This page continues (from page 10) my commentary on religious terrorism, with associated links.
My writings are in black. Plagiarized text is in maroon, sometimes highlighted by me in red.
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Articles (Continued)
This is a copy of a memo sent to friends on 29 Sep 01, augmented slightly.
Truth: where art thou hiding?
I find that one of the first causalities of war -- and we seem to be in almost a Holy War of sorts now -- is the truth. For example, both President Bush and Prime Minister Chretien have publicly stated that, even assuming, as they do, that the terrorism of Sep 11 has been caused by a Mideastern organization such as that of Osama bin Laden, it is not motivated by religious belief, and that -- even if it is -- it is not Islam. They repeat: "It is not Islam".
That may be a politically correct thing to say, but it is plainly a lie. Terrorists such as these are not motivated by money, but by political and religious beliefs -- beliefs taught to them by Islamic Mullahs, in Islamic schools. That most Islamic people do not agree with their basic belief that they are doing a good thing in accordance with their version of Islam (of which there are several) and the one-and-only Koran is irrelevant. (Not all Christians believe that artificial birth control is wrong either, but that does not mean that they are not Christians.) Their Mullahs, and they, do believe that they are martyrs who died in a noble, and religious, cause. So do millions of Islamists, although not a majority of the one billion true believers. By the way, Islam means Submission.
Those thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, who were celebrating the terrorist attacks, were Islamists, not Christians, or Jews, or Elvis-worshipers, or atheists. They can also quote the Koran for support. (This also happens to be a good reason for not publicly supporting separate schools and their religious indoctrination of impressionable youth. Hitler was a firm supporter of the public funding of such schools, by the way, and the practice still continues in Germany (and in Canada, but not the USA).)
As another example of political correctness gone berserk, the Museum of Civilization two days ago postponed an exhibit of Arab-Canadian art that has been in preparation for more than three years -- on the basis that they were not quite ready, even though the exhibit times had been posted weeks ago. To his credit, Prime Minister Chretien -- urged on in Parliament two days ago by Alexa McDonaugh -- has castigated the Museum. Good for him! (You see -- I'm not all negative! And the PM is not all bad!) Yesterday, the Museum relented, and decided that there was time, after all, to present the exhibit on time.
Can beliefs motivate actions -- good or ill?
If there are any lingering doubts that such terrorism is the direct result of the most important motivation of all -- religious belief -- visit my Web site for views of experts in terrorism and religion, at Religious terrorism. (See also some statements by Mullahs justifying the murder of innocent children.) Such experts have been warning for years about the dangers of religious belief -- to not much avail, apparently.
Warnings plain to see -- and to foresee
I have been warning people for years about the possibility of using planes in such suicide attacks. Why is it such a surprise to security officials now? Why is it such a surprise, considering that handreds of religiously faithful Japanese warriors went to their voluntary suicidal Kamikaze deaths against US ships in World War 2?
My letter to the Ottawa Citizen to that effect at least two years ago was not published. However, major reports by CSIS in Canada and the CIA and FBI in the USA did not highlight this in their most recent reports of the past two years (I have checked) -- concentrating, instead, on crude nuclear bombs (there are plans for how to build one on the Intenet) and biological and chemical agents. CSIS even presented on the Internet a detailed scenario as to how to attack Manhattan with a barrel-full of biological agents, using a truck on a particular highway, chosen on a day when the wind was blowing in the 'right' direction! I will check to see if it is still on the Net. I would guess that it has been 'accidentally lost' by now!
Note added after memo sent:
I was wrong about the CSIS report about how to attack with biological agents having gone missing. The report as to how to carry out such biological attacks (by plane, truck, and boat), is still on the Web. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) has examined all aspects of a variety of biological weapons as to their acquisition (by mail order, in some cases), their manufacture (in some cases, no more difficult than brewing beer at home), and their delivery and dispersal by air or water. See the CSIS entry under Chemical and Biological Terrorism for a very detailed report as to how to do it.
As for plans on the Internet for building a nuclear bomb -- yes, they are there! See How to build a nuclear bomb at home
One might also question why those planes managed to divert so extremely far -- and for more than just a few minutes -- from their scheduled flight paths without air-traffic controllers at least raising questions, if not F-16 fighter jets. Also, was NORAD asleep? There used to be a huge airbase full of fighter jets in Rome, NY.
There seems to be a lack of creative and lateral thinking at high-enough levels of our security establishments. To ignore the threat posed by religious belief -- in spite of warnings by scholars in many published papers and books for years now -- is but one example, a deadly one. (I quote some of these on my site.)
Let the praying begin!
The latest news is that the terrorists carried with them notes of a very religious and Islamic nature. See
In Hijacker's Bags, a Call to Planning, Prayer and Death (washingtonpost.com): http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37629-2001Sep27.html By Bob Woodward, Washington Post Staff Writer. Sep 28, 2001; Page A01.
I will add some of my own comments below, in black and red highlighting. Some excerpts:
Mohamed Atta, one of the key organizers among the 19 hijackers who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks, left behind a five-page handwritten document in Arabic that includes Islamic prayers, instructions for a last night of life and practical reminders to bring "knives, your will, IDs, your passport" and, finally, "to make sure that nobody is following you."
. . . "Everybody hates death, fears death," according to a translation of highlights of the document obtained by The Washington Post. "But only those, the believers who know the life after death and the reward after death, would be the ones who will be seeking death."
This appears in a section of the document beneath the words, "The last night."
That section begins, "Remind yourself that in this night you will face many challenges. But you have to face them and understand it 100 percent. . . . Obey God, his messenger, and don't fight among yourself where you become weak, and stand fast, God will stand with those who stood fast."
The translated version of the document instructs the hijackers to steel their will with prayer before embarking on their mission.
"You should pray, you should fast. You should ask God for guidance, you should ask God for help. . . . Continue to pray throughout this night. Continue to recite the Koran."
It continues: "Purify your heart and clean it from all earthly matters. The time of fun and waste has gone. The time of judgment has arrived. Hence we need to utilize those few hours to ask God for forgiveness. You have to be convinced that those few hours that are left you in your life are very few. From there you will begin to live the happy life, the infinite paradise. Be optimistic. The prophet was always optimistic." . . .
A recurring theme is the promise of eternal life.
"Keep a very open mind, keep a very open heart of what you are to face," the document says. "You will be entering paradise. You will be entering the happiest life, everlasting life." . . .
It includes a series of prayers or exhortations. "Oh, God, open all doors for me. Oh God who answers prayers and answers those who ask you, I am asking you for your help. I am asking you for forgiveness. I am asking you to lighten my way. I am asking you to lift the burden I feel.
"Oh God, you who open all doors, please open all doors for me, open all venues for me, open all avenues for me." . . .
The document continues: "God, I trust in you. God, I lay myself in your hands."
It closes, "There is no God but God, I being a sinner. We are of God, and to God we return."
The document, several scholars of Islam said, draws on traditional Islamic prayers and alludes to Koranic verses. It begins with the universal Islamic benediction recalling God's mercy and compassion. And the last two paragraphs repeat the basic Muslim belief that "there is no God but God." . . .
Jonathan Brockopp, assistant professor of Islamic studies at Bard College, . . . noted, however, that Islamic extremists have recently arrived at their own interpretations of these early Muslim teachings, and the document's author appears to follow the extremist view. . . .
I do not see why there should be any doubt that the actions of the terrorists were motivated in great part by beliefs that were not only religious, but to a great extent Islamic -- even though it may be an extreme form -- and even a misinterpretation -- of one or more versions of Islam. Just because two people's interpretations of a paragraph of sacred text differ does not mean that only one of them is religiously devout! There is a reluctance by people of all faiths to admit that these actions could be motivated, in great part, by religious belief.
Terrorism does not arise from just one religion -- or its perversion
Have they forgotten which religion motivated the Crusades, the Inquisitions, witch hunts, and the Holocaust, which was carried out, with the will of the people, in Germany, the most religious and Christian country of the western world? It is called Christianity. That is not to condemn all of Christianity or all of Islam -- only part of it. But that part has disastrous consequences, and will have more to follow, unless politicians and the public are willing to be more reasonable (rational) and honest as to what motivates terrorism. Religious belief has as its core the idea that there is something that is more important than human life: God, unquestioning belief, and Paradise. Suicidal terrorists believe this too -- strongly enough to put their lives on the alter.
Unfortunately, these terrorists will be lovingly remembered and honored as martyrs by those with a certain kind of faith that is undoubtedly religious, not just political.
Blaming the victims
Here are some of the views of a Christian Church (Primitive Baptist). It is based rock-solid on the Bible. Who are we to say that it is not Christian? It is not Islamic, although some of its views are similar. You will not like its proposed anthems! See Westboro Baptist Church. .
Would you like to have pastors of this church as teachers in Ontario separate schools? Some groups are pressing for some (more) of it. We already have some teachings similar to some of these underway now in our system.
Are we sure that goodness and mercy will follow us all the rest of our days?
Religion's Misguided Missiles: http://www.world-of-dawkins.com/Dawkins/Work/Articles/2001-09-18misguidedmissiles.htm Article in The Guardian Published Sep.15, 2001 Richard Dawkins
A guided missile corrects its trajectory as it flies, homing in, say, on the heat of a jet plane's exhaust. A great improvement on a simple ballistic shell, it still cannot discriminate particular targets. It could not zero in on a designated New York skyscraper if launched from as far away as Boston.
That is precisely what a modern "smart missile" can do. Computer miniaturisation has advanced to the point where one of today's smart missiles could be programmed with an image of the Manhattan skyline together with instructions to home in on the north tower of the World Trade Centre. Smart missiles of this sophistication are possessed by the United States, as we learned in the Gulf war, but they are economically beyond ordinary terrorists and scientifically beyond theocratic governments. Might there be a cheaper and easier alternative? . . .
Pigeons may be cheap and disposable as on-board guidance systems, but there's no escaping the cost of the missile itself. And no such missile large enough to do much damage could penetrate US air space without being intercepted. What is needed is a missile that is not recognised for what it is until too late. . . .
How about using humans as on-board guidance systems, instead of pigeons? . . .
The problem with the human guidance system is precisely this. Unlike the pigeon version, it knows that a successful mission culminates in its own destruction. Could we develop a biological guidance system with the compliance and dispensability of a pigeon but with a man's resourcefulness and ability to infiltrate plausibly? What we need, in a nutshell, is a human who doesn't mind being blown up. He'd make the perfect on-board guidance system. But suicide enthusiasts are hard to find. Even terminal cancer patients might lose their nerve when the crash was actually looming.
Could we get some otherwise normal humans and somehow persuade them that they are not going to die as a consequence of flying a plane smack into a skyscraper? If only! Nobody is that stupid, but how about this -- it's a long shot, but it just might work. Given that they are certainly going to die, couldn't we sucker them into believing that they are going to come to life again afterwards? Don't be daft! No, listen, it might work. Offer them a fast track to a Great Oasis in the Sky, cooled by everlasting fountains. Harps and wings wouldn't appeal to the sort of young men we need, so tell them there's a special martyr's reward of 72 virgin brides, guaranteed eager and exclusive.
Would they fall for it? Yes, testosterone-sodden young men too unattractive to get a woman in this world might be desperate enough to go for 72 private virgins in the next.
It's a tall story, but worth a try. You'd have to get them young, though. Feed them a complete and self-consistent background mythology to make the big lie sound plausible when it comes. Give them a holy book and make them learn it by heart. Do you know, I really think it might work. As luck would have it, we have just the thing to hand: a ready-made system of mind-control which has been honed over centuries, handed down through generations. Millions of people have been brought up in it. It is called religion and, for reasons which one day we may understand, most people fall for it (nowhere more so than America itself, though the irony passes unnoticed). Now all we need is to round up a few of these faith-heads and give them flying lessons.
Facetious? Trivialising an unspeakable evil? That is the exact opposite of my intention, which is deadly serious and prompted by deep grief and fierce anger. I am trying to call attention to the elephant in the room that everybody is too polite - or too devout - to notice: religion, and specifically the devaluing effect that religion has on human life. I don't mean devaluing the life of others (though it can do that too), but devaluing one's own life. Religion teaches the dangerous nonsense that death is not the end.
If death is final, a rational agent can be expected to value his life highly and be reluctant to risk it. This makes the world a safer place, just as a plane is safer if its hijacker wants to survive. At the other extreme, if a significant number of people convince themselves, or are convinced by their priests, that a martyr's death is equivalent to pressing the hyperspace button and zooming through a wormhole to another universe, it can make the world a very dangerous place. Especially if they also believe that that other universe is a paradisical escape from the tribulations of the real world. Top it off with sincerely believed, if ludicrous and degrading to women, sexual promises, and is it any wonder that naive and frustrated young men are clamouring to be selected for suicide missions?
There is no doubt that the afterlife-obsessed suicidal brain really is a weapon of immense power and danger. It is comparable to a smart missile, and its guidance system is in many respects superior to the most sophisticated electronic brain that money can buy. Yet to a cynical government, organisation, or priesthood, it is very very cheap.
Our leaders have described the recent atrocity with the customary cliche: mindless cowardice. "Mindless" may be a suitable word for the vandalising of a telephone box. It is not helpful for understanding what hit New York on September 11. Those people were not mindless and they were certainly not cowards. On the contrary, they had sufficiently effective minds braced with an insane courage, and it would pay us mightily to understand where that courage came from.
It came from religion. Religion is also, of course, the underlying source of the divisiveness in the Middle East which motivated the use of this deadly weapon in the first place. But that is another story and not my concern here. My concern here is with the weapon itself. To fill a world with religion, or religions of the Abrahamic kind, is like littering the streets with loaded guns. Do not be surprised if they are used.
Richard Dawkins is professor of the public understanding of science, University of Oxford, and author of The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, and Unweaving the Rainbow.
While America Slept
Understanding Terrorism and Counterterrorism - Ellen Laipson -
Foreign Affairs Magazine:
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20030101fareviewessay10229/ellen-laipson/while-america-slept-understanding-terrorism-and-counterterrorism.html
by Ellen Laipson From Foreign
Affairs, January/February 2003
Review of the book The Age of Sacred Terror.
By Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon. New York: Random House, 2002
. . . In an important new book, Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, two former counterterrorism officials on President Bill Clinton's National Security Council (NSC) staff, vividly recount this history, describing how al Qaeda emerged and how America responded.
ANCIENT TEXTS, PRESENT ANGER
In its public rhetoric about terrorism before both American and international audiences, the Bush administration, like the Clinton administration before it, correctly distinguishes between violent extremists who profess to act in the name of Islam and the millions of peaceful, honorable Muslims around the world. The United States is not declaring war on Islam, U.S. leaders assure the world; it opposes only those deviants who abuse the religion in the name of their twisted messianic visions. [These terrorists were not abusing a religion -- they were acting in accordance with a religion (Wahabism Islam)!]
Benjamin and Simon usefully point out that the virtues of this public position notwithstanding, it should not be confused with the truth. [In other words, the President's public statement that Islam had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack was false! A particular branch of Islamic belief (Wahabism), based directly on the Koran, had everything to do with the terrorism!] Their book's most important and lasting contribution is its exploration of the relationship between al Qaeda's toxic message and the Muslim mainstream. They examine in considerable detail the gradual evolution of Islamist political thought, describing the timeless influence of Islamic thinkers such as the thirteenth-century theologian Taqi al Din ibn Taymiyya and the eighteenth-century preacher Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahab, whose ideas form the political and religious foundation of modern Saudi Arabia. What the authors find is disturbing. According to them, al Qaeda's belief system cannot be separated neatly from Islamic teachings, because it has -- selectively and perniciously -- built on fundamental Islamic ideas and principles. This link applies to contemporary issues as well: al Qaeda's views on Islamic law, Israel, or Iraq would not differ significantly from the positions of moderate Islamists, even if they disagree on the use of violence to further their goals.
Benjamin and Simon have done their homework. They have pored over ancient texts and have a sophisticated sense of the full range of ideas presented by Islamic theologians, not just the bumper-sticker version grasped by the popular press and by so many semi-educated Islamists. . . .
But Benjamin and Simon end the section with a reminder that radical Islamists live in Western societies too, not only among immigrant Muslim communities but also as converts. The lesson is that we must think less about the Muslim world and more about radical Muslims in the world. . . .
The latter half of The Age of Sacred Terror presents Benjamin and Simon's insider story of working on counterterrorism in the U.S. government. . . .
The authors also urge us to wise up to how religion -- not just Islam -- poses a new threat to national security. The "age of sacred terror" refers to rising religiosity worldwide and the emergence of new cults. . . .
U.S. government officials face many constraints, formal and informal, in addressing religion as a threat. Norms of tolerance and multiculturalism discourage the analysis of religion and culture. . . . But the problem runs deeper than that. Many good civil servants, fearing political incorrectness, are uncomfortable openly assessing foreign cultures on the basis of religious or cultural beliefs. In the late 1990s, for instance, when the National Intelligence Council (NIC) embarked on its unclassified exploration of the "drivers" of international politics, culminating in the publication of Global Trends 2015, analysts debated whether religion should be identified as a principal driver. Some argued forcefully that neglecting it would be a shortcoming in the study. But in the end, the NIC shied away from focusing sharply on the issue out of concern that such analysis might be considered insensitive and unintentionally generate ill will toward the United States.
In the end, the best prescription for fighting terrorism or other unconventional threats comes down to leadership. . . .
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You can e-mail me at waynerp@sympatico.ca