What Daniel Pearl's decapitation means to Barack Obama

Neil Turner

Obama hates Israel

I have learned however that the emphasis is not on who breaks the God of Israel's Laws. Rather, God's Laws break men who break them

Obama and the USA in general are on very thin ice

Adam B.

Obama stinks. He hates the West himself, and especially America and Israel. So perhaps it's not such a huge leap after all.

Aberdeen Angus

What a disgrace. Did they let him speak with a teleprompter?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeJsyoKIabY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt5dY3vVoZ0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDJSVPAx8xc

Adam B.

The antisemitism behind Pearl's murder was not even mentioned by much of the press at the time. Obama is just continuing this proud tradition of downplaying antisemitism. Oh, and he hates Israel as well.

Couldn't be connected, could they?

Adam B.

Aberdeen Angus

They wouldn't show that on the BBC, would they?

Priceless.

Lizzy

I read the Mark Steyn piece too and my heart sinks. The country that is supposed to stand up and defend our freedoms now won't even define the near and present danger: Islamic jihadism. All mention of Islam, Muslims, jihad, Al-Qaeda and Sharia is astoundingly absent from US government reports including the 2008 National Intelligence Strategy and the 2009 Fort Hood report (source: Pajamas TV). What the hell is going on with the Obama administration?

Thomas Crane

Thank you for shedding light on this. Focusing on a free press here is absurd. Is the President showing his hand and should we anticipate an attack on the freedom of the press?
Your presentation at U.C. Berkley was marvelous. The world turned upside down since Chesterton said "The great human dogma is that the wind moves the trees. The great human heresy is that the trees move the wind."(Tremondous Trifles p. 92)

Paul Freeman

Melanie

I’m not so sure using an expression like “captured the world’s imagination” in this context shows merely moral obtuseness or, as Mark Steyn suggests, Obama getting lazy. After all, the beheading of Daniel Pearl did capture the world’s imagination, or at least part of it: those Muslims who hate America, the West, and above all Jews.

By unconsciously choosing to employ an expression that only makes sense if speaking from their point of view Obama reveals where his primary sympathies lie. What could be clearer?

Jilly

I am ashamed that this fraud is the most powerful man in my once great country. He has outraged many of those who once believed that when he said change he meant to something better - not what we'd have left in our pocket when he got done with us.

karasu

And yet my Jewish friends defend and excuse him at every turn.

d1carter

The damage that Barack Obama is doing and will do to the USA will take decades to overcome. What a disgrace!

dantes

Living in the USA under Obama is like living in a Salvador Dali painting.

He is an arrogant fool and a danger.

d1carter

I would like to covey my deepest and most sincere condolences to the family and friends of Danny Pearl. He gave his life for the freedoms we enjoy. We will not forget.

In the Wilderness in America

Melanie,

Your outrage and Mark Steyn's should be the outrage of the world. Nevertheless, it is the outrage of all decent people who know that Obama dishonored Daniel Pearl's family and obfuscated the brutal reality of what happened. The Islamic terorists strike again and Obama this time held the sword.

grundoon

By Obama's 1000th day in office, of those who voted for him only the ignorant and the arrogant will not be ashamed or sorry they did

Terry, Eilat - Israel

A very immoral, dishonest, & shameless creep. Anything to appease his Islamic friends. Just despicable.

David, Thailand

It's unreasonable to expect a scorpion not to sting.

RR

Obama is a moral imbecile and guess what, he's getting away with it. The press still love him, the sectional interest groups still love him. Perhaps he reflects their moral view of the world and our responsibilities within it. As western nations slide into the abyss we must all remember which of our leaders took us there. Not that we will of course, we will be too busy worshipping the next empty suit that promises a new world order. God help us all

Terry in Oz

Obama is nothing but a symbol of the west's surrender in a war it won't even recognise is being fought against it. It's about five minutes to midnight. At midnight, the barbarians win.

Daniel Nessim

There is a link between Pearl and journalistic freedom. Journalists from whatever background - Jewish, Muslim, or whatever - should all be given the respect and freedom their job requires. Obama's lapse however betrays evil - Pearl's murderers do not share those values of journalistic freedom. He died as a Jew and an American. So Obama is betraying both Jews and Americans with his cavalier comments. Obama doesn't really seem to care for either.

Trenchant Commentator

One need not even TRY to fathom in when the POTUS demonstrates it.

steve

How pathetic of Obama, in the presence of Pearl's wife and young son, not to have mentioned that Pearl was decapitated. Instead he made reference to Pearl's career as a journalist as he signed into law a bill entitled the Daniel Pearl Press Freedom Act. Is it possible for him to sink any lower?

Romo

This man sat in a church for 20 years and listened to a rabid anti-Semite's sermons. His daughters were baptised there. Is it any surprise that he, too, is anti-Jewish? I only hope that he is neutered in November. What hope is there that this will happen?

William Boyd

The legislation is called the 'Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act' and the Pearl family campaigned vigorously for its enactment. The comment is thus entirely appropiate in the context.

Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in the first place because he was investigating Islamic militancy and not because he was a Jew.

Do you really imagine he would not have subsequently been murdered had he not been a Jew?

Daniel Pearl's last words were indeed moving and courageous but his Jewishness is not the issue here.

I note that your colleague Christopher Hitchens delivered the most recent Daniel Pearl lecture (Pearl family foundation) in which I gather he made some remarks about anti-semitism as the fount of all racism and which should please you.

On the other hand he has also made remarks about Israel, on 'expansionism' in the West Bank fo example, which I take it profoundly displease you as also no doubt does his atheism as well perhaps his attacks on the "internal clerical and chauvinist forces [in Israel] which want to instate a theocracy for Jews" (Wikipedia citing http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=15043).

And presumably you take the most profound umbrage at Hitchens' support for Obama to say nothing of his valorisation of Edward Said's 'orientalism'.

I for one would be more interested in your considered reflections on Hitchens' postion on Israel than the naive and uncritical rehashing of internet bloggery you indulge here.

mark

Steve

Pathetic of Obama not to publicly tell a seven year old that his Father's head was cut off?

Joshua

Once again Melanie Phillips goes totally over the top. Yes, Obama should have chosen his words more carefully, but the guy has so much class, I think we should forgive him almost anything. From the Baltimore Jewish Times:

"Among those on hand for the 15-minute ceremony in the White House Oval Office was Pearl’s son, Adam, who received a yo-yo and M&M packet imprinted with the presidential seal."

See what I mean.

Chris Holte

He was decapitated because he was an American Jew and a Journalist dear lady.

All through history dissent has been demonized. You link truth, rationality and common sense to Christian values, but you get the linkage backwards. Christianity only has been a positive force because of being linked to these concepts. The concepts predated Christianity.

Likewise, Islam is at its best when it is linked with these concepts. But demonizing Islam, or "PC" or whatever, doesn't really help change anything.

Daniel Pearl was also connected to Buddhism and new age concepts. That might have had as much to do with his death as his being a Jew.

Thomas

"The legislation is called the 'Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act' and the Pearl family campaigned vigorously for its enactment. The comment is thus entirely appropiate in the context."

If this is indeed the context, first impressions that the comments here are of a demented shrillness are confirmed. Surely a sense of shame or embarrassment would suggest that some restraint was more appropriate to the occasion and more dignified. As it is, the comments here call into question the sense of realism (of reality) of those making them.

Liz

Karasu - not your religious Jewish friends, I suggest. Religious Jews do not depend on the transient appeal of secular political leaders. As for Obama, he's so worried about offending anyone or social group that he's in grave danger of disappearing up his own fundament. As they say, 'the person who stands for nothing, falls for everything'. That, my friend, is the very essence of political correctness aka 'President'Obama.

Dixon

Yes, I agree with Mel and most of our gang, BUT...why did the Pearl damily not but in and say something? Is the office of Mister president SO hallowed that once elected he acquires a kind of invisible protocol armour...like magical robes? I would most certainly have thrown a televisual moment at the cameras that even the MSN could not have prevented going viral!

Gil

William Boyd, you take intellectual dishonesty to new heights with this comment of yours: 'Do you really imagine he would not have subsequently been murdered had he not been a Jew?'. How on earth can you prove a negative? Couldn't you at least entertain the possibility that the backdrop to Pearl's murder was his Jewishness? That the depraved islamofascists who seem to enjoy much 'understanding' from Liberals here in the West, might have been acting out their judeophobic fantasies?

And your comments about Hitchens and Said are red herrings, showing more about your prejudices than about seriously debating the issue.

But at least you are not moronic as Chris Holte who says: 'Daniel Pearl was also connected to Buddhism and new age concepts. That might have had as much to do with his death as his being a Jew'

Such a fatuous comment speaks for itself.

John Edwards

In his book "The Great War for Civilisation" the journalist Robert Fisk recounts how he was attacked by a mob in Afganistan enraged by an American air strike that had killed civilians. Fisk was fortunate to escape with his life.

The Wall Street Journal published an article under the subhead "A self loathing multiculturalist gets his due" In this article "the columnist Mark Steyn wrote that "you'd have to have a heart of stone not to weep with laughter".

Fisk goes on "Ironically - in view of Steyn's forthcoming abuse - back in Islamabad I was befriended by the Wall Street Journal's new South West Asia correspondent, Daniel Pearl and his wife Marianne. They made me bottomless cups of coffee, supplied me with the contents of their own contacts books and assured me that I looked as full of energy as ever. I wasn't so sure. I asked Daniel if he was travelling to Afganistan. "No" he said, My wife is pregnant and we're not going to take that kind of risk".

Within two months Pearl was dead. This horrifying, gruesome murder writes Fisk "raised again not just the cruelty of al_Quaeda and its satellites but the extent to which we as journalists had lost our immunity".

William Boyd

Melanie - can we have your take on Sasha Polakow-Suransky's new book "The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa" as well as The Guardian's current revelations of documents unearthed by Polakov-Suransky which appear to confirm not only the existence of an Israeli stockpile of nuclear weapons since the late '60s but also their apparent readiness to sell nucleat weapons to South Africa?

I support William Hague's strong line on Iran's nuclear capability but these revelations seem to sweep the moral high ground from under Israels feet and require discussion.

John Edwards

Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh the same man convicted of the murder of Daniel Pearl was also responsible for the 1994 kidnapping of three British tourists and one American in India. The kidnappers demanded that the Indian government release ten militants imprisoned in Kashmir and threatened to behead their captives if the demand was not met.

On that occasion fortunately the Indian authorities discovered by chance where the hostages were held and they were freed following a shootout.

Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh was later released as part of a prisoner release deal following a hijacking of an Indian airliner and made his way to Afganistan.

Beheading is rather a distasteful subject to write about but one can assume that the four tourists would have suffered a similar fate to Daniel Pearl. None of them as far as I know were Jewish.

Adam B.

Daniel Pearl's family clearly think his Jewishness was an important factor. I have the book "I am Jewish - Personal reflections inspired by the last words of Daniel Pearl." edited by Judea and Ruth Pearl.

It seems astonishing that there are those who wish to negate this connection. Obama's words do not reflect or acknowledge the savagery, and you have to wonder why. The fact thay Pearl was Jewish was lauded by the Islamists, who delighted in sharing the images with each other - even more than otherwise precisely because he was a Jew. It is indeed obtuse not to recogize that.

Adam B.

Edwards, you say

"one can assume that the four tourists would have suffered a similar fate to Daniel Pearl. None of them as far as I know were Jewish."

So two assumptions then? You know this?

Alistair Sinclair

Barrack Hussein Obama is simply AMORAL. Every utterance from his mouth is to promote himself in the political world ... Danial Pearl is simply another subject to wax on about, without any actual thought or clarity, without any actual connection to what happened to the man. Why isn't his killer dead already? He should have executed years ago ... instead Eric Holder wants to grant him a civilian trial ... this entire administration is treasonous from the top down.

Gil

William Boyd, in an attempt to hijack the thread on Daniel Pearl says: 'I note that your colleague Christopher Hitchens delivered the most recent Daniel Pearl lecture (Pearl family foundation) in which I gather he made some remarks about anti-semitism as the fount of all racism and which should please you.'

Note Mr. Boyd's contempt when he uses the words 'and which should please you' thus revealing Mr. Boyd to be either : 1. ignorant of the fact that antisemitism is indeed the longest hatred i.e. that Hitchens is correct; or, 2. Boyd, in his rhetorical attempt to deflect, is hoping that someone on this board will accuse him of antisemitism. At that point Boyd will turn round and shriek that no one can ever, ever, criticise Israel without being accused of antisemitism, when this thread wasn't about Israel - until Boyd attempted to make it so.

Linda Smith

Looking at the bigger picture, I wonder if Obama's persistent avoidance of criticising "Islam" owes more to his overarching wish to keep the Sunni Muslims onside against Iran than any other consideration.

Poosh

Obama is an immoral, worthless, dull-minded fraud but even I was surprised by the sheer stupidity of his comment. Then again the media have given him a free pass so maybe he's not stupid - he can simply say whatever the hell he wants knowing he'll never be called on it.

Gary Wayne Dupre

As an American, I apologize on behalf of our "leader".

logdon

Strangely enough in that strange world of synchronicity which often proves its own theory, I watched a DVD of A Mighty Heart on Saturday.

My long shot hope of any redemptive value in this film was dashed time and time again as missed opportunities presented themselves with dismal regularity.

No real motive was offered. No example of the barbaric wrongness was present. Merely a sprawling apology of a film which basically was an homage to Angelina Jolie's photogenic character.

It was all so casual and apart from Jolie's embarrassing attempt at grief, as if Pearl was second fiddle in the recounting of this tale of his own death.

The subsequent capture of the perpetrators was dealt with almost as afterthought, as if the existential, age old judicial matter of paying the price didn't matter.

All in all a thoroughly modern, conclusionless stockholm syndrome of a film. Dirty Harry it wasn't.

They'll bang on around that old and tired saw, one mans terrorist is another's freedom fighter but beheading an innocent man, with a knife and whilst his death agony is filmed has no excuse.

It is beyond, even the beyond these people inhabit.

Obama's crassness is by now no surprise. His airy world view makes a mockery of right and wrong and by doing so excuses barbarism as a cultural anomaly. Fortunately , America is waking up to this man with not one scrap of a hinterland.

This oh so sophisticated void may please his eternal admirers but most are twigging.

When it suits he's all there in his judgemental opinions. Without one scintila of information on the case, he called the Cambridge police 'stupid'. He's now castigating Arizona for actually enforcing America's own laws on immigration. He berates Fox for having the temerity to challenge. He would rather go after innocent Tea Party members than real terrorists.

The list is becoming drearily obvious and this latest episode only adds and confirms his complete unsuitability for post.

Osred

RE:William Boyd @ 1:16pm

Your comments on whatever Hitchems has been up to are irrelevant. why feel the need to introduce them? Why try to muddy the waters? It is fine to argue that Obamas comments regarding press freedom and Mr Pearl's are appropriate although most thinking people would regard them as crassly inadequate bearing in mind the context. His Jewishness is irrelevant? I would suggest that that, plus your tangential tosh about Hitchens, reveals more of your motivations than is decent.

Brenda

two more years to go........!!!!!!!

wonderer

Those who deny that antisemitism played a role in Daniel Pearl's murder might like to consider the Wikipedia entry on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, which includes:-

'On March 15, 2007, the Pentagon released a statement that Mohammed had confessed to the murder.[43] The statement quoted Mohammed as saying, "I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan. For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head."'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_Sheikh_Mohammed

No mention of any New Age or Buddhist angle there, although it is notorious that Islamic extremists are hostile to the non-Abrahamic faiths.

wrinkled weasel

I remember, with revulsion, the killing of Daniel Pearl. He was murdered in the most barbaric way. This statement, from Obama, sounds to me no less than appeasement. I am sorry, but the only way to deal with crimes against humanity is to stand up to them and if necessary, terminate with extreme prejudice.

Abu Nudnik

I would have expected something like it shocked us into a realization of how barbaric the enemies of freedom are and to what extent they will go to end journalistic and other freedoms we believe are ours by right.

His statement is very odd, very cold.

I don't know about some of the comments. Why Israel has to be dragged into every discussion, I don't know. Their nukes? What on earth has this to do with the decapitation of Daniel Pearl? But the friendship between Fisk and Pearl speaks volumes of the naivete of journalists who want to probe the minds of psychopaths. There's nothing to know: they must be wiped out if we are to survive.

David SI

Chris Holte - "Daniel Pearl was also connected to Buddhism and new age concepts. That might have had as much to do with his death as his being a Jew."
Well, possibly! Here's what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, his killer, said "I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew Daniel Pearl, in the City of Karachi, Pakistan". No mention of Daniel's association with Bhuddism in that statement. But wait a minute, it could be that he was beheaded because he was an American, or because he was in Karachi at the time, or perhaps just because of an unfortunate coincidence of him being American, in Karachi and in contact with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's "blessed right hand", all at the same time!.
Gee, it's so difficult to tell these days.

Augustus

What is the central purpose of communication? Is it to persuade
an audience, or to tell them the truth? Perhaps a combination of both is the goal of effective and ethical speaking. But when Obama rises to pontificate his entire approach to communication is simply to use words to service political goals. He sacrifices
honesty to expedience. He is a sophist, one who misuses words to create false impressions of reality in order to fool people
into supporting his beliefs and policies.

It is common knowledge that several of Obama's former associates (who he had to give up in order to get elected), such as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright
and the historian Rashid Khalidi
were outspoken anti-Semites. In
Podhoretz's book 'Why are Jews
Liberals?' he argues that it is strange that American Jews are generally left-wing liberals. He believes many Jews believe in more state control and medical and ethical policies which are, by American standards, ultra liberal. Podhoretz is shocked by this, and believes his fellow Jews are
wrong. He says that the true nature of America is based on individual freedom, opportunities for all, and a high sense of moral duty. He believes that it is this approach that has enabled Jews in America to reach their fullest potential. And it is precisely those conservative principles which the Republican
party has tried to protect for decades. What is certain is that Obama's foreign policy is dangerous for the state of Israel and it's survival. Jews everywhere should protest his poisonous policy, not least of which is the unworkable and wrongful 'two-state' solution.
The past has shown that the flames of anti-Semitism are fanned by socialists operating under a flag of convenience and political correctness.

Charles

Maybe reminding the bereaved parents, in the full public glare, of just how awfully gruesome their son's death was would have been a tad insensitive?

They know how he died, we all do. It's not moral obtuseness to talk about the "loss" of someone dear, rather than to dwell on exactly how they died: It's tact.

In signing the Daniel Pearl Press Freedom Act, Obama honored the memory of Daniel Pearl. How does that make Obama bad?

Charlie Wolf

Well, at least Obama didn't apologise for Daniel Pearl, as he does constantly for America.

Moishe

I remember Daniel saying he, his father, and, maybe, his grandfather were Jewish and that a street in Israel was named after his dad or grandfather.

Jack Nemerov

And this "man" has his hands on the steering mecchanism of our good ship "USA."

Susan

You're expecting him to be truthful about Daniel Pearl when he's not even truthful about himself. I think he's right in line with his character. He doesn't beleive he owes anyone the truth.

Flash Gordon

Where does the decapitation of Ken Bigley, the British Christian, fit in with the argument that Daniel Pearl was decapitated because he was an American Jew?

logdon

Strangely enough in that strange world of synchronicity which often proves its own theory, I watched a DVD of A Mighty Heart on Saturday.

My long shot hope of any redemptive value in this film was dashed time and time again as missed opportunities presented themselves with dismal regularity.

No real motive was offered. No example of the barbaric wrongness was present. Merely a sprawling apology of a film which basically was an homage to Angelina Jolie's photogenic character.

It was all so casual and apart from Jolie's embarrassing attempt at grief, as if Pearl was second fiddle in the recounting of this tale of his own death.

The subsequent capture of the perpetrators was dealt with almost as afterthought, as if the existential, age old judicial matter of paying the price didn't matter.

All in all a thoroughly modern, conclusionless stockholm syndrome of a film. Dirty Harry it wasn't.

They'll bang on around that old and tired saw, one mans terrorist is another's freedom fighter but beheading an innocent man, with a knife and whilst his death agony is filmed has no excuse.

It is beyond, even the beyond these people inhabit.

Obama's crassness is by now no surprise. His airy world view makes a mockery of right and wrong and by doing so excuses barbarism as a cultural anomaly. Fortunately , America is waking up to this man with not one scrap of a hinterland.

This oh so sophisticated void may please his eternal admirers but most are twigging.

When it suits he's all there in his judgemental opinions. Without one scintila of information on the case, he called the Cambridge police 'stupid'. He's now castigating Arizona for actually enforcing America's own laws on immigration. He berates Fox for having the temerity to challenge. He would rather go after innocent Tea Party members than real terrorists.

The list is becoming drearily obvious and this latest episode only adds and confirms his complete unsuitability for post.

Amy

The fact that one of Obama's first appalling actions as President was to make legal the evil "partial birth" abortions - i.e. removing a full-term baby's brain to kill it as it emerges from the womb,told us from the beginning everything we needed to know about this substitute for a moral human being.