Adam's Apple
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- Apr 25, 2004
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From Swords to Bombshells
By Suzanne Fields, Washington Times
October 16, 2006
What is Islam? Is the barbarity of September 11 rooted in the preaching of Muhammad? Or are the Islamists, the Islamic fascists bent on the destruction of all who disagree with them, merely an aberration, mixing politics, religion and violence in an appeal to the lowest psychological denominators of suicide bombers?
Historians, political scientists, psychologists are all over the place in supplying answers to these questions. Since most of the suicide bombers are young men whose minds have been drowned in propaganda, doomed to permanent adolescence, it's easy to speculate that they are a maladaptive collective of perverse minds, having become twisted twigs of humanity feeding on hate.
The historical forces at play are obvious. Bernard Lewis, a leading scholar of Islamist rage, places the fault line at the failure of the Muslim world to keep up with the West in the modern world. Diminishing Muslim power is both a humiliation and in Muslim minds a reversal of divine law, driving the losers to pick through the verses of the Koran to find justification for violence against winners. The decline of Muslim fortunes began with the fall of the Ottoman Empire and reached its nadir in recent times, encouraging the likes of Osama bin Laden, educated and wealthy, to play the David to the American Goliath.
for full article:
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/sfields.htm
By Suzanne Fields, Washington Times
October 16, 2006
What is Islam? Is the barbarity of September 11 rooted in the preaching of Muhammad? Or are the Islamists, the Islamic fascists bent on the destruction of all who disagree with them, merely an aberration, mixing politics, religion and violence in an appeal to the lowest psychological denominators of suicide bombers?
Historians, political scientists, psychologists are all over the place in supplying answers to these questions. Since most of the suicide bombers are young men whose minds have been drowned in propaganda, doomed to permanent adolescence, it's easy to speculate that they are a maladaptive collective of perverse minds, having become twisted twigs of humanity feeding on hate.
The historical forces at play are obvious. Bernard Lewis, a leading scholar of Islamist rage, places the fault line at the failure of the Muslim world to keep up with the West in the modern world. Diminishing Muslim power is both a humiliation and in Muslim minds a reversal of divine law, driving the losers to pick through the verses of the Koran to find justification for violence against winners. The decline of Muslim fortunes began with the fall of the Ottoman Empire and reached its nadir in recent times, encouraging the likes of Osama bin Laden, educated and wealthy, to play the David to the American Goliath.
for full article:
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/sfields.htm
