Daniel Pearl's Father responds to movie about his son

[mord]

From the New Republic:

…I am worried that A Mighty Heart falls into a trap Bertrand Russell would have recognized: the paradox of moral equivalence, of seeking to extend the logic of tolerance a step too far. You can see traces of this logic in the film’s comparison of Danny’s abduction with Guantánamo–it opens with pictures from the prison–and its comparison of Al Qaeda militants with CIA agents. You can also see it in the comments of the movie’s director, Michael Winterbottom, who wrote on The Washington Post’s website that A Mighty Heart and his previous film The Road to Guantánamo ” are very similar. Both are stories about people who are victims of increasing violence on both sides. There are extremists on both sides who want to ratchet up the levels of violence and hundreds of thousands of people have died because of this.”

Drawing a comparison between Danny’s murder and the detainment of suspects in Guantánamo is precisely what the killers wanted, as expressed in both their e-mails and the murder video. Obviously Winterbottom did not mean to echo their sentiments, and certainly not to justify their demands or actions. Still, I am concerned that aspects of his movie will play into the hands of professional obscurers of moral clarity.

Indeed, following an advance screening of A Mighty Heart, a panelist representing the Council on American-Islamic Relations reportedly said, “We need to end the culture of bombs, torture, occupation, and violence. This is the message to take from the film.” The message that angry youngsters are hearing is unfortunate: All forms of violence are equally evil; therefore, as long as one persists, others should not be ruled out. This is precisely the logic used by Mohammed Siddiqui Khan, one of the London suicide bombers, in his videotape on Al Jazeera. “Your democratically elected government,” he told his British countrymen, “continues to perpetrate atrocities against my people … . [W]e will not stop.”

Danny’s tragedy demands an end to this logic. There can be no comparison between those who take pride in the killing of an unarmed journalist and those who vow to end such acts–no ifs, ands, or buts. Moral relativism died with Daniel Pearl, in Karachi, on January 31, 2002.

There was a time when drawing moral symmetries between two sides of every conflict was a mark of original thinking. Today, with Western intellectuals overextending two-sidedness to reckless absurdities, it reflects nothing but lazy conformity. What is needed now is for intellectuals, filmmakers, and the rest of us to resist this dangerous trend and draw legitimate distinctions where such distinctions are warranted.

My son Danny had the courage to examine all sides. He was a genuine listener and a champion of dialogue. Yet he also had principles and red lines. He was tolerant but not mindlessly so. I hope viewers will remember this when they see A Mighty Heart.blockquote>

Hat tip to Adam.

[Ehud]

Very good post mord.  Comparing the vicious murder of Daniel Pearl to the pathetic tactics they use to interrogate prisoners is an insult to people's intelligence.  Muslims use takiya through the exploitation of the West's moral relativism to make us believe that what we are doing to respond to terrorism is as evil as the terrorism itself.  In the end this is an attempt to overthrow the will of the West to fight, because their message will get through to the Westerners but not to the terrorists and Jihadis themselves.  What the result of this will be are emboldened Islamic fighters who see Western weakness and ashamed  and will-less Westerners.  This is the recipe for the West's destruction and it's exactly what these CAIR people want.

[mord]

Yes it seems his father unlike his wife does'nt like the movie.It's doing terrible anyways

[Masha]

This moral equivalence thing is making me sick inside. It's part of a global historical revisionist trend. In the past several years, there have been numerous articles about the carpet-bombing of Dresden and Hamburg. What the  ...! Are we supposed now to feel sorry for the "poor German civilians" who died in the bombings? What? Again - the moral equivalence between Hitler and his victims? This is just [censored]!

And you know - I am not only not anti-German, I happen to love Germany, Germans, and the German culture. I would put Germany as the #1 culture of Europe (in historical terms), closely followed by the French culture, and then, at some distance, by the British. So - no, I am emphatically not a German-hater. But if you are at war, then the enemy is the enemy. You are not supposed to humanize the enemy. You are not supposed to empathize with him. You are supposed, on the contrary, to demonize him and to summon all the hatred and rage against him that you heart is capable of - and then some more! Otherwise you are doomed to lose the war before it even starts. During the Second World War, a Russian-Jewish poet, Iliya Ehrenburg, wrote a poem that was very popular. Some lines from it that I remember were: "Kill the German. Wherever you find him - kill him." And that was the right thing to do then.

And now these spoiled ninnies, these scum of the earth, who don't know what war is and what moral choice is, dare to make these moral-equivalence statements! They are the enemy! We should be ruthless!

Forgive my rant. This is just the kind of thing that pushes my buttons. A large part of my family dies during WWII - both fighting in the army and killed by Germans and local collaborators for being Jewish. "The ashes of Klaas knock at my heart."

[Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks]

Daniel Pearl himself, yimach schmo, was a moral relativist. He would have sold eighty thousand Jews down the river to save one Muslim.

Why didn't his father teach him relativism is evil when he was still alive?

[Yisrael]

Daniel Pearl himself, yimach schmo, was a moral relativist. He would have sold eighty thousand Jews down the river to save one Muslim.

Why didn't his father teach him relativism is evil when he was still alive?

When a Jew is killed because he is a Jew I'm almost positive that you say on him hy"d (may G-d avenge his blood) even if he was evil.

I'm almost positive, but it pays to double check.

[Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks]

Sorry. I admit I am a Gentile and do not quite know the proper use of these quotes. 

Primarily, I am not in the least sympathetic to Pearl because he was an evil man and because his thinking leads to the murders of countless Jewish babies and women.

[Yisrael]

I may be wrong. Let's ask Chaim about it.

[Trumpeldor]

Sorry. I admit I am a Gentile and do not quite know the proper use of these quotes. 

Primarily, I am not in the least sympathetic to Pearl because he was an evil man and because his thinking leads to the murders of countless Jewish babies and women.

Daniel Pearl was not an evil man. Misguided, yes. Self-hating, yes. But not an evil man. Just a Jew so typical of his generation.

[Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks]

He was a big Fakestinian lover. How's that not evil?

[DownwithIslam]

Daniel Pearl might of been evil but it is the principle of the matter. I wouldn't criticize him now as he did die because he is a jew. If he wasn't such a muslim sympathizer he prob would still be alive.

[Trumpeldor]

He was a big Fakestinian lover. How's that not evil?

I'm guessing what you mean is that some of his writings about Israel suggest that there could be peace with the PLO/Hamas Arab Muslim Nazis. I wouldn't call that 'evil' straight out. I would call it naive and ignorant.

Chaimfan, I unfortunately know many Jews like this yet I would not label them 'evil' on the basis of this.

[DownwithIslam]

It really depends. There are some jews who just say this stupid peace thing  repeatedly even though they know about Islam and that is indeed evil as Chaimfan suggests.

[Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks]

Trumpledor, you and I agree 99% of the time, but this is one case where I am more extreme than you. Left-wing, pro-Muslim Jews do not just endanger themselves. They threaten the lives of MILLIONS of their fellow Jews.

How is this? Kapo Jews disproportionately are in high positions in governments and they tend to be fawned upon by the world media, Israeli/Jewish and Gentile alike. Their b.s. arguments, while such obvious lies to us, are slickly worded so that the gullible (and those who just don't care) will gobble them up easily--i.e. they never come out and say the absolute truth ("I hate Israel"), so rather they cloak it in preposterous niceties ("I think that Israel and the Fakies should work together for peace"). 

They thus help persuade politicians and nations to adopt anti-Israel or surrenderist/appeasement policies that INVARIABLY lead to terror campaigns that lead to the murder of hundreds or thousands of innocent Jews.

Daniel Pearl was an affluent, educated, cultured man. He knew all this and yet insisted on allying himself with jihadist scum rather than his beleagured brothers and sisters. So no, Jewish or not, I can't say that I feel sorry for him one bit.

[Masha]

Trumpledor, you and I agree 99% of the time, but this is one case where I am more extreme than you. Left-wing, pro-Muslim Jews do not just endanger themselves. They threaten the lives of MILLIONS of their fellow Jews.

How is this? Kapo Jews disproportionately are in high positions in governments and they tend to be fawned upon by the world media, Israeli/Jewish and Gentile alike. Their b.s. arguments, while such obvious lies to us, are slickly worded so that the gullible (and those who just don't care) will gobble them up easily--i.e. they never come out and say the absolute truth ("I hate Israel"), so rather they cloak it in preposterous niceties ("I think that Israel and the Fakies should work together for peace"). 

They thus help persuade politicians and nations to adopt anti-Israel or surrenderist/appeasement policies that INVARIABLY lead to terror campaigns that lead to the murder of hundreds or thousands of innocent Jews.

Daniel Pearl was an affluent, educated, cultured man. He knew all this and yet insisted on allying himself with jihadist scum rather than his beleagured brothers and sisters. So no, Jewish or not, I can't say that I feel sorry for him one bit.

There is no excuse of being pro-muslim today. Ignorance no longer explains it. There is more than enough information to become educated on what islam is. I second - evil.

[Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks]

Thanks, Masha.

[RationalThought110]

It's a myth that Guantanamo detainees are treated bad.

[Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks]

Absolutely. They get three delectable chef-prepared halal meals a day, get their own Koran and the services of a Muslim chaplain, air conditioning, regular exercise and free time, and anything their heart desires.

JTF should support the closing of Guantanamo--because it's a luxury resort for Muslim scum of the earth.