Alaa recognizes the animalistic murder of Nick Berg well. He and his people lived through it:

Throughout the reign of the Baath party and particularly the Saddam era, it was customary to suffer periodic atrocities carefully planned and imaginatively variable to keep the people terrified all the time. It was considered necessary not to leave the people too long without some thing awful to keep them intimidated properly. The Baathists were masters of the “Terreur”, and it was the essential means of their hold on power. In fact what we see now is something rather similar. It is a similar technique; they are trying to intimidate both the Iraqi people first but mainly the western people. They will stop at nothing. You must understand that this is their only expertise; their sole training and method and way of thinking.

This is rule of the strong, existence to consume and dominate, in its naked, practical horror. This is what citizens of dictatorships face in some degree daily, from what Iraqis are struggling to free themselves with our help, and what will surely follow home an American retreat. Read it for yourself.