On 22 Jul 2002 at 13:09, Jonathan Davis wrote:
> Hi Joe,
>
> If you could see your way to including the links to the stories you post, I
> for one would be very grateful.
>
> Kind regards
>
> Jonathan
>
http://home.earthlink.net/~tebrister/911/bk_islam.htm
>
http://main.faithfreedom.org/
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <joedees@bellsouth.net>
> To: <virus@lucifer.com>
> Sent: Saturday, July 20, 2002 10:45 PM
> Subject: virus: The Nature and Nurture Of a Fanatical Believer by Ken Ringle
>
>
> >
> >
> > The Nature and Nurture Of a Fanatical Believer
> > A Void Filled to the Brim With Hatred
> >
> > By Ken Ringle
> > Washington Post Staff Writer
> > Tuesday, September 25, 2001; Page C01
> >
> >
> > What Jerrold Post wants you to understand is that, as new and
> > frightening as the war against terrorism may appear, the psychological
> > dynamics of the terrorist himself are essentially the same as those
> > America battled in World War II and other conflicts of the 20th century.
> >
> > The suicidal terrorist, he says, is simply an extreme example of "the true
> > believer" described by social philosopher Eric Hoffer in a landmark
> > book of that name half a century ago -- the individual whose inner
> > sense of worthlessness, confusion or rage seeks refuge and validating
> > rebirth within a charismatic mass movement.
> >
> > Once the true believer marched to national martyrdom for Hitler. How
> > much more exalting is martyrdom today in the name of God.
> >
> > Post, a George Washington University psychiatry professor and co-
> > author of 1997's "Political Paranoia -- The Psychopolitics of Hatred,"
> > has spent his whole career probing the terrorist psyche. He says the
> > key to unlocking it lies in understanding the degree to which today's
> > terrorist feels a need to subordinate his own weak personality to the
> > demonizing charisma of someone like Osama bin Laden.
> >
> > The subordination is, Post says, "a form of mental one-stop shopping"
> > for excuses as to why the terrorist's life is less than he feels it should
> > be.
> >
> > Once inside that comforting mental box, the terrorist can be aimed like a
> > missile, Post says.
> >
> > Underlying this hunger to belong, the psychiatrist says, is a "fragmented
> > identity" that may be rooted in a broken or troubled family; in economic,
> > cultural or geographic dislocation, or in the spiritual emptiness of a
> > modern world seen as amorphous and alienating.
> >
> > As Hoffer pointed out in "The True Believer," Post notes, the same
> > psychological needs have lured many to zeal in such diverse mass
> > movements as communism, fascism, Zionism, militant Christianity and
> > even pacifism.
> >
> > "Faith in a holy cause," Hoffer wrote, "is to a considerable extent a
> > substitute for the lost faith in ourselves."
> >
> > Post, a career political psychologist who served 21 years in the CIA,
> > testified as an expert witness in the trial of Khalfan Mohammed,
> > convicted in the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and
> > Tanzania. He has compiled detailed psychological profiles of dozens of
> > jailed terrorists in the Middle East and says the most disturbing aspect
> > about them is how normal they appear.
> >
> > Though rarely the hot-eyed fanatics of popular imagination, he says,
> > they almost all see the world in absolutist terms -- all black or white,
> no
> > gray -- whether from the ranks of the poor and undereducated or from
> > the college-schooled middle class.
> >
> > For example, several of those involved in last week's hijackings appear
> > to have come from middle-class or wealthy families in Egypt and Saudi
> > Arabia and had college degrees.
> >
> > Although some may have been living under stolen identities, Post says,
> > "the remarkable thing is that they were able to live for extended periods
> > in the West without detection, exposed to Western culture, sustaining
> > within them the commitment to destroy both others and themselves."
> >
> > Post compares them to the terrorists of the Weather Underground who
> > bombed the U.S. Capitol and other sites in the 1960s and '70s. Virtually
> > all were college-educated children of the American middle class.
> >
> > "At times of social stress," he says, "family dynamics often get played
> > out politically. If the father is identified with a culture or regime
> viewed
> > as corrupt or valueless, the youth who feels alienated or rejected can
> > fight back by adopting a revolutionary mind-set."
> >
> > If the parents are moderate Muslims, the reaction against them can be
> > acted out in the Islamic fundamentalism espoused by bin Laden,
> > himself the son of a wealthy Saudi family.
> >
> > For more than 30 years, such Muslim fundamentalists have blamed
> > every setback in the Islamic world -- from economic recession to Israeli
> > victories -- on what they see as the corruption of classical Islam by
> > Western culture, most of which they see rooted in the United States.
> >
> > What is needed to counter those corrupting forces, they believe, is a
> > purification of the faith (returning it to its non-Westernized
> > fundamentals) and a revival of the religious practices and militancy they
> > are taught characterized the "Golden Age of Islam" in the Middle Ages.
> >
> > Once these fundamentalists are caught up in such a group rationale,
> > Post says, it becomes to them not only morally permissible to strike out
> > against this enemy, but morally imperative. Yet most religious zealots
> > who strike out at external devils do so with rhetoric or political action
> or
> > some other means short of spilling blood. What sets apart religious
> > terrorists, Post says, is the way they rationalize the taking of innocent
> > life in the face of their faith's laws against both suicide and murder.
> >
> > In the case of Islam, the many tenets of the Koran that call for mercy,
> > tolerance, patience and charity are simply overridden by those who see
> > their faith in eternal holy war against infidels.
> >
> > David Ronfeldt, a senior social scientist at the Rand Corp., speaks of
> > the "time war" in the Islamic terrorist mind: an effort to challenge the
> > 21st century with medieval ideals.
> >
> > The peculiar genius of terrorists like Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini or
> > Osama bin Laden has been to persuade their followers that almost all
> > aspects of modern culture -- from scientific rationalism to Hollywood
> > movies and unveiled women -- are assaults on Islam for which the only
> > antidote is violence.
> >
> > In bin Laden's scenario, the death of a bomb-bearing terrorist is not
> > suicide: It is istishad, an Arabic word meaning martyrdom in the service
> > of Allah. And to such extremists, even the incineration of children can
> > be rationalized in the jihad aimed at expelling the United States from
> > the Middle East and thus purifying the faith.
> >
> > Obviously, most Muslims don't agree. The Arabic word"jihad" literally
> > means to struggle for the cause of religion. For a Muslim, the struggle
> > involves striving to be a better person, donating money to the poor,
> > fulfilling obligations toward the faith and, in extreme cases, fighting in
> > defense of Islam.
> >
> > Abdul-Moti Bayoumi of the Islamic Research Center at Cairo's al-Azhar
> > University, mainstream Islam's top seat of learning, says for this last
> > aspect of jihad to be legal, it must fulfill several conditions. Among
> > them: A Muslim should not provoke the aggression; a Muslim should
> > fight only the one who fights him; and children, women and the elderly
> > should be spared.
> >
> > "There is no terrorism in jihad or a threat to civilians," Bayoumi told
> the
> > Associated Press after the hijacking.
> >
> > Bayoumi is inclined to justify suicide attacks against Israel as the only
> > available weapons in an unequal war, but the grand mufti of Saudi
> > Arabia, Sheik Abdulaziz al-Sheik, sharply disagrees. The country's
> > chief interpreter of Islamic doctrine declared in April that suicide of
> any
> > kind is "strictly forbidden in Islam."
> >
> > Post says those terrorists imprisoned in Israel for arranging suicide
> > bombings, far from regretting their actions, evidence great pride in
> > them, even when the self-disintegrated bomber in question was a loved
> > one.
> >
> > They and other extremist Muslims interpret literally -- and frequently --
> a
> > passage in the Koran that promises martyrs of a jihad the choicest spot
> > in Paradise -- a tranquil garden where streams flow with honey and
> > decanters with non-inebriating wine, and each warrior is attended by
> > scores of doe-eyed houris whose virginity is perpetually renewed.
> >
> > Who wouldn't want that, they ask. For most such terrorists, it's their
> > highest ambition.
> >
> > "These are not people, for the most part, looking for their 15 minutes of
> > fame," Post says. "Some 40 percent of terrorist attacks are never
> > claimed by any group. They don't need to be, because to these people
> > they have sacred significance. Allah has seen them and He's the only
> > one who counts."
> >
> > The most disturbing thing about today's world, Post says, is that so
> > many faced with spiritual confusion, economic uncertainty and political
> > upheaval in the Middle East find more comfort in the messianic
> > militancy and lock-step obedience of terrorism than in the
> > entrepreneurial opportunities of democracy.
> >
> > Somehow, he says, America and its allies must find a way to reach out
> > to alienated young Muslims and meet the psychological needs
> > answered by membership in terrorist organizations. It cannot be simply
> > a matter of killing them, he says.
> >
> > He says there is a brainwashing component in the organizational
> > psyche of terrorist groups that can usually be countered by education
> > together with measures that demythologize successful terrorists, sow
> > dissension within the organizations and facilitate the exit of recruits
> > through rewards and other means.
> >
> > But he says Americans need to understand that terrorism can't be
> > eliminated in the United States without the government adopting the
> > repressive measures of a totalitarian state. The best Americans can
> > hope for, he says, is to reduce it to the occasional small incident they
> > can live with -- another predictable risk of our all-too-unpredictable
> age.
> >
> >
>
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