Because He Was A Jew

After thinking about Daniel Pearl, the journalist from the WSJ that was beheaded by terrorists in 2002, I decided to go rent the movie based on his story, "A Mighty Heart."

It occurred to me while watching the film, and it was an excellent film, that the reason political type movies don't do well isn't because of Hollywood bias, as much as we would like to believe so, it is because they are too difficult for most people to understand.

This world's problems are too big. They are too vast and horrible. When I try to focus on terrorism across the world, across these years, I can't wrap my mind around it. And I am one of those few who are really interested in it. But the truth is that when I see films like this and I try to grasp such evil in the world, I just cry.

Most people don't want to go to the movies to cry. Most people don't want to go to movies to understand political or religious situations.

The movie tried to guide the viewer through the maze of reasons that Daniel Pearl was killed. It hinted at the reason being the way we treated our prisoners at Gitmo. It hinted that the reason was that the terrorists that held Daniel believed him to be a CIA operative. But the real reason Daniel Pearl was murdered is simple and it was addressed in the movie. It was at the beginning and the ending. And I am sure Daniel Pearl's widow had a lot to do with making sure that happened.

The reason Daniel Pearl was brutally murdered was because he was a Jew. Plain and simple.

I'm going to put this simply for you because the movie makes it much too complicated, which is one of the problems of these kinds of movies. The group that kidnapped Daniel called themselves "The National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty." But that was just a made up organization that no one had ever heard of before. The man convicted and sentenced to death in July of 2002 for the kidnapping and death of Daniel Pearl is Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British national of Pakistani origin. (He is still alive, on appeal)

The movie briefly mentions al Qaeda, which is one of it's glaring errors. The truth of the matter is Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh was a member of the innermost circle of Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. In 1994 he was operating terrorists training camps in Afghanistan and had earned the title of bin Laden's "special son." And then there is this last bit of information. U.S. authorities named Saeed Sheikh as a key figure in the funding of the 9/11 attacks.

Were you all aware of these things? Neither was I. Nor does the movie educate us on these very important matters.

Why is it important? Because as many splinter groups of Islamic fanatics there are, things always seem to funnel back to the monsters that attacked us on 9-11. And it occurred to me while watching this movie that as much as the Islamic fanatics hate America, there is one group they hate much more. The Jews.

At the beginning of the movie Daniel Pearl makes the mistake of admitting to one of the terrorist "clerics" he is interviewing, that he is Jewish. They don't mention the Jewish aspect again until the end. They do not show the beheading in the movie, which is understandable of course, but when you think about the gore and violence we see every day on the movie screen, why should we avoid it when seeing it will teach us a most important lesson about our enemy? I haven't seen the movie, but I'm sure in "Rendition" they show all the brutality of the U.S. interrogation, don't they? When the movie about Abu Ghraib is made, and it will be, I'm positive that every inhumane act will be put before us. Hollywood will be hoping to teach us to never let it happen again. Yet, Daniel's murder is censored completely from this movie.

At the end of the movie it shows Daniel on the video of his captors declaring himself a Jew. He talks about a street named after his Jewish grandfather. His wife had said that Daniel had not been a religious man, but in the end he embraced what he was, a Jew. And he died because of it.

Did you know that On April 16th 2007 Daniel was added to the Holocaust Memorial on Miami Beach as the first non-Holocaust victim? His father, Judea Pearl, said that he wanted to remind generations to come that "The forces of barbarity and evil are still active in our world. The Holocaust didn't finish in 1945."

So many things I didn't know about Daniel Pearl. So many things the movie, whether intentional or not, failed to say about this man.

This article in the WSJ has Tom Jennings, a longtime friend of Daniel's remembing this: "This was the man who wrote a song for my son days before his birth, encouraging him into the world. The song was called, 'The World Is Not a Bad Place."

But this world is a bad place. We, here in America, live our cushy lives and argue about stupid things, while the dark face of hatred simmers with ideas on how to kill us. Not because of war or land, but because of who we are. If we are Jewish. If we are Christians. If we are simply Americans. We are wished dead by our enemy.

The recent news of the defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq should really be a cause of true celebration here, but we are all caught up in our own political agendas and Presidential campaigns to realize how significant it is.

Daniel Pearl's father is right. The holocaust didn't finish in 1945 and it's time we all faced it. The story of Daniel Pearl came and went. The movie came and went. No one seems to want to remember the truth about the death of this man. I want us to never forget Daniel Pearl.

Daniel wasn't a soldier, he was not in war, he was not a political prisoner. He was an innocent American citizen. Daniel Pearl's head was cut off by those who attacked us because he was a Jew.

Never Forget Daniel Pearl

A year ago November I wrote a post titled, "Because He Was a Jew," about Daniel Pearl, the journalist beheaded by terrorists in 2002. In that piece I wrote this simple truth:

Daniel wasn't a soldier, he was not in war, he was not a political prisoner. He was an innocent American citizen. Daniel Pearl's head was cut off by those who attacked us because he was a Jew.

That piece meant a lot to me actually, and if you didn't read it back then, I would appreciate you taking the time to read it now.

I bring this up again because Daniel's father has written a piece in the WSJ about how we have normalized evil. It's a powerful read by a man who understands this horror of terrorism more than almost all of us. Daniel's murderer, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, proudly bragged of Daniel's murder in a military tribunal in March 2007. He is also one of the masterminds behind 9-11. He resides at Guantanamo. He has also been the subject of the torture techniques used by the Bush administration that the left has been so vocal in criticizing. Khalid has said that he is ready to be put to death. Now that Guantanamo will close, I do wonder what will happen to Khalid now. But I imagine I don't wonder quite as much as Judea Pearl.

Daniel's father now sees justification for terrorism:

But somehow, barbarism, often cloaked in the language of "resistance," has gained acceptance in the most elite circles of our society. The words "war on terror" cannot be uttered today without fear of offense. Civilized society, so it seems, is so numbed by violence that it has lost its gift to be disgusted by evil.
.........................

But the clearest endorsement of terror as a legitimate instrument of political bargaining came from former President Jimmy Carter. In his book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," Mr. Carter appeals to the sponsors of suicide bombing. "It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Road-map for Peace are accepted by Israel." Acts of terror, according to Mr. Carter, are no longer taboo, but effective tools for terrorists to address perceived injustices.

Mr. Carter's logic has become the dominant paradigm in rationalizing terror. When asked what Israel should do to stop Hamas's rockets aimed at innocent civilians, the Syrian first lady, Asma Al-Assad, did not hesitate for a moment in her response: "They should end the occupation." In other words, terror must earn a dividend before it is stopped.

Pearl says we need to take a good hard look at our universities to see roots of our acceptance of terrorism:

At my own university, UCLA, a symposium last week on human rights turned into a Hamas recruitment rally by a clever academic gimmick. The director of the Center for Near East Studies carefully selected only Israel bashers for the panel, each of whom concluded that the Jewish state is the greatest criminal in human history.

The primary purpose of the event was evident the morning after, when unsuspecting, uninvolved students read an article in the campus newspaper titled, "Scholars say: Israel is in violation of human rights in Gaza," to which the good name of the University of California was attached. This is where Hamas scored its main triumph -- another inch of academic respectability, another inroad into Western minds.

Danny's picture is hanging just in front of me, his warm smile as reassuring as ever. But I find it hard to look him straight in the eyes and say: You did not die in vain.

The last line brought tears to my eyes.

I hope we never forget Daniel Pearl. I hope we never forget the innocent victims of 9-11. I hope that we understand the evil we still face. I hope also, that Daniel did not die in vain.

via Ace

Remembering Daniel Pearl

After recently seeing "A Mighty Heart," I realized that Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal Journalist who was kidnapped and beheaded by terrorists, will always serve as a brutal reminder of the horror we fight.

My post, "Because he was a Jew" here.

Last night Pres Bush and Laura Bush welcomed Daniel Pearl's parents, Professor Judea Pearl and Ruth Pearl, to light their family Menorah at the White House reception: (emphasis mine)

The Menorah originally belonged to Professor Pearl's grandparents who brought it with them when they moved from Poland to Israel in 1924, to establish the town of Bnai-Brak.

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino told reporters Mrs. Pearl hopes the Menorah serves as a "visual reminder to all people who are facing darkness, that with hope and perseverance, freedom and goodness will prevail."

Ed Koch..unplugged.

Years ago if you had told me that I would agree with everything in a speech that Democrat Ed Koch gave, I would have laughed. But former Mayor Koch spoke on first day of Rosh Hashanah at his Synagogue and his remarks were profound and full of wisdom. Here are some snippets:

"During the service this morning an elderly man came over to me and said, "Tell the Jews how foolish they are not to appreciate how good and supportive the President has been to the Jewish community. When I look back on the Nazis and remember what they did, I know how important it is for the President to stand up for Jews and others who are being terrorized throughout the world."

I replied, "I have and I will."

More:

"President Bush needs continued strength and courage to protect our country from the Islamic terrorists who want to kill us. Their goal, as clearly stated in the words of Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq before he was killed by an American bomb, is "Killing the infidels is our religion, slaughtering them is our religion, until they convert to Islam or pay us tribute." The infidels alluded to are you and I as well as other Jews, Christians (called Crusaders), Hindus and dissenting Muslims who disagree with them on religious or political issues.

I admire the strength and intelligence of Pope Benedict XVI. He understands the Muslim threats of violence against people unwilling to convert to Islam. He has called for a dialogue with the Muslim world."

Referring to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez addressing the General Assembly of the UN as he vilified President Bush, referring to him as "the devil:"

"What offended me even more than Chavez's ludicrous remarks were the responses of the U.N. delegates. No one stood up and told Chavez that he was out of order and demanded that he stop or sit down. They should have told him he was a disgrace to the U.N. Instead they are reported to have applauded this monster and laughed with him, instead of at him. The Times reported:

"So while there was official outrage over Mr. Chavez calling Mr. Bush 'the devil,' there was also a lot of applause and giggling, from dignitaries including the president of the General Assembly herself, Haya Rashed al-Khalifa of Bahrain, who was caught chuckling from her seat on the dais behind Mr. Chavez."

And finally:

".... do you remember the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl who was taken hostage by the terrorists in Pakistan? They paraded him on television and forced him to say, "My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish." Then they slit his throat and decapitated him with the world watching the video of the murder.

The Rabbi told us this morning that we recite very important prayers today, and we should be conscious of their special significance. I hope that some day soon we will add Daniel Pearl's words to a special prayer to be said today, as I say it now, "My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish." And I am proud."

Whenever we wonder about this fight we fight, we need to remember Daniel Pearl. He wasn't a soldier. He had no political agenda. The terrorists hated him for the same reason Hitler hated so many before...because he was Jewish.

Today Pres. Bush said that we do not create terrorism by fighting terrorism. That idea, being promoted by Democrats, that somehow not fighting terrorists will make them hate us less, is simply disproven by the past.

It was our ambivalence that allowed 9-11.

When we are tempted to give up this fight, let us remember Daniel Pearl. We stand with our Jewish friends and they stand with us. Never again will we allow others to kill innocent humans for simply who they are. Never again.


h/t Errol Phillips

Interview With a Future Terrorist.

Prospect brings us this interview with 25 yr old Hassan Butt, a radical Mulsim who lives in England. If you want to understand the mind of a terrorist you will find it here.

Here are excerpts:


Taseer: How would you describe yourself as a Muslim, given that there are so many labels bring thrown about—“moderate,” “extremist” and so on?

Butt: I would agree to being called a radical and one day I may even be called a terrorist, if Allah permits me. That is something it would be an honour to be called.

Taseer: Surely, even in an Islamic context, that can't be a positive label?

Butt: There is a speech by the Prophet in which he says: Allah gave me five things. One of them was the power to strike fear, to strike terror into the heart of the enemy from a mile's distance, and this was a reference to a battle he had commenced. The way the warriors had prepared themselves was so terrifying that the enemy didn’t even turn up to the battle. Besides that, in the Koran the word irhab is the root word for terror in Islam, and irhabiyun is the word for terrorist. Allah mentions the word in the Koran many times—the one who strikes terror into their hearts is an irhabiyun. If I could have that title Islamically then I would be more than happy to take it and be proud of it. But unfortunately, I haven't reached that level yet.

Taseer: Why not?

Butt: Because I am stuck in this country. It would be unwise to carry out military operations here.

The interview goes on to this:

Taseer: Do you think killing Daniel Pearl was part of Omar Sheikh’s fight for Islam?

Butt: Whether he killed Daniel Pearl or not, I don't know to be honest with you.

Taseer: If he did?

Butt: If he did, I'm sure Islamically he knew what he was doing.

Taseer: Would you approve of it if he did?

Butt: Absolutely—journalists have always been used as spies. Even Lawrence of Arabia, who was a spy, was initially a journalist. I believe Pearl was a spy: he deserved everything he got.

Read the whole interview and take a moment to realize what we are fighting. At one point Butt muses that America may be destroyed soon.

I am not afraid of that, but I am afraid for those who buy this sick violent belief that God would reward one for killing and for killing yourself in the process.

via Malungtvnews

Daniel Pearl's killer shot and killed in gun battle.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has announced that they have killed a Al Qaeda lead militant, Amjad, Farooqi. The one who was involved in the killing of WSJ journalist Daniel Pearl. This part of the story may have gotten lost in Musharraf's also claiming that that intelligence is telling him that Osama Bin Laden is still alive.
The killing of this demented piece of trash that killed Pearl is a victory and a good sign that Pakistan is on the job.
I hope and pray that if Musharraf is correct, they find Bin Laden and send him off to his 72 virgin goats.

More on Torture

BigDog also sent me this link:

Torture" is probably the most egregious of these cases. That's the explanation for the sneer quotes. Because, quite simply, in much of the debate over "torture", we're not talking about actual torture at all. We're talking about rough treatment, harshness, or coercion. "

"The American left has defined these upward until they mean the same thing as torture, all as a part of their efforts to undermine the War on Terror in general. The core of this stance is the assertion that a slap on the head, several days without sleep, or hearing Rage Against the Machine played at full volume is fully the equivalent of torture in the classic sense. (Well... maybe we should reconsider that last....)"

"Of course, it's no such thing. Torture is easily defined as physical assault carried out over a prolonged period against a victim under complete control and holding the possibility of permanent physical or psychic damage. Official legal terminology contains the proviso that torture consists of acts that "revolt the conscience" We can also add, by way of Dashiell Hammett, that such actions must have "threat of death behind them". If they contain these elements, they are torture. If not, they're something less. Not necessarily something justifiable or commendable, but not torture either. (Another method of judging these actions is to ask whether the activity would excite an individual like Mengele or Yezhov.) "

"The left has succeeded, through a relentless media campaign (is there any other kind?) in obscuring this distinction. According to the latest criteria, torture is anything unpleasant that occurs to a prisoner while in American custody. (Overseas it's different. It's very, very difficult -- almost impossible, in fact -- for any developing or left-of-center regime to commit torture, no matter what they do to their prisoners. Unless, as in the rendition uproar, the U.S. is somehow involved.)"

It's strange really, that sometimes I must defend what I don't believe in. BigDog sends me this link to allow me to see the distinction of what the left defines as torture and what the definition of torture really is. It is a compelling argument. I'm glad I don't make these decisions.

It just so happens that I got an e-mail the other day from a lefty commenter who berates me for somehow defending torture in an earlier post. I e-mail back and point out that whatever the U.S. is involved with, does it bother him more that our enemy "tortured" Daniel Pearl for example? Not a enemy combatant, not even a soldier, but an innocent American. Do you know what he wrote back? He said that that wasn't torture, that was murder. You can't compare the two.

Gee, do you think the moments (days? weeks?) leading up to beheading Daniel Pearl might have been torture for him? Do you think the moment he saw the blade coming for his throat might have been torture? Do you think that when he felt the cold steel against his skin IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN TORTURE?????

For the life of me I can never understand why the left can find so much to be angry about with America, yet can seem to find no rage for the monsters that fight us.

UPDATE: Actually it's more of "past" date. I found this post I wrote in the archives (2005) on torture. Sometimes I even forget what we took down in Iraq. Sometimes it's good for us to remember.

Benazir Bhutto and the fight we fight

It's almost like a TV movie. A beautiful woman, her rise to power in her country at a young age, being brought down, prison, exile, and then redemption and possible victory.

Such is the story of Benazir Bhutto.

Her entire life reads like a novel. The daughter of a powerful political family, encouraged by her father to study the great women of history perhaps gave her illusions of greatness or, some might say, a passion for greatness. Given the recent tribute by Condoleezza Rice, some believed her brave and courageous. But some say she was driven by her own personal demons as well:

During her two terms in office as prime minister, Ms. Bhutto earned a reputation among many as an imperious, venal, and corrupt politician, bringing Pakistan to the brink of financial ruin on more than one occasion.

Did President Pervez Musharraf's intelligence and security services have anything to do with her death? Or was it Al Qaeda, who takes credit? It could be a Ken Follet novel. But it does have Al Qaeda's bloody fingerprints all over it.

Look at her personal past, and it is indeed the stuff of espionage movies:

When her father was lying in prison under sentence of death from Pakistan's military dictatorship in 1979, and other members of her family were trying to escape the country, she boldly flew back in. Her subsequent confrontation with the brutal Gen. Zia-ul-Haq cost her five years of her life, spent in prison. She seemed merely to disdain the experience, as she did the vicious little man who had inflicted it upon her.

Benazir saw one of her brothers, Shahnawaz, die in mysterious circumstances in the south of France in 1985, and the other, Mir Murtaza, shot down outside the family home in Karachi by uniformed police in 1996.

Despite the corruption charges, (which she denied) some see her as the modern force of goodness in the Islamic world:

Benazir Bhutto was a brave woman. She was the face of modernity that Pakistan needed to salvage its descent into a sea of Islamist darkness.

And there is the key. Personally, for myself, I don't see being a political hero worth taking the risk of not seeing my children grow up, marry, and have children. Bhutto gave that up. She knew it was a possibility with all the attempts on her life. She knew. Did she not care? Was her country worth that much to her, or was her celebrity worth that much to her? Is that bravery or foolishness? I can't decide. Can you?

According to Andrew McCarthy at NRO, we have one Pakistan of our fantasy and one of reality:

There is the Pakistan of our fantasy. The burgeoning democracy in whose vanguard are judges and lawyers and human rights activists using the “rule of law” as a cudgel to bring down a military junta. In the fantasy, Bhutto, an attractive, American-educated socialist whose prominent family made common cause with Soviets and whose tenures were rife with corruption, was somehow the second coming of James Madison.

Then there is the real Pakistan: an enemy of the United States and the West. The real Pakistan is a breeding ground of Islamic holy war where, for about half the population, the only thing more intolerable than Western democracy is the prospect of a faux democracy led by a woman — indeed, a product of feudal Pakistani privilege and secular Western breeding whose father, President Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto, had been branded as an enemy of Islam by influential Muslim clerics in the early 1970s.

Bhutto knew this, lived this. I have to wonder if her passion was for Democracy or for herself. Excuse my cynicism. Perhaps she is the brave hero mourned for her great sacrifice for a greater good, a better Pakistan free from extremism and fanaticism, I hope so. A life should be lived for good and for purpose. I hope and pray that her life was.

Andrew warns us that just wishing for Democracy in place like Pakistan will not make it happen:

But we should at least stop fooling ourselves. Jihadists are not going to be wished away, rule-of-lawed into submission, or democratized out of existence. If you really want democracy and the rule of law in places like Pakistan, you need to kill the jihadists first. Or they’ll kill you, just like, today, they killed Benazir Bhutto.

And this is the lesson of Bhutto. A lesson taught with Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg, and all our sacrificed soldiers in Iraq. They will kill us unless we kill them first. And with them, there is no mercy, no prison, no warm meals, no prayer rugs. There is only brutal death. For the innocent as well as the enemy. Do any of us understand this?

President Bush addressed it perfectly in August before the Veterans of Foreign wars, but no one I talk to even heard of this speech. It was a flash in the pan for the msm. Read it and understand that Bush understands our enemy and our history as most of us do not. Think of him what you will, but he gets this.

In this speech he tells us how we are winning:

Our troops have killed or captured an average of more than 1,500 al Qaeda terrorists and other extremists every month since January of this year. (Applause.) We're in the fight. Today our troops are carrying out a surge that is helping bring former Sunni insurgents into the fight against the extremists and radicals, into the fight against al Qaeda, into the fight against the enemy that would do us harm. They're clearing out the terrorists out of population centers, they're giving families in liberated Iraqi cities a look at a decent and hopeful life.

I am not happy with Bush for many reasons, but not understanding this fight is not one of them.

Those who killed Bhutto are the thousands upon thousands that we have killed. They will not kill again the innocent and the brave. They will not breed their hatred.

They are gone.

I wish that we could leave the Middle East to it's own destruction. I wish we could ignore the extremism and the killing. But they have made that impossible. They attacked us on our own soil.

Believe that going into Iraq was right or wrong. Fine. But there is no doubt that we are killing Al Qaeda there now. The brutal enemy of all people of good will.

They killed Bhutto. And they would kill you or me if given the chance. That is a fact no one can argue.

Some tell me that this is a fight we cannot win. They say that nothing we do can change the Middle East.

Bhutto,whether for herself or her country, believed that it could change and she gave her life for it.

I believe that it is a fight, that if we don't win now, our grandchildren and their children will not only fight, but suffer because of it.

I may be wrong. Time will only tell.