Declan: >In other words, the WSJ did what everyone else would do. Doesn't seem >like a big deal to me.
This is not what I've heard and read from a number of journalists, and the Journal's own reporters of the Reid story had qualms. As reported in the NY Times: Asked if there had been dissent from Mr. Cullison or Mr. Higgins, the [WSJ spokesman] said: "There was discussion with the reporters about this. No reporter would want to be in a position of freely handing things over to the government. This was a national security issue, a major issue, an are-lives-at-stake issue." The last sentence is WSJ editorial-speak for self-importance, and likely not shared by the two journalists who had to understand the personal and professional consequences for them. To be sure their protest may have been pro forma professional quisling, but their risk in Central Asia was real. So, no Declan, you are wrong in invoking the unwarranted personal exculpation of "what everyone else would do." Though that invocation of crowd reveals a clue what you would do, have done, will do. On Pearl's Jewishness, that does seem to have been a reason to kill him, and for the killers it is a political rationale. Whether that was the reason to kidnap him has not been demonstrated. What is of interest is the way the personal tragedy is being used to camouflage and direct public attention away from the political aspects of what was a political kidnapping and murder. As the Journal would say, "this was a national security issue, a major issue, an are-lives-at-stake issue." This personalization technique is traditionally used in such situations to make the perps appear demon for killing our boys our women and children, as with the entire 911 affair and subsequent greater savagery in Afghanistan. The sappy coverage of the Pearl killing by the Journal is hardly the quality the paper is known for, and appears to be a ploy to deflect attention from political ramifications of a scheme gone awry, standard psyop when taking sides is the name of the game, not objective reporting. Standard exculpation of complicity. Standard demogoguery of the patriots when bodes come home in bags.
