President Bush notes Danny Pearl’s religion, not Nick Berg’s…
“We saw the nature of this enemy again in recent days when terrorists in Iraq beheaded an American citizen, Nicholas Berg.
{…}
They kidnapped the journalist, Daniel Pearl, and cut his throat, because he was a Jew. “
Considering that both Pearl and Berg were American Jews murdered by terrorists, and the president was addressing AIPAC, it seems a bit odd that he only referenced Pearl as being Jewish. I wonder why?
Probably because they made pearl say he was jewish before killing him, but with berg, the killers made no mention of him being jewish.
it seems odd that (while addressing AIPAC) he chose people killed in HIS war and not american citizens like child Koby Mandell who were skaughtered in Israel.
I read that Pearl was getting close to uncovering sensitive Al Qaeda funding stuff
Therefore, I think when people say he was killed “for being a Jew” they are full of shit – and trying to cynically exploit the tragedy of his death for purposes of furthering their own political agenda
“At considerable risk to his own safety, Levy — who, like Pearl, is Jewish — spent more than a year investigating the murder in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bosnia, and other locales. Levy doesn’t buy the argument that Pearl, who was 38, was murdered simply because he was an American and a Jew — “crimes†to which he confessed moments before he was decapitated. Rather, Levy suggests, Pearl’s killing was a “state crime,†orchestrated by a syndicate of Jihadist groups with the backing of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), its CIA. Levy theorizes that Pearl was close to uncovering ties between ISI chiefs and al Qaeda. He also believes Pearl was on the trail of Pakistani nuclear scientists who may have helped the terrorist group.”
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,490640,00.html
Bab-
The reasons for killing pearl dont have to be mutually exclusive.
Moreoever, just because you buy into a conspiracy theory, doesnt make those who believe he was killed because he was jewish “full of shit.”
It’s reasonable that Bush didn’t mention Berg’s religion as a motive for the terrorists. After all, they didn’t comment on his religion, or force him to disclose it in his videotaped statement. Certainly, if they knew, it could not have helped him any. But we really don’t know either way.
Incidentally, the Pearl-as-Jew line was a recycled pander from Bush’s last press conference.