A new report on the 2002 abduction and murder of the American journalist Daniel Pearl offers several dismaying insights into the tactical failures and strategic misconceptions which have continually undermined the US war on terror. The Truth Left Behind: Inside the Kidnapping and Murder of Daniel Pearl confirms that Pearl was killed by Khalid Sheikh Mohamed (KSM), the al Qaeda operative who masterminded the September 11 terrorist attacks, but it notes that more than half of the 27 men who “played a part in the events surrounding the case” including members of “at least three different militant groups,” the kidnappers led by British-Pakistani Omar Sheikh, and KSM’s associates, remain free despite several of them being known to the authorities in Pakistan. Furthermore, since evidence for KSM’s guilt was partly derived from “waterboarding” in Guantanamo Bay, he is unlikely to be indicted for the murder lest the charge complicate his prosecution for terrorist attacks on New York.
After his capture, KSM told the FBI he had taken charge of Pearl’s murder personally in order to ensure that he would receive the death penalty. He also boasted to a military tribunal that his role in decapitating “the American Jew” could be confirmed by “pictures on the internet.” Initial doubts about the validity of these claims were put to rest when the FBI used a forensic procedure known as “vein-matching” to compare KSM’s arm to that of the killer on the murder video. After nine years, however, confirmation of KSM’s guilt seems small consolation for the fact that more than half of his accomplices have yet to be brought to justice.
Daniel Pearl was killed shortly after recording an interview in which he said: “I am a Jewish American. My mother is Jewish. My Father is Jewish. I am Jewish.” His killers wanted him to say this in order to burnish their credentials as murderous anti-Semites, but, refusing to be intimidated, Pearl also added a detail of his family background that they would not have known: “Back in the town of Bnei Brak there is a street named after my great grandfather, Chaim Pearl, who is one of the founders of the town.” Following this extraordinarily heroic gesture of self-affirmation, Pearl – who was blindfolded and had his hands tied behind his back – was restrained by guards while KSM cut his throat.
Pearl’s life and death remain significant for several reasons. First among these is his remarkable courage and open-mindedness. He one of the few journalists brave enough to seek direct knowledge of America’s enemies in the post-9/11 war on terror. The French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy has described Pearl as “a citizen of the planet, a man curious about other men, at home in the world, friend to the forgotten … detached and engaged, generous and irresistibly optimistic; a luminous character who made it his duty, if needed, to think counter to himself; he was a man who had chosen to answer evil with good and, above all, to understand.” This curiosity inadvertently led Pearl into the clutches of the ‘Punjabi Taliban’ after he presciently noted the convergence of their interests with those of al Qaeda groups in Afghanistan. The complex affiliations of the group which then captured and killed him gives some idea of the difficulties of waging an effective war against something as nebulous and shape-shifting as a terrorist network.
The report observes that despite having multiple leads, “US and Pakistani investigators began the case chasing the wrong suspect, giving the killers time to slay Pearl and disappear.” It also notes that “in their haste to close the case, Pakistani authorities knowingly used perjured testimony to pin the actual act of murder on Omar Sheikh and his three coconspirators.” Most tragically, it concludes that the kidnappers were prepared to release Pearl in exchange for a ransom “but that possibility quickly faded when it became known that Pearl was Jewish and when al Qaeda operatives took charge of him.”
As the ninth anniversary of his death approaches, it is depressing to note that the militant groups which arranged Pearl’s capture and murder are alive and well. The fanatical anti-Semitism which led them to butcher such a thoughtful and decent man – after the murder Pearl’s body was dismembered into 12 pieces – is also thriving. Pearl’s killer is known, and in US custody, but due to the exigencies of the 9/11 prosecutions he is unlikely to be indicted. Half of those who facilitated the murder remain free men. This is truly an unworthy epitaph to the life of such a luminous and intelligent optimist. Daniel Pearl was a heroic journalist who was prepared to talk to his nation’s sworn enemies in the interest of finding out what lay at the heart of their hatred. The failures of imagination which cost Pearl his life were not of his own making, and the bungled pursuit of his kidnappers and killers is another damning example what happens when murderous thugs are treated as a legitimate target for a global war, instead of being prosecuted as a bunch of common criminals.
