Posted on 11/02/2009 4:41:20 PM PST by SJackson
These are the remarks Sen. Joseph Lieberman delivered at the fourth annual Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture at Stanford University on October 18:
It has been nearly eight years since Ruth and Judea Pearl were confronted by the most unspeakable horror that any parent can contemplate. But rather than retreat into grief and anger, they have instead ensured that the flame of their son’s memory, and everything he stood for, has continued to burn with undiminished urgency and relevance. Because of their work, and the work of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, Danny’s life continues to illuminate our world.
Daniel Pearl’s legacy is a powerful one, precisely because he embodied so many of the best values and convictions of our country and of the Jewish faith and people, with which he courageously identified himself in the final moment of his life. They are the values that were taught to him by his parents—the values that animate this great university in which he was educated—and the values that informed his decision to pursue a career in journalism.
I am speaking of the values of freedom of thought and expression, of curiosity and tolerance; and the conviction that people from different backgrounds, cultures, and faiths can not only live together and work together in peace and prosperity but that our world is made a richer, more meaningful place by virtue of doing so. It is the belief that the things that bind all of us together as human beings—history, humor, music, love, and friendship—are capable of transcending whatever differences divide us.
Our responsibility in gathering tonight, I believe, is not only to celebrate the values that defined Danny’s life—but also to confront the terrible reality of his death, and the forces that were responsible for it.
The reason that Danny Pearl died so young is not because of a tragic accident, a sudden illness, or a natural disaster. It is not because of a random act of violence, or common criminality. It is not because of a misunderstanding or a miscommunication.
What ended Danny’s life was a deliberate and calculated act of evil. He was murdered by men who knew what they believed, and who knew what they were doing. What animated and inspired them was not terrorism, which is merely a tactic, but a specific worldview and ideology.
It was the fanatical ideology of Islamist extremism that motivated Daniel Pearl’s killers—an ideology that not only justifies but glorifies and rejoices in shedding the blood of innocents, and that I believe represents the most direct and dangerous threat in the world today to the quintessentially liberal values that Danny Pearl stood for, and that America was founded to stand for.
At the heart of the ideology that motivated Danny Pearl’s killers is not religion but the same totalitarian impulse that we have seen appear and reappear, like a pestilence, across numerous countries and cultures and eras, intensely so during the past hundred years.
It is a belief that the most brutal imaginable violence can eradicate personal freedom, political freedom, and religious freedom and bring about a society in which women are treated as chattel, homosexuals are stoned to death, and Christians, Jews, Hindus, and other religious faiths are marked for oppression if not extinction, and in which everyone is terrorized into conformity as it is defined by a deranged minority.
This is the worldview that caused the murder of Daniel Pearl. It is the pathology that is also responsible for the deaths of countless other innocent men, women, and children, of every religion and race and on almost continent, over the past 30 years—from Bali, Indonesia, in 2002, to Mumbai, India, in November of last year, and from Madrid in 2004 to here in the United States on September 11, 2001.
As a country that is founded on truths that we hold to be self-evident, about the fundamental equality and dignity of all people, it is difficult for us to grasp how significant numbers of our fellow human beings could fall prey to an ideology whose tenets are so self-evidently insane. Yet we know from history that such pathologies are not only capable of taking root but of inspiring millions of people in even the most civilized and developed nations to commit the most horrific crimes of mass murder.
Part of the perversity of evil is that, the greater its depravity, the greater is our temptation to avert our eyes from it, to look away, to convince ourselves that we cannot possibly be seeing what we are in fact seeing. Indeed, that is one of the reasons such evil persists.
Of course all of us would like to live in a world governed by reason. But the fact is, there are hatreds and pathologies so strong that they cannot be negotiated, or reasoned, or bribed, or loved out of existence. They must be confronted, fought, and defeated—or else they will defeat us. And so it is with Islamist extremism.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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"The reason that Danny Pearl died so young is not because of a tragic accident, a sudden illness, or a natural disaster. It is not because of a random act of violence, or common criminality. It is not because of a misunderstanding or a miscommunication.
What ended Danny’s life was a deliberate and calculated act of evil. He was murdered by men who knew what they believed, and who knew what they were doing. What animated and inspired them was not terrorism, which is merely a tactic, but a specific worldview and ideology.
It was the fanatical ideology of Islamist extremism that motivated Daniel Pearl’s killers—an ideology that not only justifies but glorifies and rejoices in shedding the blood of innocents, and that I believe represents the most direct and dangerous threat in the world today..."
I’ve always wondered why it is termed “extremism”. That is such a milqhtoast term.
More apt is “psychotic rage”, or “misanthropy”.
Even the observers hide behind euphemisms.
"It was the fanatical ideology of Islamist extremism that motivated Daniel Pearl’s killers..."
Or realize it’s just how it is amongst the jihadist “beleivers”. Pearl’s murder was mainstream.
...”What ended Danny’s life was a deliberate and calculated act of evil. He was murdered by men who knew what they believed, and who knew what they were doing.”
that a boy Joe!...tell it like it is....when oh when, is American Jewry going to wake up to the fact that Obama is not Israel’s friend....his presidency will only encourage violence against Jews around the world.
Yep. We get it. Will our PC, dumb@ss LEADERS ever get it?
This is where we are.
Joseph Lieberman may leave much to be desired on domestic issues, but on the Middle East and the Muzzies, he knows what he’s talking about.
Good job, Sen. Lieberman! Well stated.
Previously (and a bit off topic)
September 03, 2009
“2 KILOS OF HEROIN, 3 BOMB VESTS, AND 15 KILOS OF EXPLOSIVES”
http://osint.internet-haganah.com/archives/001654.html
#
On Topic and previously...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/827792/posts
“Suspect Describes Ordeal of Slain Reporter”
New York Times ^ | 1/22/03 | DAVID ROHDE
Posted on January 22, 2003 10:54:23 PM PST by kattracks
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5NRksR1trI&feature=related
“I Am Jewish: The Last Words of Daniel Pearl”
(Added January 31, 2007)
It’s way past time we went Apache on the muzz.
To our detriment, unfortunately.
I like the way you think.
My apologies first good people but I’m going to shout: WHEN THE “F” ARE PEOPLE GOING TO WAKE UP AND REALIZE IT AIN”T “”RADICAL ISLAM”” IT’S F’ING ISLAM PERIOD!!!
Amen. And because of his positions on the Middle East and the "Muzzies," the 'Rats effectively exorcized him from their party. The posted essay by Lieberman here on Daniel Pearl is a very good one.
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