Kidnapped WSJ Reporter: Your thoughts?

[MaggieL]

Originally posted by dhamsaic
Are you fucking serious? He wasn't MURDERING someone, Maggie. He wasn't breaking any fucking laws. He was, as tw said, in a major Pakistani city, looking to hook up with someone who had granted him an interview.

Of course, I'm serious. Look at *who* he was trying to interview, and where. It wasn't just "someone", some random Pakistani; he wanted to interview Gilani specifically *because* he believed the guy was involved with Al Quaida.

Was there supposed to be some warning label somewhere that said, "Caution: trying to interview terrorists can get you kidnapped by murderers"? The consequences were a perfectly forseeable result of his actions. And, speaking of warnings, Pakistan has been on the state department terrorisism warning list, *explicitly* because of Al Quaida since **last May**.

Just beause he wasn't breaking a law doesn't mean he wasn't knowingly accepting a deadly risk. If I decide to get "inquisitive" about nitoglycerine and blow off my hand, should I whine that my "actions didn't merit it", since I was only curious I don't deserve such a severe penalty?

Look, I'm not saying the military, or the spooks (ours, and also the Paki variety, now *there's* a nice bunch of guys) shouldn't help him *if they can*. But there's really not a whole lot they can do to repair a situation that Pearl created all by himself.

If you don't think Pearl deserves a death sentence, maybe you can get the WSJ editors to forward an email expressing your opinion to the people who are threatening to kill him if their buddies aren't released; apparently the WSJ has an addy for them. I hope he's getting a good interview; if they *don't* kill him he'll certainly get that big story he was looking for.

In the meantime, maybe he can find somebody to sue. That'll work.