El Greko - your first post is a masterpiece, I applaud you for your calm and well reasoned piece which stands out like a beacon against some of the OTT stuff here.
I'm desperately saddened but not at all surprised by this killing, and by the manner of execution. I feel for him, his terror and suffering, and for the suffering of his family and friends. And I feel the same for all human beings who have suffered as a result of the actions of both the terrorists and those who claim to wage war on terror. A death is a death and it hurts the same, irrespective of which side of the fence you're sitting on.
The fact is that the killing of this young man, its method and recording, was done deliberately to create the kind of internal conflict amongst 'Westerners' that we've seen in this thread. Whatever the aims of Al Q'aeda are (and I for one am not absolutely clear on that because they seem to change as time goes by) they know that they cannot bring them about by straightforward force of arms, so they commit their atrocities in order to foment unrest within the nations they perceive as their enemies. The strategy is already working well - they sucked the US and UK into two vastly expensive, unjustified and unwinnable 'wars', they changed the course of the Spanish election and brought the Goverment down, and they may very soon bring about the downfall of the US President and the UK Government. Not bad for a bunch of 'Subhumans' (not my word BTW - I only use it to indicate a sense of irony).
We ('The West', whatever you like to call it) have chosen the wrong path at every turn. We gave the terrorists (Al Q'aeda, whoever) and their associate organisations the excuse for the USS Cole, 9/11, Madrid et al, and we're still doing it.
And what next? What if the Coalition forces (as is being demanded by many, including a significant number of Mudcatters) withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq, and persuade Israel to get the hell out of Palestine? Does anyone really believe that Osama and his band of Good Ole Buddies will pack it in, go back to their Oases and spend the rest of their days racing camels to entertain themselves, or that Iraq will miraculously be renewed as a peaceful Garden of Eden for its dreadfully ill-treated people? Like the jungle tiger who raids the village, 'they' have tasted human flesh and they like it - they won't go away, they'll just find another set of 'aims', another 'cause', more 'demands' to justify their atrocities.
We've dug a big hole, filled it with our own excrement, and dived head-first into it. God help us, someone has to. IMOH.