizures that were the beginning of the end of what was, for 50 years, a stable nation.

    See:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Republic_of_Afghanistan

    https://www.vedamsbooks.com/no38468.htm

    Indeed, we left a power vacuum. And indeed, we trained Taliban friendly mujahadeen. But we didn’t give them their ideology. And we didn’t teach them how and when to decapitate people.

    Helping the Afghan’s fight the communists was not our sin. Abandoning them afterwards was.

    Let’s not do the same in Iraq.

    L

  7. Eneils Bailey says:

    lunacy,

    Good response,
    The left continues to believe we have corrupted the world.
    If you can abide by their logic, England, France, and Western Europe would have become the most despotic places in the world to live, post WWII.

    What outrages me are the atrocities *we* commit.

    Yeah, and if proved to violate our laws, they are punished. Our laws are not enforced to punish people or groups to satisfy your political beliefs.

    Indeed, we left a power vacuum.

    Yes, goes to Viet Nam, Cambodia, and several places in Africa and the Middle East. The self-loathing of yourself and the US is based upon their political perspective.

  8. mannning says:

    This Tlaloc person is running in a circle. The Islamics commit an atrocity, and his answer is, well, we committed atrocities too! This excuses the Islamics from one set of atrocities so they can commit others…which are excused by saying we committed atrocities in 1904, remember?

    This insane logic, which is never really substantiated on the US past side of the circle, and is never shown to be our fully vetted religion, fervor, intent or desire (unlike the Islamic jihadists), must be self-hatred of immense proportions, coupled with delusional tendencies.

    There is an inability shown here to sort out and weigh correctly the vastly different occurrences of atrocities in the West from the Mid East. There is a vast difference in scale, frequency, malevolent intent, organization, and official blessing between the two sides. Plus, there is an obvious misinformation tactic employed to dress up the West’s failings and dress down the Mid East’s, i.e. to excuse them.

    In my view, what Tlaloc has written puts him in the same category as apologists for Islamic terrorism. Perhaps that is intentional.

  9. davod says:

    “Oh please. And I suppose us using white phosphorus to crisp up some kids in Fallujah was the height of civility. Want to see the pics?”

    Oh please yourself. The pics were refuted some time ago.

    White phosphorus is used to mark the location of targets.

  10. Anon says:

    Tlaloc, let’s assume that there were some civilian deaths due to use of WP. There is no moral equivalence.

    As a moderate liberal, I cringe whenever I read something like Tlaloc’s post. It just gives ammunition to those who wish to label any criticism of Bush’s handling of the Iraq War as “appeasement”, “surrender”, “treason”, etc.

  11. Bandit says:

    The incredible thing is the left in America and the Taliban and AQ all have the same enemies.

  12. Grewgills says:

    The incredible thing is the left in America and the Taliban and AQ all have the same enemies.

    Just as incredible and just as illuminating (which is to say not at all) the Taliban, AQ, and the American Right share many of the same opinions on social issues (homosexual rights, the place of religion in government, etc) as well as sharing many of the same enemies (Europe, social liberals, etc).

  13. mannning says:

    If we have a Leftist government after November, it is devoutly to be hoped that later on the nation can be salvaged subsequent to the ravages of these insane moonbats.

    Instead of strengthening the family, they help to sunder it.
    Instead of educating our children they pass out condoms.
    Instead of winning a war, they cut and run just as it is making good headway.
    Instead of helping unborn babies, they kill them.
    Instead of promoting self-reliance they promote dependence on the government.
    Instead of keeping government to a reasonable size, they expand it at every turn to meet newly invented needs no one needed in the last 200 years.
    Instead of supporting religion, they attack it, especially Christianity, and attempt to make it invisible in the public eye.
    Instead of reaching for a balanced budget, they vote for massive new government spending and earmarks.

    You get the picture! We will have an enormous cleanup to do after their messes. I just hope none of their stupidities are irreversible.
    Don’t you?

  14. anjin-san says:

    The left continues to believe we have corrupted the world.

    Enis,

    What utter tripe. No one on the left believes this, except in your imagination. What some on the left do think, is that we should take a harder look at the wrongs we have committed, and perhaps try and work harder at putting our own house in order instead of taking the comic book view of the world which holds that only our enemies commit evil acts.

  15. anjin-san says:

    Instead of reaching for a balanced budget,

    You mean like Bush has done for 7 years? What is this, comedy night?

  16. mannning says:

    Well, Mr. anjin-san, yes, it is comedy year. Once every four years we all get to air our grievances and vote for some party that might help us out of our misery. We have had a bad 7 years on the score of fiscal responsibility, so I am looking hopefully at McCain to bring some sanity to the process.

    Remember, anjin-san, that the Leftists voted for those expenditures with great alacrity, even unto raising the amounts proposed. So the Left gets terrible marks for fiscal responsibility also.

    What I am sure of is that either Obama or Clinton would totally outspend any Republican President or Congress.

    Then, too, they would legislate the Leftist agenda into being, which will injure our next generations irreparably. Realism is not the long suit of Leftists.

  17. Tlaloc says:

    Oh please yourself. The pics were refuted some time ago.

    White phosphorus is used to mark the location of targets.

    Refuted, gee maybe by right wing blogs who also “refute” global warming, evolution, and so on? Has there been a credible party who has refuted them?

    As for WP being used to mark targets apparently you missed that the pentagon *admitted* they had used WP as a weapon, after denying the same:

    see here

  18. Tlaloc says:

    Tlaloc, let’s assume that there were some civilian deaths due to use of WP. There is no moral equivalence.

    Why not? In *both* cases there is wanton destruction of innocents. So what exactly makes it okay when we do it?

    Beyond that though, there doesn’t have to be a moral equivalence. I absolutely hold the people who act in my name to a higher standard than anyone else.