"They Preferred To Kill Him"

It is impossible to overstate the presumptive entitlements of people in the most impossible of dreadful situations who yet claim that though they or theirs have done irreparable wrong to society, committing the most odious of human acts, they deserve sympathy and compensation for their irreplaceable losses.

It is just as well to believe that the loss of the life of Mohamed Merah is irreplaceable, but it is not. He may be gone to his Maker (who may in full distaste for what the man represents, disown him, so much for martyrdom and Paradise and countless Virgins), but there are more where he came from. Men full of hatred and assumed grievances that consume them to the point of requiring emotional release that can only come at the cost of death to innocent others.

Mohamed Merah was a special breed. Just as well there are not legions of them, otherwise the world would become a charnel house. But there are enough of his type ambulatory and seeking their opportunity to trigger an event of carnage with enough blood spilled and horror evinced by the community that will guarantee him his moment of fame and celebration in jihadist circles, bringing further infamy to al-Qaeda.

So proud of what he meant to accomplish, and indeed did; the valorous act of redeeming Islam and defending poor innocent Palestinian children from the oppressive presence of Israeli military who seek to hold back the tide of suicide missions meant to destroy Jewish children, that he was eager to have his video of point-blank shooting young Jewish children displayed in all its glory and gore for all to admire in the jihadi blogosphere.

"In accordance with Al-Jazeera's code of ethics, given the video does not add any information that is not already in the public domain, its news channels will not be broadcasting any of its contents", was the announcement from the Qatar-based network. How noble a response to the demand by Nicolas Sarkozy that they refrain from showing the monster's footage.

But, then, another issue has erupted for France to deal with. Mohamed Benalel Merah, the piously grieving father of Mohamed Merah, who threatens France with a lawsuit for dispatching his child, tells another story yet again of the place of Algerians in French society. Assimilation is not for them; assassination more their style, for those Muslims who dare to assimilate, and for those Jews who handily present themselves as unknowing victims.

His pain of loss of a son whose vicious murders shocked a nation and the international community has precedence over any normal human being's shocked horror that one of his sons would commit such unforgivable atrocities. As a values judgement, symptomatic of preferences and allegiance, it is understandable that the apple fell very close to the tree that bore it.

The mother, married to a second man, this one whose son is imprisoned as an al-Qaeda operative, so that the sympathies of the family as a whole, and that branch in particular lead inexorably to a drama whose conclusion took the headlines of the world's news by storm. And now, Mohamed Benalel Merah insists on retribution from a government whose authorities preferred to kill the mad dog rather than take him alive....

Would that they had, in actual fact.