I agree that Mr. Berg's videotaped beheading was quite shocking, but as others on this thread have pointed out, we humans have been committing atrocities against each other (not to mention generally going to war -- declared or not, justified or not -- and just plain behaving behaving badly in big ways and small) for a long time now.

[rant on/] And why is it that our fear, pity and outrage is reserved for American deaths? Less than a month ago, Fabrizio Quattrocchi -- an Italian hostage -- had his head blown off on video, and I don't recall much coverage of this in the US media. To be cold-blooded about it, I didn't even see anything in the media about our opportunity to strengthen our argument to the Italian public that the perpetrators of that murder are part of a group that the US military and its allies (no matter how reluctant) are in Iraq to neutralize. Do we all truly feel that only American lives/deaths "count"?[/rant off]

Whew. Anyway, I think Donne had it right -- "No man is an island ... and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee". I grieve for Mr. Berg's family and friends(I grew up near Philly, too) and can only hope that we all continue to strive to leave the world a better place than we found it.