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.
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.
Well then, that's that. Who will be your Eichmann? What tool will you exterminate these untermensch with, Zyklon-B? Shall we rebuild Belsen to satisfy your blood lust? Perhaps you could find some psuedo-religous order to help with your mission to purify the earth of these vermin, yes? And you do need a Streicher and a Goebbels to help educate the rest of us as to the evils that justify this final solution, this ethnic cleansing you propose.
After all, now that you have defined them as savages unworthy of "The Table Of Humanity", well then, the commandment, "Thou shall not kill" fades to black and blood lust wins.
Being neither Christian nor Jew, that Commandment means nothing to me. If you charge me with fist or knife, I will kill you and lose no sleep.
The Nazis did not kill Jews because Jews wanted to kill all Germans. Assuming that was the case, Germans would not have given the Jews a second chance. All of Islam should be on bended knee, worshipping our forbearance.
I fear you are right, and that scares me to death. Even when we do wake up, the mind numbing media is sure to lull us back to sleep.
It's even tougher when the ingredients for those bombs can be purchased at tens of thousands of hardware stores across the country.
Further compounding the situation is the fact that it's not just difficult, but practically impossible to close down the avenues of supply in what is supposed to be a 'free country'.
The only thing we have in our favor is that our opponents don't seem to be able to find anything more than barely literate idiots willing to carry out their insane schemes. So far that is.
If these clowns ever manage to recruit someone with an intellect of, oh say, Carlos The Jackal we are going to be in some really deep excrement my friend.
I'm not worried about some radioactive 'dirty bomb' and I'm not worried about anthrax or Sarin gas. (Although those folks in Japan a few years back showed how ridiculously easy it is to make stuff like that.)
I'm worried about a couple of dozen sleeper cells of 3 to 4 people a piece showing up at shopping malls around the good old USA with some AK-47s smuggled in wrapped in cocaine with some Soviet era RPGs for good measure all on the same day.
Hell, if it were me, I wouldn't attack on the 4th of July. I'd plan it for the day after Thanksgiving and target the Mall Of The Americas and a few others.
Until our esteemed Texan In Chief goes on national TV and declares the leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, the PFLP, as well as the governments of about half a dozen Middle Eastern hell holes (yea, I mean the Saudi government too) enemies of the United States and calls for not just their overthrow but their extermination we won't have a prayer.
We are in some real pretty shit my friend and the sad thing is that almost noone realizes exactly how deadly the danger is or if they do, they aren't shouting it from the virtual rooftops via CNN.
It's only a matter of time until these bastards hit us again and it's going to make 9-11 look like a warmup. They may not kill as many people but they sure as hell are going to have Peter Jennings and Dan Rather wetting their pants.
If GWB wants to convince the world that we are serious, he could start by putting a bounty on Arafats head. 10 Million US should do it. He'd last about a week IMO.
I'm getting pretty tired of watching us pussy foot around with people who cut the heads of Wall Street Journal reporters and murder teenagers eating pizza.
They don't deserve to be negotiated with. They deserve to be exterminated without remorse or pity. If it means we have to destroy entire cities then so freaking be it.
This isn't a war, it's a freaking joke. War means you seek out the enemy and destroy them wherever you find them. We know who the enemy is, and we know where they are. All we lack is the will to do what must be done in order to save the lives of our countrymen, or friends, and our families.
I'm not talking about rounding up muslims who live in this country. Hell, my kid plays with muslim kids. I'm talking about putting steel on those lunatics around the world who cheer when thousands of our citizens are murdered and then hold telethons for the families of the murderers.
Oh well, you know me well enough to know who I'm talking about my friend and I have ranted on long enough for now.
Personally, I don't care if we have to nuke Riyadh, Beruit, Aman, or freaking Paris to rid the world of this filth. Just do it and be done with it.
Anyone who takes to themselves the right to 'convert' me to Islam at the point of the sword has made of themselves my enemy and I won't feel the least bit guilty about killing them, their entire family, and everyone who lives in whatever vermin infested corner of the world they call a country.
Now, that being said; I'm going on vacation for a week or so. I've rented a big ass RV that gets about 3 miles to the gallon. It's got a flush toilet, a shower, AC, a CD player and a VCR. I'm taking Clan Lurker behind the Cheddar Curtain for a few days.
We are going to eat too much, drink too much, do some fishing, some hiking, and waste a lot of ammunition practicing our skills out where Jesus lost his sandals. We'll be back in a week or so.
You take care my friend. It's awfully good to see you about again. There are far too many deck chair rearrangers about who haven't a clue as to where the real fight is, or even what it's really about.
I'll give you a call when I get back.
Regards,
L
The Nazis did not kill Jews because Jews wanted to kill all Germans.
But they did claim just that.
Assuming that was the case, Germans would not have given the Jews a second chance.
And do tell, how many "second chances" did they get at Buchenwald or Treblinka?
All of Islam should be on bended knee, worshipping our forbearance.
All of Islam out to worship you? Wow. Because believe me, you speak not for me.
Your cute image was propaganda with no truth behind it - Muslims slaughter and imprison many Christians every day - just for being Christian.
I don't think it's necessary to watch this.
We all saw plenty more than we needed to last fall.
If September 11 didn't convince you that evil exists -- and poses a "clear and present danger," nothing will.
Born to kill. Allah's will.
You are right. We are sold out to the militants by the 'do-gooders'.
These Islamicist Terrorists use the beheading to create what they imagine is a "slick" commercial to try to persuade Americans to petition their government to give in to their demands.
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