Where's the outrage?

Via Pandagon, I see that apparently a blogger named Vodkapundit (whom I have never read until just a few minutes ago) has decided that insufficient outrage has been expressed over today's beheading of an American citizen at the hands of Al Qaeda.

Well, for one thing, it seems to me that he might wait a bit for the outrage. I mean, I didn't even learn about this incident until I got home from work around 4:00, and even then, blogging wasn't the top thing on my plate, and even considering all that, I rarely blog an emotion the second I feel it. (Regular readers will note that I have yet to say anything about the business in the Iraqi prisons, mainly because there's damned little that I can say that hasn't been said by anyone else. The world just doesn't need one more blogger expressing sorrow and disappointment in our leaders, in whom I would really rather feel pride and admiration.)

But my larger point is this: I'm not really outraged by this. At least, not in the sense of being shocked by this event. Sad to say, but the murder of hostages really doesn't strike me as something unexpected from Al Qaeda. Nor is there a sense of disappointment, in the way I'm keenly disappointed in our own leaders for allowing the Iraqi prison abuse to happen. Let's face it, folks: Al Qaeda can do many things, but they have long since lost the ability to disappoint me.

So what do I feel about this? Anger, mostly -- fierce anger at these cowards who strike a pose in their video as if to say, "Look at us, the Big! Bad! Militant! Terrorists!", who don't even have the guts to pose without hoods. And there's a bit of hatred toward that small subset of Islam that has allowed such people to find each other, feed off each other, and pool their disgusting resources for their own disgusting ends that I suspect have far less to do with furthering the will of Allah and far more to do with just a bunch of guys getting kicks off murdering people (Americans preferred, generic Westerners acceptable).

I don't know if that qualifies as "outrage", but it seems to me that "outrage" better describes what I feel about us acting like the bad guys than what I feel about the bad guys acting like the bad guys.