The three hostages

Some readers of my blog may be aware that I took my online name from a novel by John Buchan, although not the one entitled The Three Hostages.

If we believe the press, then three hostages have recently been killed by beheading - James Foley, Steven Sotloff, and David Haines.  In each case the killer is supposedly an ISIS combatant from the United Kingdom who is known to the press as Jihadi John.

It has already been pointed out that the videos which purport to show the beheadings of these three men do not necessarily show any such thing.  Likewise one national newspaper is publishing a photo of a woman holding up a severed head.  As the severed head is obscured by a black rectangle, however, I cannot know for certain that she is not in fact holding up her new handbag.  As she is wearing a burqa, I cannot even be sure who she is.  The person holding up the severed head (or handbag) could in fact be a man wearing a burqa.

When Britain entered the First World War illegally in 1914, it was reported that German soldiers in Belgium were murdering babies.  It is now widely accepted that this was never true.  When Britain entered the Second World War illegally in 1939, it was not widely reported that the British government was effectively supporting the genocide of ethnic Germans in the Danzig corridor, even though it was true.

I do not know what exactly is going on in either Syria or Iraq because I am not convinced that I can trust what is reported in the press, and because I can have no confidence in what I am told by either the British or American governments.

Maybe these three hostages are dead, but equally they may be still alive.  If they are dead, then their deaths may not be recent, and may not be the work of ISIS.  Can anyone think of a reason why the so-called beheading videos should not have been produced by the American government?