[wretchard]

Daniel Pearl's politics are not the issue. His abduction would be an outrage whether he was Liberal or Conservative, Commie or otherwise. While I hope that his sympathies for Muslim win him some slack, I doubt it will help. Islamic radicals are not like you and me. They don't mow the lawn on Saturdays and the photo of your wife in your wallet means exactly nothing to them.

I once flew into Jolo with a doctor from the Medecins Sans Frontieres who was totally convinced that his liberal politics would protect him from being kidnapped by the Islamic rebels. He was taken four hours after he landed.

They were like nothing he had imagined. They drank. Watched porno movies, especially the sadistic ones. They had the intelligence of cockroaches. What they had, in abundance, was an illiterate kind of hatred, envy and resentment of the Westerner. What he lacked was moxie, and the ability to suspect that the picture his friends had painted of the oppressed Islamist was not all it was cracked up to be.

[MarMema]

They were like nothing he had imagined. They drank. Watched porno movies, especially the sadistic ones. They had the intelligence of cockroaches. What they had, in abundance, was an illiterate kind of hatred, envy and resentment of the Westerner.

Bravo for your post. Too many Americans do not get it. Having spent time on the border of Chechnya, I have a serious opinion about these people. They are completely evil and couldn't care less about the politics of their abducted victims, nor the age for that matter.
Where is Jolo, btw?