Mark Steyn, Uncensored

Via Michelle Malkin, I learned that Mark Steyn's column on the beheading of British hostage Kenneth Bigley was pulled by the Daily Telegraph. It's an unsentimental look at the British government's reaction to Bigley's death. Steyn writes:

"Today, for the first time in all my years with the Telegraph Group, I had a column pulled. The editor expressed concerns about certain passages and we were unable to reach agreement, so on this Tuesday something else will be in my space."

Key paragraphs:

"By contrast with the Fleet Street-Scouser-Whitehall fiasco of the last three weeks, consider Fabrizio Quattrocchi, murdered in Iraq on April 14th. In the moment before his death, he yanked off his hood and cried defiantly, 'I will show you how an Italian dies!' He ruined the movie for his killers. As a snuff video and recruitment tool, it was all but useless, so much so that the Arabic TV stations declined to show it.

"If the FCO wants to issue advice in this area, that’s the way to go: If you’re kidnapped, accept you’re unlikely to survive, say 'I’ll show you how an Englishman dies', and wreck the video. If they want you to confess you’re a spy, make a little mischief: there are jihadi from Britain, Italy, France, Canada and other western nations all over Iraq – so say yes, you’re an MI6 agent, and so are those Muslims from Tipton and Luton who recently joined the al-Qaeda cells in Samarra and Ramadi. As Churchill recommended in a less timorous Britain: You can always take one with you. If Mr Blair and other government officials were to make that plain, it would be, to use Mr Bigley’s word, 'enough'. A war cannot be subordinate to the fate of any individual caught up in it."

The entire column is well worth your time.