Trophies of Death

Rusty Shackleford at The Jawa Report has a post up which describes how Al Qaeda is now using graphic art images of beheadings in its propaganda and recruiting. It's disgusting. Evidently, Al Qaeda targets its propaganda and recruiting at people who are personally ingratiated by the beheading of another human being.

I'm no expert, but it seems that about the only other groups since the dawn of civilization who considered severed heads to be desirable trophies were primitive tribes in the tropics of South America, Africa, and some South Pacific Islands. The practice alone indicates a primitive mentality that honors only barbarism. This uncivilized worship of the severed head has arguably been best encapsulated and illustrated by the fiction of William Golding in Lord Of The Flies. In the novel, an isolated society ruled by thugs worships the severed head of a pig.

Take a look at the images here. They're stylized representations, which might make them less objectionable to the general Muslim public, but it doesn't make them less ugly.