Daniel Pearl

"In other words, I bet on a Daniel Pearl busy gathering proof of Pakistan’s collusion between the leading rogue states and terrorist networks of the world. My hypothesis is that he was writing an article on Pakistan’s duplicitous game, whereby it posed on one hand as a good ally of the United States, and on the other lending itself, through its most prestigious scientists, to the most fearsome operations of nuclear proliferation. To put it simply, was Pearl breaking the taboo? Entering this sinister world of mad scientists and Islamist fanatics, taking steps into this dark night where secret services and nuclear secrets exchange and share their shadowy realms, working on this highly sensitive and explosive material—was Pearl violating the other major prohibition that weighs upon this part of the world?"

"There’s the Danny—I’ve read his articles—who even if he is proud of America, thinks that America and, in general the West, has an obligation to the world, owes the world something. There is the diehard humanist who, in spite of everything he sees and has seen in his life, continues to want to believe that man is not a predator to other men, but a brother, a kindred spirit. There is the journalist who through his reporting goes unflaggingly towards the forgotten of the world, pays his debt, our debt, the debt of the hordes of smug and overfed Westerners who couldn’t care less about world poverty and don’t consider themselves “their brothers’ keepers.”"

"Because in a certain way Daniel Pearl is still alive—because of the emotion his death has aroused, and also because of the values everyone can feel, indistinctly, he incarnated—he is this living antidote to all the modern stupidities about the war between civilizations and worlds."