Regarding the recent ISIS beheading videos.

I watched them both.  They both look fake in the same main ways:

• The victim, who knows he is about to get beheaded, calmly delivers the political message of his captors.  What could cause a person to speed to their own death by doing this?  Wouldn't you be better off telling the killer to fag off halfway during each recording attempt?  Perhaps more importantly, why aren't these men crying and pleading?  They sound like they are buying groceries at the local supermarket.  Their pupils are not dilated. Their eyes are not red as if they have been contemplating their fate.  They are not drugged nor do they appear to be in mortal fear of their lives.  If I thought those guys were going to kill me I would be verbally wishing them a Pork Bath and Dirty Virgins.  I would not be delivering their message for them.  Would you?  What would you hope to gain by it?
• The "killer" grabs the "victim" by the head very carefully as if worried about hurting him.
• The killer begins sawing away at the neck with a knife quite feverishly in both cases but especially so in the recent video.  Despite all of this activity there is no blood coming from the neck.  Folks, if someone cuts your carotid artery, there will be blood and lots of it.  In addition the sawing goes on for at least 3-4 seconds and this is especially viewable in the 2nd video where the angle shows the neck very well.  How many strokes would it take from a sharp knife to cut back to the spine?  One, maybe two but not 10-5 strokes like are shown on the videos.  I've gutted a deer before and trust me when I tell you, animal flesh represents almost no resistance to a sharp blade.
• In both cases, the fake sawing begins and then the video is cut off.  Then, the head is shown sitting on the body.  Why not just show the whole thing?  Is ISIS afraid of showing terror?  Isn't that what a terrorist organization is supposed to do??  What political benefit does ISIS get by not showing the actual severing of the head?
• In the second case, the killer begins sawing, goes at it for at least 2-3 seconds and then as the video is fading the hostage puts one of his feet up to brace himself.  I guess getting held by the neck like that can be uncomfortable!!  Maybe it was pulling on his neck too much.  But you don't have the presence of mind to put your feet under you if someone is really slicing through your carotid, folks.  You black out almost instantly as the blood pressure to your brain collapses.  Want to know what it looks like?  Go watch a pro MMA fighter put a choke hold on an unsuspecting person.  The victim is helpless from almost the first second of oxygen being cut off.  Look how limp his body went from the get go.  Keep in mind that this move is a pinch off of the carotid and that takes time to do.  A slice does not suffer from this.

I'm not saying these guys are still alive because I have no proof of it but it's pretty clear that if they are dead then it was done separately from the videos.  Perhaps the ISIS guys showed them the rubber knife and told them to play along and they would live to see another day only to be killed later.  ISIS might benefit by giving false hope to the hostages so that they follow script closely only to kill them off camera later on. But it's also possible that the hostages are still alive ready to be recycled somehow as a renewable resource in the terrorism game.  After all, waste not want not, right?

By the way, if you decide to go into a hostile foreign land to earn your living then please don't expect the rest of us here in the states to come to your rescue and risk WW3 each time you blunder into the hands of the enemy.  The minute you are caught you become a casualty of war.  If you don't accept this reality, stay the Hell out of the war zone because Americans need to defend our borders and not be goaded into more costly conflicts that are nothing more than welfare for the defense industry.  Now, if they came to US soil and kidnap you then it's a different story IMO.  This would not be your fault and so you deserve the full protection of the US military machine.  But don't go putting your head into the crocodile's jaws and then crying for help when he bites down on your skull.  We just don't have the time or money to stop every Darwin Award contender from practicing their sport or to save them once things go bad.