Film review
American engineer Paul M. Johnson, 49, is shown in a still from a video made by his al-Qaeda captors last month in Saudi Arabia before they beheaded him after the Saudi government refused to meet their demands. The video of his beheading is finally making its rounds on the Internet. At the time of Johnson's slaying, al-Qaeda released a statement proclaiming that Johnson "got his fair treatment" because he worked on Apache attack helicopter systems for Lockheed Martin. "Let him taste something of what Muslims have long tasted from Apache helicopter fire and missiles," the statement read. Johnson's body has yet to be recovered and on Thursday the United States called off its search for it, reports The Associated Press.
Paul Johnson beheading video
That's what the people want to see. You can watch a version of it here.
Last month I posted stills from the Johnson beheading video, much to my readers' shock. (I took some shit for it, so shortly thereafter I posted stills from the Nicholas Berg beheading video, too. Tell me I'm bad and I'll be even worse.) Anyway, for some reason, the video of Johnson's beheading hadn't been available until now.
For those of you who are too squeamish to watch the newly released Johnson beheading video, I'll briefly describe it. Johnson appears to be already dead, or perhaps drugged unconscious, because he doesn't struggle while he is decapitated with a large knife. His head is held aloft briefly and then laid atop his body. (They do this in all of the beheading videos; it's predictable now, kind of like how in porn flicks things predictably start off with oral sex, then advance to intercourse, and then the big climax.)
Because Johnson appears to be dead already, the video looks more like a butcher at work than an execution. Perhaps I've watched too many beheading videos, but I don't find the Johnson beheading video all that disturbing. It's gross, yeah, but it's not nearly as disturbing as the Berg beheading video, even with any desensitization to beheading videos on my part corrected for.
I'm not glad that Johnson was murdered, but as beheading videos go, I give the Johnson beheading video a thumbs down. And the background music, what sounds like an Arabic man singing some Arabic song -- amateurish. It doesn't inspire horror, like a good horror-movie soundtrack does. These terrorists needs some Hollywood professionals for their future productions.
Note: The Associated Press reports that "The [Johnson beheading] video, which [runs] almost two minutes and [includes] images of tanks and destroyed homes apparently in Iraq, [carries] the title 'The Voice of Jihad: Get the Infidels Out of the Arabian Peninsula.'" The version of the video I link to above shows just the beheading and lasts only 31 seconds. I have not yet seen the full video. While I don't agree with hostage-taking and hostage-slaying, I don't find the Muslim fundamentalists' desire for non-Muslims ("infidels") to get out of Muslim lands to be unreasonable. It's their fucking land.
8:37:23 PM 
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