Margaret Hassan executed

I just overheard that she is confirmed dead. I remember hearing that the organized insurgents had avoided kidnapping her because they knew she was on their side, and because they knew that it would be an extremely unpopular thing to do. They said that they didn't know where she was, and believed that she had been taken by a rogue group.

This is very sad. Although I abhor the beheadings, at least there is a political purpose behind most of them. This one served no discernible purpose. She was married to an Iraqi and had lived there for something like 20 years. Kidnapping her didn't put pressure on any government to withdraw troops from the country, and she was well-known enough that they probably knew that.

Presumably she was targeted simply because she was non-arab. In one sense it's nothing compared to the US killing 100,000 Iraqi civilians in this ridiculous war, but I think it's a dangerous road for the Iraqis to go down. Right now, for the most part, they've got the sympathy of the world, but they could lose it easily.