Today, video showing the gruesomely beheading of an American was posted on an al-Quaeda-linked website. The nominal justification for the murder was the abuses of prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison. Once again, terrorists have ceded the moral high ground by committing acts even worse than those they criticize other for.

The pathetic nature of this act will only become more obvious as the Americans who perpetrated the abuse in the prison are punished by court martials and civilian courts. It will become only more clear that it is the terrorists who have no interest in justice as they launch their cowardly attacks innocents without having made the slightest effort to bring actual criminals to justice.

I don't call terrorists cowards as easily as some--those who risk their own lives for their causes, misguided though they by, do not seem cowardly. But those who attack easy targets who have nothing to do with the acts they claim to be avenging are the worst kind of cowards. (Just to be clear, when terrorists do give their lives for their causes, those who send them off to die while making every effort to keep themselves from danger are cowards too).

I hope that the world will see how pathetic these people are, and will be re-energized in the fight against terrorists.