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Baghdadâs view on Korean beheading: he deserved it
...On the streets of Baghdad, there was little sympathy for South Korean Kim Sun-Il, beheaded by his captors and dumped on the road between Baghdad and Fallujah.Abu Zaman, a 53-year-old driver, was blunt on the fate of the 33-year-old evangelical Christian: "He deserved it. I object to beheading, but if he was co-operating with the Americans he made a bad decision." ...In Baghdad, most ordinary Iraqis criticise beheading as offensive to Islam, but they draw distinctions between the different victims - American Nicholas Berg was the least deserving of their sympathy because of his Jewishness; and for them, Paul Johnson, the Saudi victim, had died in another crisis in another country. Ziad Omar, a 46-year-old unemployed postal worker, said: "If [Mr Kim] was working for a company that supplies the Americans then he was guilty." Saad Latief, a 36-year-old English literature graduate, was shocked on moral and religious grounds; and Alan Enwia, an interpreter about the same age as Mr Kim, argued the beheadings had to be seen in the context of Iraqi suffering. Asked if Iraqis were talking about the killing, he said: "Not much. It is ugly, but deep inside we are hurting and if you have to carry a heavy weight it doesnât matter if someone puts a little more on your back."... The reactions of Iraqis are troubling. We have lost 900 American GIâs trying to help these losers. Whatâs the point? Posted by: rex 2004-06-23 |
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