Should Americans see what they did?

Sheik Ahmed Omar Saeed and his followers produced a propaganda video for western audiences to promote their Islamic agenda; it featured the murder of The Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. MSNBC reported that the video shows that "In the last moments of Danny Pearl’s life, his kidnappers forced him again and again to denounce his family, his country and his religion, and to warn the world that he would not be the last to suffer if the United States did not change its ways. A video camera trained on his unshaven, sleepless face, Pearl mumbled the terrorists’ script. Photographs of weeping Arab women, the supposed victims of American and Israeli aggression against Palestinians, periodically flashed on a screen as he spoke." The video shows Daniel's throat being slit just after being forced to confess: "My father is a Jew, my mother is a Jew, and I am a Jew." MSNBC reports that the video also includes scenes of the kidnappers holding Pearl's severed head and repeatedly stabbing his lifeless body.


By the way, this was not the first kidnapping and murder conducted by the Sheik's group. MSNBC reports that in July 1995 they kidnapped six Western backpackers, including two Americans, near the India-Pakistan border. Only one of the hostages was ever seen again: a peasant women drawing water from a stream found the headless body of one of the backpackers, a Norwegian Jew.


Such acts are a predictable consequence of systematic denigration and dehumanization of Jewish people in the Arabic press/media, schools, and mosques in the Middle East and elsewhere (including the United States). Arab government publications have gone as far as to print translations of Nazi anti-semetic propaganda. Some Moslem students in Arab countries and private Islamic grade schools in America are taught that before judgment day will arrive, Moslems must kill Jewish people and Jesus must return to break the cross and convert all Christians to Islam. Israel is omitted from the maps used in these schools (including the Palestinian authority's school textbooks). Recent systematic polls conducted in 9 Arab countries revealed that most Arabs do not believe that Arabs were involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, preferring to think it was a Jewish or American plot.


Such information has been considered too "politically incorrect" (and in conflict with American foreign policies) to be featured on the network news, and has been shunned or downplayed by most lesser media outlets as well. Given the large scale media coverage of Daniel Pearl's abduction, however, there may be unusual pressure to broadcast the Sheik's video. I do not expect our government to make the video available...nor the networks to broadcast it if it were available. Here's my question: Do you think the video should be shown on TV? What if Danny Pearl's widow requested that it be shown?

I just heard another example of the media pattern I posted about previously regarding the words used to describe Islamic terrorists.


In the context of a radio news story about new European proposals that Israel give up more land for more promises of peace, the reporter mentioned that one Israeli is known to have been killed by "gunmen" so far today. He didn't even say "Palestinian gunmen"...just "gunmen." No form of the word "terror" was used in the story. Had an American civilian fallen prey to the Jihad, the attackers would very likely have been called "terrorists."

The hate mongers that teach these people from birth on to hate others should be brought to justice as well. How many times have you seen these varous mullahs smiling into cameras as they show off their schools of hatred...former dead terrorists pictures displayed on the walls for children to pray to as if they were saints. Why aren't they being held as accessory to murder? Why are governments allowing this mockery of religion to have access to these children?

And why is justice so damn slow? Sheik Saed admitted his involvement in the Pearl kidnapping and others. Take the dog-whelped bastard outside, put a bullet in his head and mail a bill for the bullet to his sorry ass wife, whose own family includes two brothers also dead from admitted terrorism activities.

The capture and release (from Indian prison) that enabled this godless monster to kidnap and kill again is a terrifying reminder that catering to terrorist demands reaps only more terror.

The civilized world is fed up with terrorism and in the days and months to come, I believe these monsters will reap exactly what they have sown. Death and despair for them and their families.

God bless Danny's soul and tend the spirits of all who loved him.

Why are governments allowing this mockery of religion to have access to these children?


In America, these "hate mongers" enjoy freedom of speech and religion. In the middle east, the mullahs are allowed to proceed because their message is popular.


Why aren't they being held as accessory to murder?


I do not like the idea of prosecuting people for expressing their (evil) religious beliefs. I think it may be more helpful to expose their beliefs to public scrutiny and debate.

In London this week, they arrested and are holding a muslim cleric who was distributing audio tapes of him telling his followers that all non-muslims are to be killed. He specifically challenged muslims in India to "kill any Hindu by slitting their throat and taking their money."


Freedom of speech should not protect these monsters. People need to be held accountable for their deeds...and their words when it brings about the deaths of innocents.

It may be that some difference exists: while some hate-mongers are inciting hatred in a general sense, others are giving more specific instructions to murder and steal.

Did you see yesterday's news from India? I read that a mob of Moslem attackers killed 57 Hindu men, women, and children (and critically injured others) who were traveling on a train by attacking them with stones and setting them on fire.


Perhaps you are right. Perhaps speech advocating violence against ethnic groups should be outlawed. It saddens me that such measures may be necessary.

I am very conflicted about our Constitution anymore. Before September 11th, I would have thought it ludicrous to stop anyone from saying anything. Now I feel that if a person has intentionally and with forethought incited others to commit murder they should be convicted of that very same murder. Our legal system is so convoluted and easily overcome as evidenced by cases like O.J. Simpson. I don't have faith in people like Sheik Saeed and John Walker Lindh being brought to justice. I would not be confident of bin Laden himself being convicted in an American court room. All he needs is Johnnie Cochran as counsel and at least one Saudi on the jury and he has a good chance of beating it.

Seems like the movie the Star Chamber is making more sense to me every single day.


oh sheesh..i'm rambling...