Fitzgerald: Completely normal

All this "normality" that we keep hearing about when discussing Muslim terrorists is why we (the Western world) have to undertake at least the first of the following two measures:

1. Change the permissive laws that have allowed the terrorist threat to emerge from the permanently and innately alienated Islamic immigrants communities in Western countries to end this stupidity, and institute a massive campaign of repression against their Islamic communities, not because we hate all Moslems and want to wipe them out (since I doubt that this is true of most of us - I for one do not feel that way), but because if there really is such a thing as a "moderate" and "peaceful" Moslem, this type of measure is the ONLY thing that will allow them to hold their ground against the innate violence of their own Islamic societies. If this is successful, it may not be necesary to take step 2 because this in itself may be a convincing enough demonstration to the Islamic world that we mean business. However, just in case, here it is.

2. Pressure nations such as Russia and China, as well as Japan and all of Latin America, to recognize where there own best interests lie, break any defence pacts and alliances they may have with Islamic nations, and prepare to launch a massive, global crusade like the one that defeated Germany and Japan in the last century, targetting all the Islamic nations that sponsor terror attacks or that have links to threats within our borders. The ones that come to mind are Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, possibly Pakistan, and perhaps before long, Iraq. "Moderate nations" such as Jordan and Egypt could be left out as long as they behave themselves, but we have to let them know that if they involve themselves, or if they don't get their own militants under control within their own borders, we will step in there too, and do it for them.

Iran is almost certain to have nuclear weapons in a few years, and meanwhile, terrorist threats to airliners, subways - even parliaments if the charges in the recent Canadian case are true - continue, and the ongoing attacks and threats give us all the reason we need to target these countries, especially the Saudis for an open and clear declaration of war fought according to the classic western traditions of warfare going back to Hoplite Greece - the shortest campaign possible defeating the most massive damage possible on the enemy.

The objective of this war must be nothing less than the total defeat of these nations, and an occupation that entirely breaks the will of the people who have adopted this monstrous ideology (here's where we'll be able to tell at last whether proposals for a "reform of Islam" can really succeed as we'll then be able to force this on them as one of the conditons for reconstruction and enforce it on the ground) and, that accomplished, their rebuilding and rehabilitation as respectable global citizens.

Definition of Normal :-conforming with or constituting a Norm or standard or level or type or social norm; not abnormal...;wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Seems he was very NORMAL within Islam as Hugh said

Completely Normal.....!!!

“NORMAL” is the goal. Sounds to me like “NORMAL” was achieved.

Three ominous examples of “NORMAL”:

1)
After being taken into custody in Pakistan, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who had roomed with Atta in Germany, discussed some of the tactics that Atta and the other hijackers used to integrate into American society.(104) When the hijackers arrived, they were required to find an appropriate "cover" to mislead and "mystify" the security services.(105) In many cases, the hijackers participated in seemingly "NORMAL" activity, while clandestinely preparing for September 11.

2)
Al-Qa'ida cells in East Africa were quite adept at creating several different business fronts. For example, al-Banshiri maintained both a business for importing gymnasium equipment and a mining business in Tanzania that he started with his brother-in-law. It was supposed to produce diamonds and gold, but never actually operated.(52) Another business venture which al-Banshiri entered into in Tanzania with his brother-in-law was a transportation company using a minibus. These businesses permitted him, as the top al-Qa'ida official in East Africa, to be seen as living a “NORMAL” life and the companies gave him cover for when he traveled.

3)
Odeh, al-Hajj, and al-'Awhali, who were convicted on all counts on May 29, 2001 and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, were among the key figures in a unit that had established itself secretly in Kenya during the 1990s. The members of the cell lived what appeared to be perfectly “NORMAL” lives, waiting for the signal to go operational.

Shultz, R. H. & Beitler, R. M. (2004) MERIA Journal. Tactical Deception and Strategic Surprise in al-Qai’da’s Operations. From http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2004/issue2/jv8n2a6.html

-XRDC

After all of Islam's untold crimes have been dealt with, surely the highest priority for the prosecution must be the criminal underrating of Stanley Kubrick's Lolita. Chock full of sterling performances, of which this creepy exchange is both frightening and funny as only the late Sellers could deliver the lines, this is trademark Kubrick: humourous and disturbing at the same time, and not a film to shrug off after watching it.

OT Lolita trivia: during her stay at Camp Climax where Humbert has picked her up before this scene, Lolita loses her sweater in the woods. Strangely (all of Kubrick's films contain references to other films of his), the sweater turns up at Space Station V in 2001: A Space Odyssey ("a woman's cashmere sweater has been found...").

↓Just checking to see this is working - looked frozen for the last few hours↓

Hugh, this would be some play, but would what happens really beyond this scene be a part of it?

These guys are as normal as any other jihadi killers would be.

'Lolita' was a bizarre movie, black comedy or not.

Shelly Winters was great - her character was absolutely repelling, a role she ended up playing often and usually to perfection.

Peter Sellers was incredible.

The scene Hugh recounts was Sellers at his best, engaged in a sort-of helter-skelter narrative only he could pull off....(can you imagine any other actor doing the job hr did in that scene?)

The beginning of the movie (which was the end) was equally entertaining, when Humbert murdered Clair Quigly. Quigly - (Sellers) - went through an incredible monologue in order to keep the murderous passions of Humbert Humbert - (James Mason) - momentarily at bay. It was a remarkable fusion of comedy, suspense and stream-of-consciousness wordplay.

Interesting choice of movie Hugh. Not one of my favorites, but certainly worth seeing.

With Islam, sadly, practically everything is SNAFU.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAFU

As more and more depressing news comes out, I feel more and more like Yossarain from "Catch 22."

Yossarian:
Those bastards are trying to kill me.

1st Lt. Milo Minderbinder:
No one is trying to kill you sweetheart. Now eat your dessert like a good boy.

Yossarian:
Oh yeah? Then why are they shooting at me Milo?

Dobbs:
They're shooting at everyone Yossarian.

Yossarian:
And what difference does that make?

Dobbs:
Look Yossarian, suppose, I mean just suppose everyone thought the same way you do.

Yossarian:
Then I'd be a damn fool to think any different.

Everyone of us needs to think like Yossarian.

"....(can you imagine any other actor doing the job hr did in that scene?)"

I think Alec Guiness could have pulled it off nicely.

"Interesting choice of movie Hugh."
-- from a posting above

The choice was dictated by one thing: the repetition of the word "normal" in the Enchanted-Hunters scene. I was, after all, making a point about the use of the word to describe this or that Muslim terrorist: "normal," "completely normal."

Such people are "normal" in only one sense That is, they are not in their own societies, in their own warped worlds suffused with Islam, seen as strange, but rather are understood, fit in, do not amaze. Those societies shaped by and limited to Islam, offer a definition of "normality" that is quite different by the standards of others, of non-Muslims. Non-Muslims have not been subjected to that blend of Complete Regulation of Life and Total Explanation of the Universe, and so would find such behavior not "normal" but bizarre and intolerable.

A Believer may at times feel emotions similar to those felt by Infidels, but often for quite different reasons. We have had dinned into us in good Family-of-Man style, ever since that influential exhibit (circa 1955), that we are all so very similar, all our differences so very minor. We are all are born, and experience childhood and adolescence, and then marriage, parenthood, middle-age, right through to old age and the only end of age. And the camera catches the child cradled in a mother's arms, and then the first steps, and then the schoolroom, and then the coupling, and then, and then...And it captures those expressions, of joy, and grief, pride and shame, despair and hope, expectancy and sadness, foreboding and chagrin, that can be seen on a face in New York City, or Beijing, or the Congo, or Calcutta or Cochabamba. And we are led to believe that because these facial expressions are similar in people everywhere, then the emotion itself, and what prompts it, must be similar. But that is false. The mirth of Bin Laden, captured on that first tape, as he tells his fellows about the World Trade Center bombings, the pride of some Muslim mothers in the "martyrdom" of their suicide-bombing sons (and sometimes even daughters), and so much else, show us that people are not all the same, that what makes them feel pride, or shame, or hope, or despair, or happiness, are different, and that culture, belief-systems, the things which are inside the head and not picked up by the camera, even the camera of Edward Steichen, account for many important differences.

But back to the scene from "Lolita" which was chosen only for the way in which Peter Sellers embodies the curious, sinister, amusing, nearly out-of-control Clare Quilty, he of the Duk Duk ranch, whose word, "normal," tolls again and again, at the first and only meeting Humbert will have with him, while upstairs, in Room 342, Lolita is sleeping.

The Sellers-Mason-Sue Lyons-Shelley Winter movie version of "Lolita," though it took liberties with the book, is much funnier than the other, solemn Adrian Lynes version. And because it does not try to compete with the book, does not get in the way of one's memory or delight in the words, and is a different but related work of art, I prefer that version. I prefer the score by Nelson Riddle, and Jean Farlow dancing with Humbert at the school gym and telling him that she and John are "extremely broad-minded," I prefer Shelley Winters exclaiming "oh Hum, when you touch me I go as limp as a noodle" and Humbert replying "yes, I know that feeling" and the ad for Dromes pinned to the wall, and Humbert reading a bit of Poe -- not "Annabel Lee" but another Poe poem, "Ulalume," the one by the dank tarn of Auber, in the misty mid region of Weir -- to Lolita, giving her a brief lesson in recitation and textual analysis.

"during her stay at Camp Climax where Humbert has picked her up before this scene, Lolita loses her sweater in the woods. Strangely (all of Kubrick's films contain references to other films of his), the sweater turns up at Space Station V in 2001: A Space Odyssey ("a woman's cashmere sweater has been found...")."
-- from a different posting above

I'm not sure that the sweater Lo loses when taking lessons in love from silent Kenny ("Mother, I swear -- Kenny didn't even touch me.") at Camp Climax is the one referred to in Kubrick's "2001." Would Mrs. Haze send daughter Dolores off to summer camp in the woods with a cashmere sweater, Lo, plain Lo, daughter of Charlotte and the late Harold (his cremains kept on the mantelpiece), in small-town Ramsdale, in small-town America, during that very period -- late 1940s, early 1950s -- when a visitor from Egypt, a certain Mr. Qutb, was spending a year or two, and becoming outraged at church socials and square dances, and suchlike. Dolores Haze was not, after all, being outfitted for summer camp the way, say, Nicole and Paris are nowadays even for their cruel slumming in, say, the Ozarks, recorded for the delectation of like-minded morons at home.

Or was there a sweater, not cotton or wool, but expensive cashmere (but the dollar was very high, wasn't it), left behind by Lo following the groping, in the gloaming, in a forest glade?

A flip through the text of "Lolita" should answer that Camp-Climactic question.

And if that sweater turns out to have been cashmere, and I have misremembered, well then -- just color me Kubrick. Or call me Kubrick's rube. Or something.

Pelayo; You made me think of Wouk's Caine Munity. What does Keever's description of the Navy remind you of?

It explains, and reconciles you to, all the Navy Regulations, and all the required reports, and all the emphasis on memory and obedience, and all the standardized ways of doing things. The Navy is a master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots.

Normal to a muslim is not normal to us.I know this is not big news!

This piece is slightly OT but I felt you guys would find it interesting.

The Psychology behind Suicide Bombings. By - Pierre Rehov, documentary filmmaker

On July 15, MSNBC's "Connected" program discussed the July 7th London attacks.

One of the guests was Pierre Rehov, a French filmmaker who has filmed six documentaries on the intifada by going undercover in the Palestinian areas.

Pierre's upcoming film, "Suicide Killers," is based on interviews that he conducted with the families of suicide bombers and would-be bombers in an attempt to find out why they do it. Pierre agreed to a request for a Q&A interview here about his work on the new film.

Q - What inspired you to produce "Suicide Killers," your seventh film?

A - I started working with victims of suicide attacks to make a film on PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) when I became fascinated with the personalities of those who had committed those crimes, as they were described again and again by their victims. Especially the fact that suicide bombers are all smiling one second before they blow themselves up.

Q - Why is this film especially important?

A - People don't understand the devastating culture behind this unbelievable phenomenon. My film is not politically correct because it addresses the real problem, showing the real face of Islam. It points the finger against a culture of hatred in which the uneducated are brainwashed to a level where their only solution in life becomes to kill themselves and kill others in the name of a God whose word, as transmitted by other men, has become their only certitude.

Q - What insights did you gain from making this film? What do you know that other experts do not know?

A - I came to the conclusion that we are facing a neurosis at the level of an entire civilization. Most neuroses have in common a dramatic event, generally linked to an unacceptable sexual behavior. In this case, we are talking of kids living all their lives in pure frustration, with no opportunity to experience sex, love, tenderness or even understanding from the opposite sex. The separation between men and women in Islam is absolute. So is contempt toward women, who are totally dominated by men. This leads to a situation of pure anxiety, in which normal behavior is not possible. It is no coincidence that suicide killers are mostly young men dominated subconsciously by an overwhelming libido that they not only cannot satisfy but are afraid of, as if it is the work of the devil.

Since Islam describes heaven as a place where everything on Earth will finally be allowed, and promises 72 virgins to those frustrated kids, killing others and killing themselves to reach this redemption becomes their only solution.

Q - What was it like to interview would-be suicide bombers, their families and survivors of suicide bombings?

A - It was a fascinating and a terrifying experience.

You are dealing with seemingly normal people with very nice manners who have their own logic, which to a certain extent can make sense since they are so convinced that what they say is true. It is like dealing with pure craziness, like interviewing people in an asylum, since what they say, is for them, the absolute truth. I hear a mother saying "Thank God, my son is dead." Her son had became a shaheed, a martyr, which for her was a greater source of pride than if he had became an engineer, a doctor or a winner of the Nobel Prize.

This system of values works completely backwards since their interpretation of Islam worships death much more than life. You are facing people whose only dream, only achievement goal is to fulfill what they believe to be their destiny, namely to be a Shaheed or the family of a shaheed.

They don't see the innocent being killed, they only see the impure that they have to destroy.

Q - You say suicide bombers experience a moment of absolute power, beyond punishment. Is death the ultimate power?

A - Not death as an end, but death as a door opener to the after life. They are seeking the reward that God has promised them. They work for God, the ultimate authority, above all human laws. They therefore experience this single delusional second of absolute power, where nothing bad can ever happen to them, since they become God's sword.

Q - Is there a suicide bomber personality profile? Describe the psychopathology.

A - Generally kids between 15 and 25 bearing a lot of complexes, generally inferiority complexes. They must have been fed with religion. They usually have a lack of developed personality. Usually they are impressionable idealists. In the western world they would easily have become drug addicts, but not criminals. Interestingly, they are not criminals since they don't see good and evil the same way that we do.

If they had been raised in an Occidental culture, they would have hated violence. But they constantly battle against their own death anxiety. The only solution to this deep-seated pathology is to be willing to die and be rewarded in the afterlife in Paradise.

Q - Are suicide bombers principally motivated by religious conviction?

A - Yes, it is their only conviction. They don't act to gain a territory or to find freedom or even dignity. They only follow Allah, the supreme judge, and what He tells them to do.

Q - Do all Muslims interpret jihad and martyrdom in the same way?

A - All Muslim believers believe that, ultimately, Islam will prevail on earth. They believe this is the only true religion and there is no room, in their mind, for interpretation. The main difference between moderate Muslims and extremists is that moderate Muslims don't think they will see the absolute victory of Islam during their lifetime, therefore they respect other beliefs. The extremists believe that the fulfilment of the Prophecy of Islam and ruling the entire world as described in the Koran, is for today.

Each victory of Bin Laden convinces 20 million moderate Muslims to become extremists.

Q - Describe the culture that manufactures suicide bombers.

A - Oppression, lack of freedom, brain washing, organized poverty, placing God in charge of daily life, total separation between men and women, forbidding sex, giving women no power whatsoever, and placing men in charge of family honor, which is mainly connected to their women's behavior.

Q - What socio-economic forces support the perpetuation of suicide bombings?

A - Muslim charity is usually a cover for supporting terrorist organizations. But one has also to look at countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran, which are also supporting the same organizations through different networks. The ironic thing in the case of Palestinian suicide bombers is that most of the money comes through financial support from the Occidental world, donated to a culture that utterly hates and rejects the West (mainly symbolized by Israel).

Q - Is there a financial support network for the families of the suicide bombers? If so, who is paying them and how does that affect the decision?

A - There used to be a financial incentive in the days of Saddam Hussein ($25,000 per family) and Yasser Arafat (smaller amounts), but these days are gone. It is a mistake to believe that these families would sacrifice their children for money. Although, the children themselves who are very attached to their families, might find in this financial support another reason to become suicide bombers. It is like buying a life insurance policy and then committing suicide.

Q - Why are so many suicide bombers young men?

A - As discussed above, libido is paramount. Also ego, because this is a sure way to become a hero. The shaheeds are the cowboys or the firemen of Islam.

Shaheed is a positively reinforced value in this culture. And what kid has never dreamed of becoming a cowboy or a fireman?

Q - What role does the U.N. play in the terrorist equation?

A - The U.N. is in the hands of Arab countries and third world or ex-communist countries. Their hands are tied. The U.N. has condemned Israel more than any other country in the world, including the regime of Castro, Idi Amin or Kaddahfi. By behaving this way, the U.N. leaves a door open by not openly condemning terrorist organizations. In addition, through UNRWA, the U.N. is directly tied to terror organizations such as Hamas, representing 65 percent of their apparatus in the so-called Palestinian refugee camps. As a support to Arab countries, the U.N. has maintained Palestinians in camps with the hope to "return" into Israel for more than 50 years, therefore making it impossible to settle those populations, which still live in deplorable conditions. Four hundred million dollars are spent every year, mainly financed by U.S.

taxes, to support 23,000 employees of UNRWA, many of whom belong to terrorist organizations (see Congressman Eric Cantor on this subject, and in my film "Hostages of Hatred").

Q - You say that a suicide bomber is a 'stupid bomb and a smart bomb' simultaneously. Explain what you mean.

A - Unlike an electronic device, a suicide killer has until the last second the capacity to change his mind.

In reality, he is nothing but a platform representing interests which are not his, but he doesn't know it.

Q - How can we put an end to the madness of suicide bombings and terrorism in general?

A - Stop being politically correct and stop believing that this culture is a victim of ours. Radical Islamism today is nothing but a new form of Naziism.

Nobody was trying to justify or excuse Hitler in the 1930s. We had to defeat him in order to make peace one day with the German people.

Q - Are these men traveling outside their native areas in large numbers? Based on your research, would you predict that we are beginning to see a new wave of suicide bombings outside the Middle East?

A - Every successful terror attack is considered a victory by the radical Islamists. Everywhere Islam expands there is regional conflict. Right now, there are thousands of candidates for martyrdom lining up in training camps in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Inside Europe, hundreds of illegal mosques are preparing the next step of brain washing to lost young men who cannot find a satisfying identity in the Occidental world. Israel is much more prepared for this than the rest of the world will ever be. Yes, there will be more suicide killings in Europe and the U.S.

Sadly, this is only the beginning.

And aren't acts of Islamic terrorism "completely normal" for Islamic societies? It all adds up!

Can't any one of the amazing wordsmiths frequenting this site come up with a ringingly true yet annoying label or aphorism for this banal activity of saying "all terrorists start out as nice guys, what a shocker"?

Could we have a contest?

We could then all cluck this annoying phrase, cutting off these pathetic non-stories before they gain momentum, until eventually even the media tires of repeating them.

There are some people for whom it is normal to make their kids saw off the heads of goats and sheep, in their places or worship. It is considered to be a vital part of the growing up process, it is considered to be "holy".

I don't know why even the thought of it makes me feel sick.

Europe is continuing to lose its marbles:

http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7796479

They're just going from bad to worse.

Normal.

If Mohammad is the "perfect human" then everything he did, or said to do, is the definition of "normal."

Like having sex with a 9 year-old. (we keep coming back to Lolita)

It's typical media misleading. Now that they've spouted the crap story of the young and friendly man just long enough to have it sink into the public's conscience, it turns out - surprise - he really wasn't.

"Co-students described him as angry, radicalized and openly islamistic," a new article in the "Die Welt" newspaper now states.

"Such people are "normal" in only one sense"

I think the point, though, of these professions of normalcy is that these Muslim terrorists seemed -- so their family members and neighbors insist -- to be normal in the nice, decent Western sense. I think a better movie comparison would be the end of Hitchcock's Psycho, where Alan Bates "wouldn't hurt a fly". We would then have the more straightforward Martin Balsam explaining how to the Muslim, the enemy really isn't innocent after all: the shaheed wouldn't, after all, harm an "innocent".

"The mirth of Bin Laden, captured on that first tape, as he tells his fellows about the World Trade Center bombings, the pride of some Muslim mothers in the "martyrdom" of their suicide-bombing sons (and sometimes even daughters), and so much else....."-Hugh

Yes, the Israeli inventors of the cell-phone at Motorola-Israel probably felt a similar pride as Bin-Laden and the mothers of the suicide-bombing sons in their work. Sadly, it would be normal for Bin Laden and many other Muslims to be be happy in killing the Isreali inventors of the cell-phone: it would be normal, very normal.