You know, still relatively soon after the event, it's foolish to jump in with confident statements such as implying that Berg was a profiteer, even saying he was stupid. I however am ready to believe he was an innocent guy in the wrong place. Is there proof of that? I don't know. In the incredibly mixed up world that is Iraq at present, the perpetrators could be a splinter group with a room, a videocamera, and access to an uplink. I believe several hard core Islamic fundy organizations went to the trouble of disavowing responsibility.

I think most people come out of this thing with the same views they had going in, only more strident and less prone to compromise.

It does not relate to the prisoner issue, which is entirely separate.

The horror of it all is more than a really nasty beheading video. It's the situation wherein an innocent person is treated as a 'thing' to make suffer, and offered up as a video sacrifice, which makes us feel as we watch it horrified, sad, and somewhat guilty and defiled.