When did the beheadings begin?

I’ve just been listening to an interesting interview on MPR’s Midday Program with Dr. Steve Miles. He’s recently written a book about how doctors co-operated with military interrogators in the abusive prisons of the war on terror. The treatment of these prisoners was dictated by the Bush Administration, which turned its back on the Geneva Conventions.

Among the many interesting observations Miles made was this. In response to the question that our strong-arm tactics were justified in dealing with an enemy that beheaded their captives, Miles said that the first documented beheading came eleven days after Abu Ghraib hit the news. Before that most of the American captives had been able to escape or walk away from their captors. Few if any have escaped since.