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"They get to grow up thinking this kind of atrocity is normal." I have more faith than that in the persistence of people's native moral sense, including that of teenagers. In a sense, this kind of atrocity is normal -- human history is full of it. Teenagers are generally riveted by this realization. It's part of being an adolescent: realizing that life is, or can be, a grand guignol. On the other hand, we call it by words like "atrocity." That means something too. When I was a kid, I was compulsively fascinated by Holocaust photographs. Did I grow up thinking that sort of thing was "normal"? I did not. Have more faith in today's kids.

You're probably right, I should have more faith. I guess I see it as a matter of setting an example ... by not watching the video, and saying exactly why. Mostly with stuff like this, though, I just have a good sized chunk of anger. Anger that we lose at what should be our own game: America invents the media machine, and Americans clamor for "news" and videos from around the world. Animals kidnap an American journalist from one of the biggest "cogs" in that machine. Animals torment family and employers with languid negotiations for his release, when they planned to kill him all along. Animals finally do so, and make sure to videotape it. Americans then sit at home at watch the tape, and the sick circle is complete. I refuse to become another notch in their video camera.

And another thing I thought of when I should be sleeping: regarding those Holocaust photographs. You were studying something that was horrific, but it was history. It was evil that had been stopped, it was not ongoing during your formative years. I hate to think of what it must be like to grow up as a teenager today. Hopefully events like this are aberrations, not a trend, so that they can be studied like those Holocaust photographs. But we're not there yet.

I have no desire to see the murder video either. However, I think that you might be mistaking the reason that the video was made. I don't think it was made to terrorize Americans; I think that it is more likely a recruiting video for the terrorists themselves. The video is in Arabic, other than the statement forced from Pearl. And there are other similar "snuff" recruiting videos out there that make the rounds of the mosques. I read an article on one of the British newspaper sites about a disgustingly bloody (for civilized human beings) video made in Algeria. I think that the particular mosque mentioned in the story was one that Moussaoui (or however his name is spelled) attended while he lived in England. I agree with Damien that we need to hunt down and kill the jackals who committed this heinous crime. They are too dangerous to be allowed to live.

You're right, it was made as a recruiting video. It may have been more accurate for me to say "They put it on the Internet just for you," as that's a largely Western population. And from the search returns on my site, it's not Saudi's or Pakistani's seeking this out. It Americans.

Count me as one who doesn't want to see it. I read Damien's comments yesterday, and that was plenty detail for me. I also read comments from NRO's Rod Dreher, who saw it and noted how the image will be forever in his head. That's one reason I don't want to see it. You can't un-see it. I'm already convinced of the need to utterly destroy these people. Those who aren't yet convinced, after September 11 broadcast live into our minds, are probably not going to be convinced by a repulsive Islamofascist recruitment video.

that is how i came accross your page, though i wasn't so much looking for the video as i was looking for information and i guess proof of it's existence. im sure a big part of it is the reality of it all.. in america, there are a lot of people, esspecially kids, who have forgotten we are even AT war... the media has worked so hard to keep it all at a minimum now and we have censored so much of what is really going on that it feels like it's not even happening.. i know where my curiosity comes from.. it's wanting a glimpse of reality... it's wanting to feel passionate about what's going on again.. i watch the news, i hear about the updates but i can't rid myself of the feeling that it's not affecting me.. it doesn't relate to me and it's not really happening.. it's out of sight, out of mind.. and i hate that.

People are naturally curious, not sick. Not only do I find your judgemental attitude disturbing, but I beleive that the main reason you posted this page is because YOU DO NOT HAVE THE VIDEO. YOU ARE A FRAUD, a desperate individual trying to generate traffic with something he does not have. You don't have the video, but you sure as hell wan't to make sure that the phrase "Daniel Pearl's decapitation shows up in all search engines. Good bye, sicko.

Oh, yes, the only reason Daniel Pearl should ever be mentioned on the web is if you're hosting the video of his murder. Unfortunately for you, a search of those terms yields dozens of pages of results, the majority of them weblogs where people state their opinion about the video. You do still allow me to post my opinion on my site, don't you, Mr. upyours@biteme.com? And if I was truly whoring for traffic, I'd be making people like you happy by hosting the video. I'd have more traffic than you could count, the FBI at my door, with my site mentioned in many news reports. But if you were a smart searcher, you'd be including video file extensions in your search terms (no, I won't list them here ... then people expect to find the video here!), eliminating sites like mine. Instead, you end up here leaving your anonymous rant, frustrated with me because you can't find something your average Net connected 14 year old saw last week. "Good bye, sicko." Likewise, I'm sure.