The New York Times reports that an Iraqi insurgent group has released a video on the internet "showing the mutilated bodies of two American soldiers abducted in June and found murdered days later during a search by American and Iraqi forces south of Baghdad. A message with the video says the soldiers were killed out of revenge for the rape and murder of an Iraqi girl in March, a crime in which at least six American soldiers are suspects." One of the soldiers had been beheaded.
At The New Republic, Lawrence Kaplan passes on a shocking report from CNN's Nic Robertson, which details the beheading of a 15-year-old girl, the further details of which I will not share and will warn are upsetting, should you click through. The report, to my understanding, is unconfirmed.
And The Independent reports that, in Afghanistan, the Taliban is using beheadings and other violence to keep schools closed. "The letter pinned overnight to the wall of the mosque in Kandahar was succinct. 'Girls going to school need to be careful for their safety. If we put acid on their faces or they are murdered then the blame will be on their parents.'"
I have no thoughtful commentary, nor can I even engage any bitter sarcasm about "spreading freedom" or the like. All I can really manage is to say how truly, deeply disgusted I am by all of it, how unrelentingly angry I am when I recall the days during which we cast our eyes away from Afghanistan in favor of a war of choice in Iraq, where we were to be greeted as liberators.
(Links via Memeorandum; crossposted at AlterNet PEEK.)
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