bobad: "A little different sentiment from "cut off the head of the infidel""

Nah, come on, it's all the same old stuff. The guys who march off to battle for 'flag and country' or for 'God and country' (while God grinds His teeth and rolls His eyes meantime) are no different from the Arab guy who probably genuinely believes he is making the world a better place by killing a few infidels (those who don't believe in Allah, or have a sense of the sacred. Remember that 'infidel' means 'non-believer' literally) It's the same as people who believed that they were doing a good thing clearing the world of witches, or communists or terrorists as the case may be and the paradigm of the time. The phrase "For God and Country" has a nice to ring to it, but it really meant (and still means) "find the enemy - the guy you don't like - and riddle his body with bullets, or blow him to pieces with the largest bombs you can throw at him, and when he's totally annihalated, dance on his grave"

By the way, regarding lopping off heads:
Americans were horrified when Iraqis lopped the heads off some guys they'd kidnapped, not only because they'd killed them, but because of the way they'd killed them (beheading). In fact, beheading was used all over the world as a means of execution right up to recently. Some countries (such as Saudi Arabia, a US ally of sorts) still do it. It's a fairly quick death if done properly, though I still wouldn't like to try it myself - I'd prefer to die at home in bed at peace, of course. But I also certainly wouldn't like to die in the electric chair or gas chamber, both methods of execution still used in the USA, and which horrify Arabs. The electric chair isn't even famous for being particularly fast.