Islam terrorist put Daniel Pearl Video on Net

Who Really Killed Daniel Pearl?
The US is ignoring evidence of links with Pakistan's secret service
By Tariq Ali
in Lahore, Pakistan

It has been a stunningly beautiful spring in Pakistan. But the surface calm is deceptive. When the war in Afghanistan began, I suggested that the Taliban would be rapidly defeated and that the "jihadi" organisations and their patrons would regroup in Pakistan and, sooner or later, start punishing General Musharraf's regime. This process is now under way.

In recent months, the jihadis have scored three big hits: the kidnapping and brutal murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter, Daniel Pearl; the assassination of the interior minister's brother; and the bombing of a church in the heart of Islamabad's tightly protected diplomatic enclave. There have also been targeted killings of professionals in Karachi: more than a dozen doctors belonging to the Shi'a minority have been shot.

All these acts were designed as a warning to Pakistan's military ruler: if you go too far in accommodating Washington, your head will also roll. Some senior journalists believe an attempt on Musharraf's life has already taken place. Are these acts of terrorism actually carried out by hardline groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammed and Harkatul Ansar, which often claim them? Probably, but these groups are only a shell. Turn them upside down and the rational kernel is revealed in the form of Pakistan's major intelligence agency - the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), whose manipulation of them has long been clear.

Those sections of the ISI who patronised and funded these organisations were livid at "the betrayal of the Taliban". Being forced to unravel the only victory they had ever scored - the Taliban takeover in Kabul - created enormous tensions inside the army. Unless this background is appreciated, the terrorism shaking the country today is inexplicable.

Colin Powell's statement of March 3, exonerating the ISI from any responsibility for Pearl's disappearance and murder, is shocking. Few in Pakistan believe such assurances. Musharraf was not involved, but he must know what took place. He has referred to Pearl as an "over- intrusive journalist" caught up in "intelligence games". Has he told Washington what he knows? And if so, why did Powell absolve the ISI?

The Pearl tragedy has shed some light on the darker recesses of the intelligence networks. Pearl was a gifted, independent-minded investigative journalist. On previous assignments he had established that the Sudanese pharmaceutical factory - bombed on Clinton's orders - was exactly that and not a shady installation producing biological and chemical weapons, as alleged by the White House. Subsequently, he wrote extensively on Kosovo, questioning some of the atrocity stories dished out by Nato spin-doctors to justify the war on Yugoslavia.

Pearl was never satisfied with official briefings or chats with approved local journalists. Those he was in touch with in Pakistan say he was working to uncover links between the intelligence services and terrorism. His newspaper has been remarkably coy, refusing to disclose the leads Pearl was pursuing.

Any western journalist visiting Pakistan is routinely watched and followed. The notion that Daniel Pearl, setting up contacts with extremist groups, was not being carefully monitored by the secret services is unbelievable - and nobody in Pakistan believes it.

The group which claimed to have kidnapped and killed Pearl - "The National Youth Movement for the Sovereignty of Pakistan" - is a confection. One of its demands was unique: the resumption of F-16 sales to Pakistan. A terrorist, jihadi group which supposedly regards the current regime as treacherous is putting forward a 20-year-old demand of the military and state bureaucracy.

The principal kidnapper, the former LSE student Omar Saeed Sheikh - whose trial begins in Karachi today - has added to the mystery. He carelessly condemned himself by surrendering to the provincial home secretary (a former ISI operative) on February 5. Sheikh is widely believed in Pakistan to be an experienced ISI "asset" with a history of operations in Kashmir. If he was extradited to Washington and decided to talk, the entire story would unravel. His family are fearful. They think he might be tried by a summary court and executed to prevent the identity of his confederates being revealed.

So mysterious has this affair become that one might wonder who is really running Pakistan. Official power is exercised by General Musharraf. But it is clear that his writ does not extend to the whole state apparatus, let alone the country. If a military regime cannot guarantee law and order, what can it hope to deliver? Meanwhile, Daniel Pearl's widow is owed an explanation by her own state department and the general in Islamabad.

Tariq Ali is a frequent contributor to CounterPunch. HIs latest book, The Clash of Fundamentalisms, is published by Verso.

How utterly horrific.
All those lovely young students who are defending those posters of the canned Palestinian children's meat should be forced to watch what is being done in their name.


Wake Up!!!!
These people don't want to reason with us. They prefer to torture and kill us.

Jihad! Jihad! A Million Martyrs To Jerusalem.

Sick puppies.

Bin Laden is a product of the U.S. spy agencies, according to an article in the Tribune de Genève by Richard Labévière, writer of the book Les dollars de la terreur, les États Unis et les islamistes.

The first contact with Bin Laden was in 1979, when the new graduate from the Univ. of Jedah got in touch with the U.S. embassy in Ankara, Turkey. With the help of the CIA and the U.S. Armed Forces intelligence services he began to organize in the early 1980s and network to raise money and to recruit fighters for the Afghan mujahidins that were fighting the Soviets. He did this from the city of Peshawar in Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan.

Part of these activities were financed with the production and sale of morphine, the base of heroin. This was the beginning of today Al Qaida (the base) network led by Bin Laden. Indeed the chickens are coming home to roost for the CIA and U.S. bosses.


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http://www.timesofindia.com/today/07euro1.htm

LONDON [IANS]: The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) worked in tandem with Pakistan to create the "monster" that is today Afghanistan's ruling Taliban, a leading US expert on South Asia said here.

"I warned them that we were creating a monster," Selig Harrison from the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars said at the conference here last week on "Terrorism and Regional Security: Managing the Challenges in Asia."

Harrison said: "The CIA made a historic mistake in encouraging Islamic groups from all over the world to come to Afghanistan." The US provided $3 billion for building up these Islamic groups, and it accepted Pakistan's demand that they should decide how this money should be spent, Harrison said.

Harrison, who spoke before the Taliban assault on the Buddha statues was launched, told the gathering of security experts that he had meetings with CIA leaders at the time when Islamic forces were being strengthened in Afghanistan. "They told me these people were fanatical, and the more fierce they were the more fiercely they would fight the Soviets," he said. "I warned them that we were creating a monster."

Harrison, who has written five books on Asian affairs and US relations with Asia, has had extensive contact with the CIA and political leaders in South Asia. Harrison was a senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace between 1974 and 1996.

Harrison who is now senior fellow with The Century Foundation recalled a conversation he had with the late Gen Zia-ul Haq of Pakistan. "Gen Zia spoke to me about expanding Pakistan's sphere of influence to control Afghanistan, then Uzbekistan and Tajikstan and then Iran and Turkey," Harrison said. That design continues, he said. Gen.Mohammed Aziz who was involved in that Zia plan has been elevated now to a key position by Chief Executive, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Harrison said.

The old associations between the intelligence agencies continue, Harrison said. "The CIA still has close links with the ISI (Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence)."

Today that money and those weapons have helped build up the Taliban, Harrison said. "The Taliban are not just recruits from 'madrassas' (Muslim theological schools) but are on the payroll of the ISI (Inter Services Intelligence, the intelligence wing of the Pakistani government)." The Taliban are now "making a living out of terrorism."

Harrison said the UN Security Council resolution number 1333 calls for an embargo on arms to the Taliban. "But it is a resolution without teeth because it does not provide sanctions for non-compliance," he said. "The US is not backing the Russians who want to give more teeth to the resolution."

Now it is Pakistan that "holds the key to the future of Afghanistan," Harrison said. The creation of the Taliban was central to Pakistan's "pan-Islamic vision," Harrison said. It came after "the CIA made the historic mistake of encouraging Islamic groups from all over the world to come to Afghanistan," he said. The creation of the Taliban had been "actively encouraged by the ISI and the CIA," he said. "Pakistan has been building up Afghan collaborators who will sustain Pakistan," he said. (IANS)

More On The Taliban And Other "Monsters" Of The CIA:
For more details on the CIA's role in creating the Taliban, and dozens of other terrorist organizations around the world, refer to the latest issue of COAT's magazine, Press for Conversion!.

This issue (#43) is on the theme: "A People's History of the CIA: The Subversion of Democracy from Australia to Zaire." It is available (full-text) at our web site <http://www.ncf.ca/coat/>


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Anatomy of a Victory: CIA's Covert Afghan War

By: Steve Coll, Washington Post, July 19, 1992

"In all, the United States funneled more than $ 2 billion in guns and money to the mujaheddin during the 1980s, according to U.S. officials. It was the largest covert action program since World War II."

A specially equipped C-141 Starlifter transport carrying William Casey touched down at a military air base south of Islamabad in October 1984 for a secret visit by the CIA director to plan strategy for the war against Soviet forces in Afghanistan.

Helicopters lifted Casey to three secret training camps near the Afghan border, where he watched mujaheddin rebels fire heavy weapons and learn to make bombs with CIA-supplied plastic explosives and detonators.

During the visit, Casey startled his Pakistani hosts by proposing that they take the Afghan war into enemy territory -- into the Soviet Union itself.

Casey wanted to ship subversive propaganda through Afghanistan to the Soviet Union's predominantly Muslim southern republics. The Pakistanis agreed, and the CIA soon supplied thousands of Korans, as well as books on Soviet atrocities in Uzbekistan and tracts on historical heroes of Uzbek nationalism, according to Pakistani and Western officials.

"We can do a lot of damage to the Soviet Union," Casey said, according to Mohammed Yousaf, a Pakistani general who attended the meeting.

Casey's visit was a prelude to a secret Reagan administration decision in March 1985, reflected in National Security Decision Directive 166, to sharply escalate U.S. covert action in Afghanistan, according to Western officials.

Abandoning a policy of simple harassment of Soviet occupiers, the Reagan team decided secretly to let loose on the Afghan battlefield an array of U.S. high technology and military expertise in an effort to hit and demoralize Soviet commanders and soldiers. Casey saw it as a prime opportunity to strike at an overextended, potentially vulnerable Soviet empire.

Eight years after Casey's visit to Pakistan, the Soviet Union is no more. Afghanistan has fallen to the heavily armed, fraticidal mujaheddin rebels.

The Afghans themselves did the fighting and dying -- and ultimately won their war against the Soviets -- and not all of them laud the CIA's role in their victory. But even some sharp critics of the CIA agree that in military terms, its secret 1985 escalation of covert support to the mujaheddin made a major difference in Afghanistan, the last battlefield of the long Cold War.

How the Reagan administration decided to go for victory in the Afghan war between 1984 and 1988 has been shrouded in secrecy and clouded by the sharply divergent political agendas of those involved. But with the triumph of the mujaheddin rebels over Afghanistan's leftist government in April and the demise of the Soviet Union, some intelligence officials involved have decided to reveal how the covert escalation was carried out.

The most prominent of these former intelligence officers is Yousaf, the Pakistani general who supervised the covert war between 1983 and 1987 and who last month published in Europe and Pakistan a detailed account of his role and that of the CIA, titled "The Bear Trap."

This article and another to follow are based on extensive interviews with Yousaf as well as with more than a dozen senior Western officials who confirmed Yousaf's disclosures and elaborated on them.

U.S. officials worried about what might happen if aspects of their stepped-up covert action were exposed -- or if the program succeeded too well and provoked the Soviets to react in hot anger. The escalation that began in 1985 "was directed at killing Russian military officers," one Western official said. "That caused a lot of nervousness."

One source of jitters was that Pakistani intelligence officers -- partly inspired by Casey -- began independently to train Afghans and funnel CIA supplies for scattered strikes against military installations, factories and storage depots within Soviet territory.

The attacks later alarmed U.S. officials in Washington, who saw military raids on Soviet territory as "an incredible escalation," according to Graham Fuller, then a senior U.S. intelligence official who counseled against any such raids. Fearing a large-scale Soviet response and the fallout of such attacks on U.S.-Soviet diplomacy, the Reagan administration blocked the transfer to Pakistan of detailed satellite photographs of military targets inside the Soviet Union, other U.S. officials said.

To Yousaf, who managed the Koran-smuggling program and the guerrilla raids inside Soviet territory, the United States ultimately "chickened out" on the question of taking the secret Afghan war onto Soviet soil. Nonetheless, Yousaf recalled, Casey was "ruthless in his approach, and he had a built-in hatred for the Soviets."

An intelligence coup in 1984 and 1985 triggered the Reagan administration's decision to escalate the covert progam in Afghanistan, according to Western officials. The United States received highly specific, sensitive information about Kremlin politics and new Soviet war plans in Afghanistan. Already under pressure from Congress and conservative activists to expand its support to the mujaheddin, the Reagan administration moved in response to this intelligence to open up its high-technology arsenal to aid the Afghan rebels.

Beginning in 1985, the CIA supplied mujaheddin rebels with extensive satellite reconnaissance data of Soviet targets on the Afghan battlefield, plans for military operations based on the satellite intelligence, intercepts of Soviet communications, secret communications networks for the rebels, delayed timing devices for tons of C-4 plastic explosives for urban sabotage and sophisticated guerrilla attacks, long-range sniper rifles, a targeting device for mortars that was linked to a U.S. Navy satellite, wire-guided anti-tank missiles, and other equipment.

The move to upgrade aid to the mujaheddin roughly coincided with the well-known decision in 1986 to provide the mujaheddin with sophisticated, U.S.-made Stinger antiaircraft missiles. Before the missiles arrived, however, those involved in the covert war wrestled with a wide-ranging and at times divisive debate over how far they should go in challenging the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

Roots of the Rebellion In 1980, not long after Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan to prop up a sympathetic leftist government, President Jimmy Carter signed the first -- and for many years the only -- presidential "finding" on Afghanistan, the classified directive required by U.S. law to begin covert operations, according to several Western sources familiar with the Carter document.

The Carter finding sought to aid Afghan rebels in "harassment" of Soviet occupying forces in Afghanistan through secret supplies of light weapons and other assistance. The finding did not talk of driving Soviet forces out of Afghanistan or defeating them militarily, goals few considered possible at the time, these sources said.

The cornerstone of the program was that the United States, through the CIA, would provide funds, some weapons and general supervision of support for the mujaheddin rebels, but day-to-day operations and direct contact with the mujaheddin would be left to the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI. The hands-off U.S. role contrasted with CIA operations in Nicaragua and Angola.

Saudi Arabia agreed to match U.S. financial contributions to the mujaheddin and distributed funds directly to ISI. China sold weapons to the CIA and donated a smaller number directly to Pakistan, but the extent of China's role has been one of the secret war's most closely guarded secrets.

In all, the United States funneled more than $ 2 billion in guns and money to the mujaheddin during the 1980s, according to U.S. officials. It was the largest covert action program since World War II.

In the first years after the Reagan administration inherited the Carter program, the covert Afghan war "tended to be handled out of Casey's back pocket," recalled Ronald Spiers, a former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, the base of the Afghan rebels. Mainly from China's government, the CIA purchased assault rifles, grenade launchers, mines and SA-7 light antiaircraft weapons, and then arranged for shipment to Pakistan. Most of the weapons dated to the Korean War or earlier. The amounts were significant -- 10,000 tons of arms and ammunition in 1983, according to Yousaf -- but a fraction of what they would be in just a few years.

Beginning in 1984, Soviet forces in Afghanistan began to experiment with new and more aggressive tactics against the mujaheddin, based on the use of Soviet special forces, called the Spetsnaz, in helicopter-borne assaults on Afghan rebel supply lines. As these tactics succeeded, Soviet commanders pursued them increasingly, to the point where some U.S. congressmen who traveled with the mujaheddin -- including Rep. Charles Wilson (D-Tex.) and Sen. Gordon Humphrey (R-N.H.) -- believed that the war might turn against the rebels.

The new Soviet tactics reflected a perception in the Kremlin that the Red Army was in danger of becoming bogged down in Afghanistan and needed to take decisive steps to win the war, according to sensitive intelligence that reached the Reagan administration in 1984 and 1985, Western officials said. The intelligence came from the upper reaches of the Soviet Defense Ministry and indicated that Soviet hard-liners were pushing a plan to attempt to win the Afghan war within two years, sources said.

The new war plan was to be implemented by Gen. Mikhail Zaitsev, who was transferred from the prestigious command of Soviet forces in Germany to run the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the spring of 1985, just as Mikhail Gorbachev was battling hard-line rivals to take power in a Kremlin succession struggle. Cracking the Kremlin's Strategy

The intelligence about Soviet war plans in Afghanistan was highly specific, according to Western sources. The Soviets intended to deploy one-third of their total Spetsnaz forces in Afghanistan -- nearly 2,000 "highly trained and motivated" paratroops, according to Yousaf.

In addition, the Soviets intended to dispatch a stronger KGB presence to assist the special forces and regular troops, and they intended to deploy some of the Soviet Union's most sophisticated battlefield communications equipment, referred to by some as the "Omsk vans" -- mobile, integrated communications centers that would permit interception of mujaheddin battlefield communications and rapid, coordinated aerial attacks on rebel targets, such as the kind that were demoralizing the rebels by 1984.

At the Pentagon, U.S. military officers pored over the intelligence, considering plans to thwart the Soviet escalation, officials said. The answers they came up with, said a Western official, were to provide "secure communications [for the Afghan rebels], kill the gunships and the fighter cover, better routes for [mujaheddin] infiltration, and get to work on [Soviet] targets" in Afghanistan, including the Omsk vans, through the use of satellite reconnaissance and increased, specialized guerrilla training.

"There was a demand from my friends [in the CIA] to capture a vehicle intact with this sort of communications," recalled Yousaf, referring to the newly introduced mobile Soviet facilities. Unfortunately, despite much effort, Yousaf said, "we never succeeded in that."

"Spetsnaz was key," said Vincent Cannistraro, a CIA operations officer who was posted at the time as director of intelligence programs at the National Security Council. Not only did communications improve, but the Spetsnaz forces were willing to fight aggressively and at night. The problem, Cannistraro said, was that as the Soviets moved to escalate, the U.S. aid was "just enough to get a very brave people killed" because it encouraged the mujaheddin to fight but did not provide them with the means to win.

Conservatives in the Reagan administration and especially in Congress saw the CIA as part of the problem. Humphrey, the former senator and a leading conservative supporter of the mujaheddin, found the CIA "really, really reluctant" to increase the quality of support for the Afghan rebels to meet Soviet escalation. For their part, CIA officers felt the war was not going as badly as some skeptics thought, and they worried that it might not be possible to preserve secrecy in the midst of a major escalation. A sympathetic U.S. official said the agency's key decision-makers "did not question the wisdom" of the escalation, but were "simply careful."

In March 1985, President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 166, and national security adviser Robert D. McFarlane signed an extensive annex, augmenting the original Carter intelligence finding that focused on "harassment" of Soviet occupying forces, according to several sources. Although it covered diplomatic and humanitarian objectives as well, the new, detailed Reagan directive used bold language to authorize stepped-up covert military aid to the mujaheddin, and it made clear that the secret Afghan war had a new goal: to defeat Soviet troops in Afghanistan through covert action and encourage a Soviet withdrawal.

New Covert U.S. Aid The new covert U.S. assistance began with a dramatic increase in arms supplies -- a steady rise to 65,000 tons annually by 1987, according to Yousaf -- as well as what he called a "ceaseless stream" of CIA and Pentagon specialists who traveled to the secret headquarters of Pakistan's ISI on the main road near Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

There the CIA specialists met with Pakistani intelligence officers to help plan operations for the Afghan rebels. At any one time during the Afghan fighting season, as many as 11 ISI teams trained and supplied by the CIA accompanied the mujaheddin across the border to supervise attacks, according to Yousaf and Western sources. The teams attacked airports, railroads, fuel depots, electricity pylons, bridges and roads, the sources said.

CIA and Pentagon specialists offered detailed satellite photographs and ink maps of Soviet targets around Afghanistan. The CIA station chief in Islamabad ferried U.S. intercepts of Soviet battlefield communications.

Other CIA specialists and military officers supplied secure communications gear and trained Pakistani instructors on how to use it. Experts on psychological warfare brought propaganda and books. Demolitions experts gave instructions on the explosives needed to destroy key targets such as bridges, tunnels and fuel depots. They also supplied chemical and electronic timing devices and remote control switches for delayed bombs and rockets that could be shot without a mujaheddin rebel present at the firing site.

The new efforts focused on strategic targets such as the Termez Bridge between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. "We got the information like current speed of the water, current depth of the water, the width of the pillars, which would be the best way to demolish," Yousaf said. In Washington, CIA lawyers debated whether it was legal to blow up pylons on the Soviet side of the bridge as opposed to the Afghan side, in keeping with the decision not to support military action across the Soviet border, a Western official said.

Despite several attempts, Afghan rebels trained in the new program never brought the Termez Bridge down, though they did damage and destroy other targets, such as pipelines and depots, in the sensitive border area, Western and Pakistani sources said.

The most valuable intelligence provided by the Americans was the satellite reconnaissance, Yousaf said. Soon the wall of Yousaf's office was covered with detailed maps of Soviet targets in Afghanistan such as airfields, armories and military buildings. The maps came with CIA assessments of how best to approach the target, possible routes of withdrawal, and analysis of how Soviet troops might respond to an attack. "They would say there are the vehicles, and there is the [river bank], and there is the tank," Yousaf said.

CIA operations officers helped Pakistani trainers establish schools for the mujaheddin in secure communications, guerrilla warfare, urban sabotage and heavy weapons, Yousaf and Western officials said.

The first antiaircraft systems used by the mujaheddin were the Swiss-made Oerlikon heavy gun and the British-made Blowpipe missile, according to Yousaf and Western sources. When these proved ineffective, the United States sent the Stinger. Pakistani officers traveled to the United States for training on the Stinger in June 1986 and then set up a secret mujaheddin Stinger training facility in Rawalpindi, complete with an electronic simulator made in the United States. The simulator allowed mujaheddin trainees to aim and fire at a large screen without actually shooting off expensive missiles, Yousaf said. The screen marked the missile's track and calculated whether the trainee would have hit his airborne target.

Ultimately, the effectiveness of such training and battlefield intelligence depended on the mujaheddin themselves; their performance and willingness to employ disciplined tactics varied greatly. Yousaf considered the aid highly valuable, although persistently marred by supplies of weapons such as the Blowpipe that failed miserably on the battlefield.

At the least, the escalation on the U.S. side initiated with Reagan's 1985 National Security Directive helped to change the character of the Afghan war, intensifying the struggle and raising the stakes for both sides. This change led U.S. officials to confront a difficult question that had legal, military, foreign policy and even moral implications: In taking the Afghan covert operation more directly to the Soviet enemy, how far should the United States be prepared to go?

(c) 'Washington Post', 1992. Posted for Fair Use Only

Joe, thanks so much for the link. I also heard about the Daniel Pearl Video on the net. You start to realize how evil these Islamic terrorists are. You now can see what Israel has to deal with. I advise everyone to watch that video. You will see how Islam is 100 percent evil

leads to porn

December 27, 1983

While Americans are thankful for the blessing of peace at home this holiday season, we do not forget that the tragic war in Afghanistan continues. For 4 long years the Soviet Union has occupied that unhappy land. But for 4 long years the brave Afghan people have held the might of a Soviet occupation force at bay. These Islamic fighters in a faraway land have given new meaning to the words ``courage,'' ``determination,'' and ``strength.'' They have set the standard for those who value freedom and independence everywhere in the world.

Afghanistan's freedom fighters -- the resistance or mujahidin -- represent an indigenous movement that swept through their mountainous land to challenge a foreign military power threatening their religion and their very way of life. With little in the way of arms or organization, the vast majority of the Afghan people have demonstrated that they will not be dominated and that they are prepared to give their lives for independence and freedom. The price they have so willingly paid is incalculable.

While we will continue to do our part to maintain and improve the U.S.-Soviet dialog, we cannot remain silent on the tragedy of Afghanistan. There should be no misunderstanding that the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan has created serious international tensions. It is not only the Afghan themselves who oppose the Soviet occupation of their country but virtually the entire world community. This has been demonstrated time and again in five consecutive votes of the United Nations General Assembly, when resounding majorities of the world's nations called upon the Soviet Union to end its occupation and restore the independence and nonaligned status of Afghanistan. In fact the most recent U.N. resolution was adopted on November 23 by the largest vote yet: 116 to 20.

Early this year, I had the privilege of receiving in my office a group of six Afghan freedom fighters. I was moved by their simple dignity and pride and their determination to continue their struggle for independence. These brave individuals have returned to the fight.

The struggle for a free Afghanistan continues. This is not because of any outside manipulation, but because of the Afghan people's own desire to be free. And their struggle will continue until a negotiated political settlement can be found to allow the Afghan people to determine their own destiny.

Our goal is to do everything we can to help bring about a peaceful solution which removes the Soviet forces from Afghanistan, ends the agony and destruction of the Afghan nation, and restores that country's independence and nonalignment. Clearly, a neutral and nonaligned Afghanistan would not be a threat to its huge Soviet neighbor.

Thus, we mark the fourth anniversary of the Soviet invasion with sadness and continued indignation. But we are convinced that a settlement is possible, and we are glad that consultations in the U.N. process of indirect talks will go on. We call upon the Soviet Union to reach a settlement of the crisis which restores the freedom, independence, and nonalignment of Afghanistan.

Let all of us who live in lands of freedom, along with those who dream of doing so, take inspiration from the spirit and courage of the Afghan patriots. Let us resolve that their quest for freedom will prevail, and that Afghanistan will become, once again, an independent member of the family of nations.

What I just saw was an American - an innocent, decent man and soon-to-be father, who had the balls, as a Jewish-American, to go to a Muslim country and give his opinion as a journalist about what was going on there. Every fucking American should be that brave.

Every fucking American should be as outraged as I am about what these evil, weak, lying, hate-filled, barbaric, SUB-HUMAN animals did to an innocent American citizen.

I'm not pro-Israel, I'm not pro-Muslim. I'm just an African-American girl from California who will never forget or forgive this act.

The MURDERERS who committed this crime can't fool anyone. They try to justify their horrific, brutal murder and desecration of Dan Pearl's body, by showing clips of other victims of war. Who do they think they're deceiving? Dan Pearl didn't commit any crimes against those people, nor did any other American citizen.

No one is justified in killing innocent citizens because they disagree with the politicians of their country. That's the primitive kind of mentality that says wives, children, and pets should be killed if you're angry with (and too cowardly to go after) the husband.

These sub-humans aren't even enlightened or intelligent enough to understand that hatred and murder don't solve problems - they only create more. Yet here they are, trying to lure more weak-minded, hate-filled people into their "cause".

How long will it take for these people to evolve out of the dark ages?

Maybe instead of hating and envying the freedom and power and scholarship and dominance and technology and easier lifestyle of the west, they should lift the shroud from their brains and eyes.

They need to crawl out from under a belief system that prevents them from living a REAL life, the beautiful life of milk and honey and sex and alcohol, of pleasure and harmony and loving different faces of humanity, that's possible in THIS world.

Why, instead, do they put their faith in beliefs that encourage them to burn with the kind of hatred and envy it takes look at the sweet face of Daniel Pearl and connive to stab him, cut his head off and hold it high in the name of Allah?

The killers try to fool and distract people who see the video - who can see for themselves that it's an innocent American man who is being murdered, and whose head is sawed off and held up like it's symbolic of anything other than an innocent American man - a decent guy - being killed by a bunch of unintelligent, un-enlightened, murderous fanatical ghouls. The men who committed this crime deserve exactly what they did to poor Daniel Pearl.

These murderers - these dangerous, stupid, fanatical morons- can't fool any intelligent, rational, unbiased person. Their bullshit and obfuscation won't work.

They try to associate and justify murdering an innocent man, depriving a wife and child of a husband and father, with the cause of Palestinians. Are any of the lying fucks who did it Palestinian?

They try to disguise the fact that Dan Pearl was an innocent American journalist, by making a big deal out of the fact that he was Jewish. So fucking what! Every American and every other person in the world is something! Murder can't be justified because someone hates a particular ethnicity or religion.

They try to say Daniel Pearl was a spy, not a journalist. Yet they themselves deceived and lured Dan Pearl into their kidnapping trap by saying he could interview someone from the other side, that he could present someone else's point of view other than his own.

Dan treated them like they were honest, honorable men caught in war situation, who's feelings and opinions should be heard by the world. They beat him, forced him to say damning things about the country whose ideals of freedom, non-persecution, and choice he believed in, stabbed him and cut his head off.

The facts are, simply, that they killed an innocent man. Stole his young life away, and single-handedly proved to the world that whatever these monsters believe in, whatever it is they idolize or put their faith in, and kill in the name of, whatever they worship, it needs to be EXTERMINATED.

Rest in peace, Mr. Pearl. Don't worry. We know a hawk from a handsaw.

Im not joking watch this movie and notice both who its dedicated to and what its message is. It portrays Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan (and Pakistan) as super soldiers who Americans should look up to.

One should never forget that American war hysteria got the world into this mess. And this new war hysteria is only going to make things worse.

Tanni,

American tax dollars drop cluster bombs on children, and they have been doing this for a very long time. What happened to Daniel Pearl was horrible, but please keep in mind that his murder isn't the only atrocity on this planet. His murder was vengeance for US murder of Muslims (wholeheartedly supported by the Wall Street Journal) around the globe, and the more heads we roll in revenge for the WTC and Mr. Pearl, the more heads we can expect to have rolled by Osama Bin Laden.

Your outrage -- as if the world isn't full of horrors that go untaped -- is IGNORANCE. Wake the fuck up.

Daniel Pearl was killed because he is an American and a Jew. He was killed in a hate crime that is supported by both Islamic terrorists and American liberals. If Pearl were a gay black feminist, the story would change, right?

I also believe it is important to have images such as these on line so as to open the eyes of the world to the truly evil practices that 'human beings' are capable of. It explains to me how lucky, and how cowardly we are as we sit at home with our materialistic priorities allowing atrocities of this nature to take shape all over the globe.

It has made me want something better for my family, something better for my loved ones. It makes me work harder and it scares me in to protecting those around me with everything I have and can do. I pray for Daniel Pearls family. And for us all.