Warning: The article is by no means easy to read... and that makes it so much more important that you do.
Two men drove up in a pick-up truck, asking for her. She appealed to a small crowd that had gathered around her crew but nobody was willing to help her. It was reported at the time that she had been shot dead with her cameraman and sound man.
We now know that it was not that swift for Bahjat. First she was stripped to the waist, a humiliation for any woman but particularly so for a pious Muslim who concealed her hair, arms and legs from men other than her father and brother.
Then her arms were bound behind her back. A golden locket in the shape of Iraq that became her glittering trademark in front of the television cameras must have been removed at some point — it is nowhere to be seen in the grainy film, which was made by someone who pointed a mobile phone at her as she lay on a patch of earth in mortal terror.
By the time filming begins, the condemned woman has been blindfolded with a white bandage.
It is stained with blood that trickles from a wound on the left side of her head. She is moaning, although whether from the pain of what has already been done to her or from the fear of what is about to be inflicted is unclear.
Just as Bahjat bore witness to countless atrocities that she covered for her television station, Al-Arabiya, during Iraq’s descent into sectarian conflict, so the recording of her execution embodies the depths of the country’s depravity after three years of war.
A large man dressed in military fatigues, boots and cap approaches from behind and covers her mouth with his left hand. In his right hand, he clutches a large knife with a black handle and an 8in blade. He proceeds to cut her throat from the middle, slicing from side to side.
Her cries — “Ah, ah, ah” — can be heard above the “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) intoned by the holder of the mobile phone.
Even then, there is no quick release for Bahjat.
Atwar Bahjat was an idealist and a patriot, half Sunni, half Shi'a, a strong and honest woman, who believed that Iraq should and could be made whole. For that, some foul creatures decided she deserved to die an agonizing and shameful death in front of a camera, and then they sent a copy of the video to her family.
Her murder happened weeks ago, just after the attack on Samarra's "Golden Mosque".
Why this has not been mentioned by the Western MSM is beyond me. Where are the cries of outrage for one of their own being brutalized and slaughtered? Where are the cries from Hollywood's elite, from Jimmah Cahtuh, from Hillary Clinton, from "women's rights activists", from anybody not tied to the blogosphere? This act is beyond appalling, it is beyond monstrous, beyond evil, and it seems to still be lying in the back of some closet, ignored and neglected, as if it were some ordinary pair of uncomfortable shoes.
Please follow the link and read the rest of the article, and tell everybody you can think of... This is why we are still there in Iraq. This is why we can not afford to lose.
Update: Ace says, (with linkage back to Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette), that the video is real, but a case of mistaken identity. The victim in the eye of the phone cam is a Nepalese man tortured to death by Muslim terrorists in 2004. This makes the event no less horriffic, and still underscores the nature of our foe in four simple letters: evil.
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