Apology Forthcoming?

If causing insult to prisoners is worthy of an apology from the leader of a nation, what is due in the case of the beheading of a civilian contractor trying to fix things? Can we expect that an apology will be forthcoming from Osama bin Laden? Or elsewhere in the Arab world?

I expect it. No, I demand it. Civilized people who oppose barbaric savagery demand it. Arab leaders who wish to be taken seriously must issue an apology to demonstrate some shred of common humanity. If America's prestige has been damaged in the community of nations by the prison scandal, the Arab world surely has been wounded moreso by this atrocity.

I will also expect the left to roundly denounce this crime. It was correct for the left to lead the charge in calling for an apology from our President for the transgressions of our prison guards. It is now time for the left's leaders- Kerry, Kennedy, Daschle, and Mrs. Clinton- to lead in the vocifierous denunciations of this vile act and mindset. Murder is worse than humiliation, so I need louder denunciations for this murder than they had for the humiliations. I need to see from them that they have humanity as their top interest, above their interest in political power.

When the World Trade Center towers were struck, there were those Americans who were calling for the flatting on the Middle East with nuclear weapons. Obviously, that would have been a disproportionate response and an atrocity, to avenge the 3,000 or so lives lost here with hundreds of thousands there. To respond to humiliation with a choreographed murder is such a gross over-reaction as to beg for a downward spiral of vengeance. I am grateful to know in advance that the United States is too civilized to give these subhumans what they deserve.

In the meantime, I will be impatiently expecting a stream of apologies. These would go a long way towards showing me and the rest of the civilized world that mindless revenge isn't a way of life, that vile barbarism is an exception rather the rule, and that the left in this country does not condone it.