Posted on 07/16/2002 2:06:23 PM PDT by knighthawk
The other day, from the comfort of my office, I watched a man's head being severed and, with his eyes peacefully closed and bottom lip slightly sagging, held aloft by the hair.
You can watch it too, if you like, for the video of Daniel Pearl's murder is freely available on the Web. An alternative paper, the Boston Phoenix, linked to a Web site hosting another Web site -- admittedly, a despicable, vile one -- that carried the footage. Yesterday, the creature who organized the killing, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, was himself justly sentenced to death by a Pakistani court.
The Pearl footage isn't what has been called a "snuff film," since those are urban myths. This was real. The execution of The Wall Street Journal reporter is the triumphant climax of a short video released, obviously, by the al-Qaeda front-group which arranged it (currently touting itself as the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistan Sovereignty). Coinciding with the soundtrack of Pearl's voice are images of Ariel Sharon, George Bush and the various other stock visuals that periodically compel mobs of bearded, besandalled Middle Easterners into bursts of Two Minute Hates. Just in case we don't get the hint, Pearl's words, "I am a Jew," are replayed a dozen times.
His voice is calm, but he sounds rushed, as if he is reading from a script and wants to get it over with. At the time, Pearl must have believed that if he issued the boilerplate denunciations of himself, American imperialism and Zionist domination he would be released. That was never on the cards. He was kidnapped to be killed. It's strange to think that Omar -- a man who loathes the West -- is being allowed to appeal his sentence (how Western!), whereas an innocent man was never afforded the same opportunity.
The video targets potential Islamist recruits who find the decapitation of a Yid and a Yank (what a glorious double whammy!) ghoulishly thrilling -- a real turn-on for the kind of people who would otherwise be gang-raping village women and speciously claiming it is Allah's will. Its blunt, emotive imagery is designed to appeal to the illiterate, the wrathful and the stupid. More sophisticatedly (relatively speaking, of course), it is also supposed to frighten us with its subplot about the vengeance that will be visited upon the West if we do not heed Pearl's doom.
Now, we are all familiar with the rather repetitive and frequently self-serving freedom-of-speech argument about censorship, so I will not bother wasting time debating whether the video ought to be banned. It exists, it will not go away and that is all there is to the matter. I am more concerned with the question, should I have watched it?
Let me answer that. Unless one is doing so purely for prurient reasons, I think it is important to watch people die. To do so is a task certainly not suited to all temperaments, but there are times when literary description -- no matter how minutely detailed -- is insufficient to describe and realize the monsters lurking in the realm of horror and evil. The most powerful and visceral medium for transmitting indescribable -- literally -- experiences is that of sight. For this reason, even at the risk of giving them nightmares, it is necessary for people to see obscene, unbelievable, unforgettable images of the Holocaust, the slave-clogged Gulags and, say, severely wounded soldiers missing their faces. Like the Pearl footage, these things must be real: while movies can be scary, we comfortably know that the actors, after being shot, go home at the end of the shoot. But by glimpsing the unedited, absolute perimeter of what humans have done to ourselves, we can not only comprehend the fragility of security, life, civility and happiness but gird our determination to defend them against their foes.
Watching Pearl -- I don't think I deserve to call him "Daniel" -- die is not terrifying, nor is it the worst sight you are ever likely to see. In my case, that dubious honour goes to the several hours' worth of Nazi footage of concentration camp medical and physiological experiments on "volunteers" I watched -- necessarily, for academic reasons -- back at university.
In fact, it is the film's very conciseness that makes the blood boil, more so than with the Nazi films that I soon got used to. More searingly than a thousand words, the quickie pornography of Pearl's end (the execution lasts less than 30 seconds) indelibly demonstrates the savagery, irrationality and mercilessness of this Islamo-fascist enemy.
I have no interest in seeing that man die.
Ick.
Folks think that it's a short clip that shows a beheading, but that's only a small part. It really is a propaganda film that reveals what's on the mind of much of the Muslim world - which is to do in all that's good in the world, for reasons that can only be traced to jealousy and inadequacy.
I'm getting fed up with the "well, they're wrong, but they're still human" crap. They're not human. Humanity is a sub-species of Homo Sapien. We're all homo sapiens: joining the ranks of humanity is not based on one's religion or race, but on one's desires and deeds. These savages (and their worldwide supporters) have no place at The Table Of Humanity, and if thet choose not to reform, must be exterminated at any cost.
(If anyone wants a feed to the video, freepmail me, and I'll send you the URL.)
Just what I was thinking as well.
The fact that the graphic violence of the 9 11 coverage was (self?)censored by media from about 9 30 EDT that day forward is despictable. People NEED to see those bodies hit the ground, and need to see it all over and over. (Have you noticed---there are probably 10,000 times more film footage of 9 11 than Pearl Harbor, but we've seen far less of 911 than Pearl.)
But it might make people mad, it might make them dislike, even despise, the people who feel this way about us and our values...Can't have any judgemental feelings toward people of these other wonderful diverse cultures, can we?
Vigilance.
L
Thats a pathetic description to a deliberate and horrible murder.
People died simply because they were Americans...and it should make you very angry.
But I have no desire to see pearl die..
Sorry.
I fear that you are absolutely correct. Neither the citzenry nor our alleged 'leaders' are prepared for the sort of asymmetrical conflict we're facing. And no one in a position of 'leadership' - virtually no one - dares call this for what it is - a clash to the death of cultures.
Semper Fi!
Precisely.
You're almost there. History, and their own words show us that this 'brand' of Islam is what lies at the core of every Islamic sect - it is just underneath the surface of the entire culture. And that culture - anti-human to the core - must be destroyed. Utterly and completely.
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