Fearless and searching...

There are really no talking points, or quick off the cuff remarks one can make about the barbaric beheading of Nicholas Berg. One can only watch in stupified wonder as events unfold in Iraq. Even as we witness this atrocity, we have to remember that it is not connected to revelations of US abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Grahib prison. They say it is, but they are lying. The maniacs that cut his head off would have committed this crime eventually no matter what. For them, it is only a matter of timing the atrocity.

We also have to remember that this act does not exonerate the US of its responsibility for the systematic abuse of the very people we are supposedly trying to liberate. The two aren't related. I say that very, very mindful that as yet, the abuse suffered by the prisoners in Abu Grahib pales in comparison to that suffered by Nick Berg. It doesn't matter. I know it would be easy to say, "See, see what they do? You have to play rough with rough people." But we cannot legitimately claim the moral high ground if we do not truly occupy it. Torturing mistakenly arrested prisoners, as was documented in this Red Cross Report on prison abuses in occupied Iraq, means that we automatically abandon the high moral ground. It means we have met the enemy, and he is us, Nick Berg or no Nick Berg.

It might also be tempting, at least to those on the right, to point to Berg's murder and blame the messenger - The media and whining liberals and their "anti-american" agenda". Some say that Nick Berg's death was abetted by the So Called Liberal Media and the traitors on the left that continue to make hay over Abu Grahib. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., said: "I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment." But this would be a mistake. In this case, the media is performing a valuable service. It is holding up the mirror and showing us the road to hell we are in the process of paving. Unless those on the right and the left equally deplore the treatment of prisoners, while being grateful for the transparency that allows us to examine it as a nation, we may yet finsh the job.

We must despise the acts of the criminals that killed Berg while engaging in a fearless and searching moral inventory of our actions in Iraq. It will not be easy to contain our rage as we walk through this process as a nation. But this is the only way to truth. While I blame no one but the criminals for sawing of the head of Nick Berg and believe they must be brought to justice, I also acknowledge that Berg would not be in Iraq if George Bush had not lead us off the cliff and into war. We would not see the kinds of systematic abuses of power in Iraq if the administration had not built them into the system - our system - first in the Patriot Act, then in Guantonomo Bay and finally in Iraq.