The lead editorial in the Dallas Morning News today features a doctored photo of the

Islamist terrorist brandishing the severed head of Nick Berg. We blacked out

the head itself out of respect for the dead man’s family and the

sensitivities of our readers, but we thought it extremely important that the

public see this photo. Why? As I wrote in the editorial:

Publishing this photo in no way justifies what happened in Abu Ghraib, nor does it lessen America’s responsibility to bring those responsible for perpetrating those acts to justice, and to atone for those wrongs. It is meant to bring perspective to events in Iraq, to refocus the nation’s eyes on the larger picture of the war against radical Islam, and its stakes. Nick Berg was but the latest victim in the terrorist war on civilization. Al-Qaeda doesn’t intend him to be their last. To paraphrase British Prime Minister Tony Blair, al-Qaeda members killed one, but if they could have killed 100,000, they would have rejoiced in it. Look at the photo of what they did to this young Pennsylvanian, and understand that this is why we Americans fight, however imperfectly, and that this is why we dare not lose faith in the justice and necessity of our cause.

Our letters page today is filled with nothing but

Berg-related letters, most of them demanding that the DMN show more photos

of the Berg execution. Not one of the 87 letters we received on the topic

yesterday called for these images not to be printed. My sense is that

there’s a big backlash building against the media for flogging the Abu

Ghraib photos, but being so delicate with the Berg images. People sense that

there’s an agenda afoot here. As somebody, can’t remember who, wrote

yesterday, “Why is it that the media can show over and over again pictures

that could make Arabs hate Americans, but refuse to show pictures that could

make Americans hate Arabs?”