Roger L. Simon: Guantanamo, Newsweek and the Ghost of Daniel Pearl

Oh, Guantanamo - how it has been the rallying cry of self-described "progressives" and nabobs of the human rights movement who consider US troops the equivalent of tribesmen giving clitorectomies in the Somali desert. I wonder what they think when they read oday's report of the many confessions of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed at a Guantanamo Naval Base hearing.

Probably not much. But I'll tell you what I was thinking. After reading the following, I was thinking about Newsweek:

In a section of the statement that was blacked out, he confessed to the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, The Associated Press has learned. Pearl was abducted in January 2002 in Pakistan while researching a story on Islamic militancy. Mohammed has long been a suspect in the killing.

Why Newsweek? Well, the thought of Danny Pearl having his head hacked off by these religious psychopaths threw my mind back to this story about Guantanamo. In Howard Kurtz's words:

Newsweek issued a formal retraction yesterday of the flawed story that sparked deadly riots in Afghanistan and other countries, after the magazine came under increasingly sharp criticism from White House, State Department and Pentagon officials.

The magazine's statement retracted its charge that U.S. military investigators had confirmed that an American interrogator at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet. Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker said he thought the magazine had already "retracted what we think we may have gotten wrong" in an editor's note published Sunday and in media interviews. "We've called it an error," he said. "We've called it a mistake."

Mistake? You should have resigned for that, Mr. Whitaker. If I published a calumny that despicable under my watch at Pajamas Media I would like to think I would have stepped aside. Of course, it's easy to say. But I can promise this - today the news about Daniel Pearl would have given me pause. Made me shiver. And mired me in guilt.

And yet the beat goes on about Guantanamo. We're baaaad say those same satraps of the mainstream media, anxious to win the approval of their peers while they collect salaries that dwarf our soldiers'. Perhaps someday, like mundane Macbeths, will be haunted by Pearl's ghost. They deserve to be.

As for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, what punishment could there be for the likes of him? Even if I were in favor of the death penalty, which frequent readers of this site know I am not, it would not be sufficient. Perhaps this: life imprisonment in a tiny cell surrounded by Buddhist imagery with Buddhist sutras piped in twenty-four hours a day. No visitors. No Koran at all. After a few years, he might begin to forget Islam and its teachings. He would not know what jihad is. He would hear only Buddhist bells.

Comments

Comments require registration through TypeKey. Abusive remarks may be deleted. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of Roger Simon.

That sad thing is Roger, a lot of these people would seek to have this man's confession thrown out of a court of law. Of course they think that he deserves all the rights that the rest of us have in those same courts.

They would feel that military justice is not goof enough for poor Mohammed. Sometimes I wonder who we need protecting from the most...Mohammed or the people who would set him free to kill again.

Just going by what I've read on lefty blogs like HuffPo, this is what they think.

2. This information is a lie and was released to distract from various scandals.

And while I like the idea of "Life without Koran" as a sentence, I favor "Short, private visits with 9/11 relatives. Firefighters go to the front of the line."

Then there are the comments made by Imus on his radio show this morning. First, he said it all made him laugh, and then he wondered why the Administration wanted to release this information now.

In order to understand our enemy I suggest reading Stanley Kurtz of The National Review about parallel cousin marriage. It is a three part series. This phenomenon evidently is exclusive in the Arab/Muslem society. In other words the arranged marriage is between the son and the fathers brothers daughter which totally closes off the clan paternaly.

I know she would want to, at long last, profile Daniel Pearl's killer to show how they could have been friends.

"...what punishment could there be for the likes of him?....Perhaps this: life imprisonment in a tiny cell surrounded by Buddhist imagery with Buddhist sutras piped in twenty-four hours a day. No visitors. No Koran at all....He would not know what jihad is. He would hear only Buddhist bells."

Roger, it sounds like you are advocating TORTURE! What would Andrew Sullivan say? You are becoming just like our enemy!

Who cares what Liberals think? They dont know how to win a war and they all want to lose it so they can get power.

They are doves in a hawk filled war. You think the enemy cares about making nice and having peace? No chance. These Islamic fascists only care about wiping us off the face of the earth. And the first people they'd hang from the rooftops?

I beg to differ with Roger. The appropriate way to punish a cruel and inhuman being (KSM) is with cruel and inhuman punishment. The Mosaic code suffices for me. Making nice to him is not elevating ourselves, and giving him just deserts does not lower us either.

Roger, for what it's worth, Richard Myers admitted that the riots were "related more to the ongoing political reconciliation process in Afghanistan than anything else."

Newsweek was certainly guilty of sloppy reporting, but it's about time the Newsweek Lied/People Died canard was laid to rest.

DPG is absolutely correct. Those waging Jihad against the West aren't incensed by red-state churchgoers who've never seen the need to have a passport; they're incensed by the licentious exporters of godless hedonism which threatens to erode the very foundations of their societies.

Of course, the chattering classes who are hated by the jihadis will natter away about Rudy's this and Rudy's that, like they're double-daring the rubes to toss Rudy under the bus. And a majority of the chatterers (which obviously doesn't include Karol) will actively seek to put somebody who doesn't think we have any external enemies (the real enemies being theocratic right-wingers) into the Oval Office.

If you live submersed in the culture of influence, it's easy to turn everything outside that culture into a cartoon. I once told someone that there are two views about where I come from; Hee Haw or Deliverance. But the hicks aren't stupid, and we can be downright cold when it comes to threats to what we really care about.

What to do with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? He's at war with us, he killed our citizens, with both his plans and his own hands; put him against a wall and shoot him and move on.

Failing that, put him on 60 Minutes and let him remind chattering America that we're at war. Each and every one of them (us) could someday be Danny Pearl.

Re Mark's post, pipe porno & slasher movies into third-world mud huts, and whaddaya expect? And no, I'm not excusing KSM by any stretch of the imagination. It's just that Mark makes a very grave point.

5. The worst thing about this story is that some right-wingers left nasty comments about Jimmy Carter on Little Green Footballs.

What I haven't seen, anywhere, is sincere concern for the safety of Jimmy Carter. He's just a symbol, not a person, to those who claim him as a political inspiration.

Well, the assassination of a former president would be a monstrous act, and a disaster for everyone.

I think KSM is likely a congential liar and like other Islamists is mentally-ill and self-delusional by our standards. Who else would find pride in a cult of death - one that would kill in the name of Allah 4 billion inncocent men, women and children if he could? Yes, I believe he was involved in planning the 9/11 attacks.

But is he also trying to claim responsibility for atrocities committed by others who remain at large so that we stop seeking them. He is in captivity after all. What is fact versus fiction? I don't fully know.

In addition, perhaps he looking for us to kill him so he can go claim his share of the virgins as martyr. (I don't know where this doctrine originates, but one could imagine that pedophile like Mohammed could create something like this to manipulate his followers - I mean subjects.)

Having said that, we know enough. DPG and Mark are right. The Islamists are in part motivated by the "licentious exporters of godless hedonism", but also by the call to convert at the point of the sword (which is how they get power) and to realize an earthly Islamic kingdom (where liberals would be the first, but not the last, victims).

We are fighting an enemy that sees endless negotiation and appeasement as weakness. Only toughness is respected. The liberals can't see that the embrace of negotiation and appeasement is only used to bring us close enough so that we are easier to kill. I think the Islamists learned that from the Mafia.

There is no question in my mind that executing KSM is appropriate if he did what he claims to have done.

Many people argue that you cannot bring someone back from the dead by killing the killer. I would agree with them. It is this fact that shows the price for murder as paid for with an execution is too low, not too high.

The point for executing a person humanely is not becasue they deserve it, but because we are not like them.

If the ratio of people like KSM to civilized folks is lowered, the world becomes a better place.

As he points out, there's video on the internet of him holding Pearl's severed head in his hand. No wonder Rosie O'Donnell loves this guy and said so on the view (concern for his "humanity" and professed her solidarity with KSM).

KSM was known in 1996 after his laptop was seized in Manila to have been behind the 1993 WTC bombing carried out by his nephew Ramzi Yusef. Behind the Bojinka Plot. Behind the Pearl Murder.

KSM before Al Qaeda was the nexus of an influential and extended Pakistani clan with extensive ties to Pakistan's ISI, Saddam's intelligence network, and various jihadi groups around the world.

What KSM brought was organizational flair, a disposition for high-profile terrorist acts designed to get massive media attention and project an "unstoppable" image of terror, and his vast array of family and friends network.

KSM was a horrible menace before he joined forces with Al Qaeda and is a horrible menace now. I have no doubt that he is not only responsible for the thirty named plots or attempted plots, but many more besides.

As such he should be summarily executed in front of his peers and given a summary burial (with pigs or whatever) in front of his peers so they "know" he will end up in whatever unclean hell they believe in .

I have to agree... KSM should be executed. I think its important for us to realize that killing him wouldn't be 'moral'... one death doesn't recompense many. However, on occasion some people need to die. We as individuals and as a society will bear responsibility for this death, but its a sad responsibility that we must occasionally shoulder. Even if he's only guilty of 2 or 4 or 8 of the crimes he admitted to... death seems sufficient. If we let him go, he'll kill more Americans, if we keep him alive, our tax dollars go to waste. Murder isn't pretty, but sometimes its justified.

Those that jumped from the twin towers were not given the option to be Water-Boarded (forgive spelling), it is more important for Media to remind us that Britney shaved her head, than to dwell on 7 Ohio St Baseball players lives that were lost the other day. Media influences a nation, and that is the problem. I say Drug Test them all before they are allowed to influence one weak mind. Kind-a like Baseball.

Punishment? I'd suggest dropping him off at a FDNY firehouse and telling the firemen "we'll be back in an hour for what's left."

I'm not satisfied with the Buddhism 24/7. My first thought was snake-handling Pentecostal, but actually, the ultimate would be random cycling. Wiccan, Catholic, Sufi, Santaria, Bahai, and so on.

Never mind either the firing squad or the sutras. I suggest full-body electrolysis.

March 14, 2007: Guantanamo, Newsweek and the Ghost of Daniel Pearl

Comments

Post a comment

Email This Post