So of his own free will("A hand chained to a steering wheel revealed fingerprints that identified him as the bomber. It was the only body part that remained") he became a suicide bomber???????????????

And now he is with the virgins.............

Posted by: chuck at April 15, 2006 8:25 AM

"he quickly plunged into a fast-paced, hedonistic lifestyle. Gray and others said he smoked pot, was a fan of nihilistic rock groups such as Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails and reveled in the Hollywood club scene."
--- from the article above

That is the Arab idea, apparently, of what the West mainly has to offer -- or at least it was Al-Banna's idea. Not the Bill of Rights, not science, not art, but "Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails" and the "Hollywood club scene." Why should it be otherwise? Coming from a world, and a belief-system, that stunted his mental growth, he saw the "freedoms" of the West only in the stupidest and most intolerable of terms, and it was that emptiness that he enjoyed, and it was all he knew of the West (for that matter, what did Mohammed Atta or his companions know, what could they have known, given how ordinary they were, of the West?)tried, before returning, or re-embracing, or embracing for the first time, that other Emptiness that seems to be the opposite, but in reality is an enantiomorph, of the dismal world of the West at its most intolerably stupid -- the Rigidity of Islam. Both Islam, and the "Hollywood club scene," are the enemies of intelligence and of mental freedom.

I once attended a lecture given by the highly intelligent Jose Figueres, by then the Grand Old Man of Costa Rica. He had been in the United States as a pooor student, and there, he said, he had devoured the political works of the Framers, and the speeches of Lincoln, and had studied them carefully. It made a good story, but it also happened to be true. That was the America that some who came from outside once discovered, admired, studied. Perhaps, in the degradation of our own dogma, some of us -- those whose idea of living is the "Hollywood club scene," deserve Islam as the only alternative.

But what about the rest of us? We don't.

Posted by: Hugh at April 15, 2006 9:06 AM

"Lee Khalaf said the change was abrupt"

Not really. Raed Albanna did not change at all, he merely went to the other side of his death-wish. I think psychologists call the process reaction formation. He was a nihilist.

Posted by: Frank at April 15, 2006 9:09 AM

Assuming that all the above is true, it makes you wonder who chained him to the wheel: himself to eliminate a material existence change of mind;
or his "friends" who doubted his last minute resolve.

What it DOES show if not prove, is that ANY Muslim of ANY nature, of any religious persuasion, or of ANY family structure, or of any degree of westernisation or sophistication, or of ANY state be it ME or western, is CAPABLE of doing similar. Thus EVERY muslim, be he friend or not, is a potential jihadic agent.

Islamophobia is not the word to describe this(there is no fear but there is a realisation of the risk to the future of mankind)), nor is Islamosceptic(there is no doubt about their intentions) but Islamocynic is as close an approximation as I can find to how many people feel about islam while misoislamist is where many of us are ultimately heading and small wonder at that.

Posted by: Zathras at April 15, 2006 10:04 AM

He should have stayed away from the mosques.

Islam=Death
Mosques=Jihad

But I wonder....why the handcuffs?

Posted by: freewoman at April 15, 2006 10:05 AM

Hugh: "Coming from a world, and a belief-system, that stunted his mental growth, he saw the "freedoms" of the West only in the stupidest and most intolerable of terms,"

I am reminded of one of my favorite movies, Groundhog Day. When the film's protagonist, Phil Connors (played by Bill Murray) finds himself trapped in a time loop and repeating the same day over and over, he first uses this new found freedom (a life without consequences) to pursue hedonism - binge eating, robbing, sexual license etc. But this grows old and falling into despair he tries repeatedly to commit suicide (but can't because the next day starts over as the previous day). Finally, he moves beyond despair when he turns his attention to those around him and begins living for the purpose of helping others. In short, he learns to love selflessly, and is finally freed from the time loop.

Without a doubt there are many in the west who are in despair because they have exhausted the pursuit of hedonism. Per the film, the next logical step is suicide. What happens when one's ideology is capable of turning an act of suicide/murder into an act of redemption that gives the final meaning to one's existence? Obviously what we see here. Certainly we can expect a whole lot more of this. The notion that we will solve the problem of Islamic radicalism by seducing Muslims in the west with the lure of sex, drugs and rock'n' roll is misguided. The seduction of hedonism and materialism is merely a temporary palliative for the pain of existence. When the despair sets in, well, better start counting how many Muslims are living in the west and figure out the consequences.

Posted by: Caroline at April 15, 2006 10:16 AM

when you take a person of a dictatorship and cult like religion, something his parents chose to ignore, he could not take the freedomw of the WEst. that is the choices you make are yours and yours alone..l think islam is for the simple minded who do wnat to think outside of the box. you hear of people in jail for so many years,that once ouside in freedom, cannot take it, and go back to jail where things are safe for them. islam is like that, the praying five times a day, the daily brainwashing of the mosque that it attracts the weak minded, or the wasted ones like Cat Stevens. Cat went from a womanizing drug drinking rock n roll singer to another prison annother hell. he could not take living in the WEst where you have to make these choices. look what they do with women, cover them up from head to toe, just the men cannot control thelmselves, same with alcohol. People living in the West are much more stronger in character than any mindless muslim.

Posted by: Lulu at April 15, 2006 10:31 AM

The seduction of hedonism and materialism is merely a temporary palliative for the pain of existence.

Better a palliative than a paliass*.

I'm not sure about this. Either you have freedom or you don't. Celebrity Big Brother is the price you pay for Shakespeare. They are two sides of the same coin. It is annoying when Muslims and non-Muslim useful idiots talk of Western materialism and hedonism without seeing that the freedom that allows these, also allows science, art and music.

What's the difference between an enantiomorph? It's both the same.

(*"Straw is to be allowed at the rate of one truss to each paliass for two men, and to be changed every thirty-two days. Two trusses per company are to be allowed for Batmen, or servants not soldiers; and three trusses per company or troop, for the three washerwomen, to be changed every fifteen days, they not having paliasses.")

Posted by: Interested at April 15, 2006 10:36 AM

On NPR I just heard the mellifluous Robert Siegel -- so mellifluous that he punches above his weight, and one is disinclined to pluck out his idiocies because he is well-spoken -- describe a friend of his who had had relatives, or his own friends, die in the World Trade Center Attacks. That friend, hitherto an opponent of capital punishment, had described to Siegel his own new-found wilingness not merely to contemplate, but to wish with his own hands to execute, the death penalty on Moussaoui, Osama Bin Laden, and the others he connected to that attack.

So, Siegel's friend turns out to be, as a former death-penalty opponent who through his own close ties to the victims of murder begins to see things differently, one more of those souls who has a limited imagination, and who must endure experiences himself in order to learn from them. The imaginative sympathy, a faculty once encouraged by literature and the study of history, is merely vestigial in him -- but still, at least he was able, this friend, to arrive at some home-truths, while there are some who not only lack the wit to learn from the experience of others (as found in history and literature) but also lack the wit to learn from their own experience.

Siegel goes on to tell us that his friend describes Moussaoui as a "nut case." That, of course, is nonsense. Had Siegel's friend, had Siegel himself, had others at NPR, taken it upon themelves -- and a certain leisure is required for this task -- to study Islam, and to think clearly about how belief-systems such as Islam can operate (and here one must not think of the local etiolated church service, but rather of the kind of indoctrination given to those admitted to the Army of True Communists (in the early days), or True Nazis (at any time).

Moussaoui is not a "nut case." There are millions who may not do as he did, but who support what he did, and understand it. It is Moussaoui, and Osama bin Laden, and all the membrs of Jaish-e-Muhammad, and Laskar Jihad, and Hamas, and Hezbollah, and Al Qaeda, and As Sayyaf, and a thousand other groups, and millions who belong to no groups, who have the Qur'an and the Hadith and the example of Muhammad on their side. Unless and until a great many more people cease to soothe themselves with the comforting idea that all these people are merely "nut cases," and begin to look at, and to study with comprehension the Qur'an, and also -- this should never be overlooked -- the still more telling Hadith. Mere reading of the
Qur'an, which in both French and in English is far softer in its meaning than the original, and in which contradictory statements have, possibly with the reader unaware of the interpretative device of "naskh" or abrogation been resolved always and everywhere in favor of the harsher verses, with the softer ones being cancelled, will not be enough. And even reading and re-reading the Qur'an and the most authoritative collections of the Hadith, and then studying the most salient aspects of the life of Muhammad, uswa hasana al-insan al-kamil, that Perfect Man, will not be enough, for it takes time for it all to sink in -- and to imagine, to begin to comprehend, the effect it has on the minds of hundreds of millions, and even how the effect of filial piety, or civliizational pride, can cause otherwise intelligent people born into Islam to accept the monstrousness of it all, and to defend it, to apologize for it, in front of questioning and skeptical Infidels.

But let us pretend that Moussaoui, and tens of millions of others, are merely "nut cases." Suppose that were true? Suppose, that is, that only "nut cases" would take the passages of Islam and seek to act on them as Moussaoui did? And suppose, further, that the only thing we Infidels had to worry about were acts of terrorism, and not the slow transformation of our own societies (beginning with the sudden self-imposed limits on the practice of freedom of speech, by almost the entire American press, and now even by that supposed total iconoclast and brave disrespecter of all pieties, Comedy Central.

What then? How many "nut cases" are there? Well, the problem is that in any society, millions and millions of people at one time or another fall into depressions. In the United States, more than 15 million people at any one time are said to be severely depressed. When this happens to Infidels, they can blame all sorts of things: their parents, their children, their siblings, Amerika, The System, the Republicans, the Democrats, immigration, affirmative action, lack of affirmative action, crooked financial analysts, Wall Street speculators, Chinese and Indian competition, Fate, the stars in their alignment, their cholesterol level, their serotonin level -- even, at times, themselves.

What happens when a Muslim finds himself in disarray? You are Muhammad Atta, and things are not working out in Hamburg, where you set off to study urban planning, and you are not the great success you were supposed to be, and the Western world is so baffling, so confusing. You are Albanna, dancing the night away in cocaine-soaked clubs of West Hollywood, and you are piling failure upon failure, for you failed to establish a practice as a lawyer in Jordan, and you need to find a solution more permanent and steady than that offered by that cocaine, those girls, that music by Nine Inch Nails.

When "Mike" Hawash, an Intel engineer with an American wife and three American children, earning $360,000 a year and the respect of his colleagues, turned to Islam, and more Islam, and then to deed over his house to his wife, and to make plans to fight the Americans in Afghanistan, after the Al Qaeda attacks in New York and Washington, was he a "nut case"? Or was he someone who, in his recent return to Islam, only reflecting his need for Islam and more Islam as a stay against confusion and depression? And if the Answer for Muslims, even those who are not especially observant, those who seem to be thoroughly Westernized and to have been the recipients of the best the West has to offer, is Islam and more Islam, then the Western world, the world of Infidels, owes it to itself to protect its own legacy, and to keep out those who, in moments of the kind of doubt or depression that come on all of us, will always and everywhere turn, or re-turn, to Islam.

Posted by: Hugh at April 15, 2006 10:40 AM

Caroline...he obviously succumbed to the madrassa indoctrination, as almost all Muslims do, that hedonism is the creed of the west, not realising, nor caring perhaps, that this lifesyle can only be likened, not to the cream upon the cake but the scum on top of the water as such a lifestyle can only be subsidised when the vast majority of people in the country work hard and unselfishly for their families, themselves and indirectly their state.

Islamic misinformation could be considered quite funny so irrational is it, if only its consequences were not so dire. Most chronic liars lose track of truth, and indirectly reality, eventually and I do believe that most Muslims, even those living in western countries have NO conception as to how most westerners live and care even less. In Australia, most Muslims do seem to believe the rubbish about how most nonMuslims living here of anglosaxon ancestry are of convict stock. Naivety can be irritating but chronic naivety secondary to gross misinformation is very dangerous, i.e., they actually do believe the garbage that they spout.

One of the rarely noticed Islamic "pillars of wisdom" is an absolute disinclination to seek the truth, to be aware of it or to even care about it("if it is not in the Koran it is unimportant"). Islamic life seems to be nought but one unending paranoid delusion.

Posted by: Zathras at April 15, 2006 10:47 AM

Caroline-

Enjoyed your comment re Groundhog Day.

Re Raed Albanna: The sexual-hedonist seeks more thrills until the only thrill left is death. For Albanna it had to end in S & M or Sado-Mohammadism. It's the same.

Posted by: Frank at April 15, 2006 10:51 AM

Interested: "Celebrity Big Brother is the price you pay for Shakespeare. They are two sides of the same coin. It is annoying when Muslims and non-Muslim useful idiots talk of Western materialism and hedonism without seeing that the freedom that allows these, also allows science, art and music."

I am in total agreement. I wasn't disparaging western culture as a whole, merely pointing out that at the individual level there are many people of "stunted growth" (like Phil Connors in the film) who use their freedoms for base pursuits. Many presumably grow weary of it and move on but many merely fall into despair (a despair which has unique consequences when paired with the ideology of Islam). Actually, I am inclined to think that our society as a whole is merely going through a phase of wanton hedonism and excess since contraception ushered in the sexual revolution. I think given time, we will eventually collectively sicken of the baseness and vulgarity of what passes for popular culture and move forward. In the meantime, I agree with you that there are many useful idiots in the west who seem prepared to throw the precious baby out with the bathwater. I assure you I am not one of them.:-)

Posted by: Caroline at April 15, 2006 10:56 AM

Groundhog Day is a very good film. I've seen it hundreds and hundreds of times. Or maybe it was just the once.

Posted by: Interested at April 15, 2006 11:02 AM

Hugh,

Regarding Moussaoui, I was listening to a popular morning show radio host yesterday, talking about Moussaoui and refering to him as a weanie and a liar and how the host didn't think he should get the death penalty because that's what he wanted. The host ranted and raved and dismissed Moussaoui's claims and I thought to myself, you don't know what you are talking about. Because here is Moussaoui, spouting the party line, telling everyone who will listen what Islam's intentions are towards taking over and destroying America, it's absolute disregard for other belief systems and lack of mercy for the suffering of others, and NO ONE IN OUR GOVERNMENT OR NEWS MEDIA IS LISTENING.

Moussaoui was laughing at us, like the fools so many of us are. We need to pay close attention to what he says because these are the exact same things you and Robert expose here everyday.

I guess the one positive thing to come out of all this is he has validated what you say here at Jihad Watch. But the chilling thing is that he knows America is made up of so many swill digesting lemmings that he feels perfectly safe in telling us exactly what Al Qaeda's plans are for our demise.

If he doesn't get the death penalty, he will be free to proselytize in whatever prison he is deposited in, until the cows come home. Another thought I've had for a while is if Muslims are imprisoned here and left to spread their beliefs to other prisoners who are a captive audience, might there not be some well organized plan to foment dissension in all the prisons in the U.S. in preparation for some sort of attack here and effectively creating a home grown Islamic army of prisoners who will be released when the attack comes? They'd be ready to roll and we would be the worse for it.

Posted by: Isabellathecrusader at April 15, 2006 1:40 PM

By now, it should be clear that Muslims can rob, murder, plunder, pillage and murder anytime, regardless of their 'benign appearence'. Those who have not got it (Dubya, Condi, KAren Huges and many others...), never will and are destined to be Dhimmi victims of Islamic cult, while those who do get it (American Pig Farmer and many others on this board....), at he least, boycott anything Islamic, particularly the blood-thirsty barbaric Muslims.

Posted by: Alert at April 15, 2006 2:04 PM

Having lived a pagan lifestyle, you now recognize the sinfulness and shame of your debauchery. What’s a good Mohammedan to do? Kill and be killed, obviously, for this is the only sure path to cleansing, forgiveness and heaven.

There’s even a great ego stroke too; great pride in knowing that YOU made it happen through active submission!

What a sick, twisted, perverse mirror-image of biblical Christianity – exactly the opposite of the repentant soul who humbly accepts the work and grace of the cross.

Muslims are a menace to society; human IEDs that could be triggered at any time.

Posted by: Jumpintimmy at April 15, 2006 2:04 PM

the price of freedom is what freedom brings.Despair could be part of it. But that's the gig and that's the choice we have.Take risks, live, make mistakes and grow.... or fossilise into doctrinal,puritanical and paranoid frightened mind sets. The letter killeth.

Posted by: samson at April 15, 2006 2:59 PM

"Being a devout Muslim doesn't necessarily lead you to become a suicide bomber. If that was the case, the world would be in a disastrous situation," said Nawash, who calls himself a conservative Muslim. "Assuming that he was mentally sound, it sounds like he had a political grievance or fell into a crowd of fanatical Muslims."

This IS the reason that the world IS, and has been in a "disastrous situation".
He didn't "fall into a crowd of fanatical muslims". He already was one of them, played his "part" well here in America, tasted the freedom of this generous nation, fooled his friends, and went back to do what he was born to do.
There are many of these leeches all around us, pulling the wool( soon to be veil, they hope) over our eyes.
Stay awake and alert, and look beyond their smiles, and phrases such as "mentally sound". These words would never even be used in their home towns.

Posted by: freetoBEfree at April 15, 2006 3:34 PM

Mr. Fitzgerad,

Re your comment-

The problem with people like Siegel is that they really don't believe that there is such a thing as evil. They go seaching for reasons, for motives, for greivances, for mental illness, to explain someone like Moussaoui. Deep-down Siegel believes that all Moussaoui needs is therapy. But Moussaoui is no more a "nut case" than Hitler or Pol-Pot, and he is rational (within his belief system) in defining others as "infidels"-as subhuman. His beliefs logically validate his actions.

Such people are probably not "depressed" at all. In fact, I'm sure they are quite happy when they kill infidel-subhumans. (Seigel doesn't get this.) Eichmann once said that he would "leap into his grave with joy" knowing he had killed millions of Jews. Eichmann was well adjusted.

Moussaoui is a Pol Pot on a small scale, a would be Hitler, an Eichmann, etc. Seigel does not understand that only the ruthless and lethal use of force stops a Moussaoui or the would-be rulers of the world in Terhan. Therapy is of no use on the matter.

Posted by: Frank at April 15, 2006 5:10 PM

After Islamic extremists were linked to the [9/11/2001] attacks, Gray said an anguished Albanna turned to him and said: "Not all Muslims are like that. Not all of us hate America."

And then in February 2005, Albanna became a suicide bomber himself. At some point, most of us infidels have became aware of the Islamic credibility gap.

Posted by: special_guest at April 15, 2006 5:29 PM

"Lee Khalaf said the change was abrupt. "One day he simply said he was tired of living like he was — drinking, womanizing and the like. He said God had a purpose for him, but never said what it was.""

I suspect that this tiredness was sheer physical and mental exhaustion from that lifestyle, which meant he really needed decent nutrition, plenty of sleep and a re-gained circadian rhythm. Instead, he interpreted it as a call from above...

Actually, with all that aggression and unhappiness islamists are constantly expression, I've been wondering whether they are actually pysically sick - somehow lacking not just a normal sex life and social life but also lack of some nutrient. It just seems so unnatural to spend all day plotting violent acts....

Posted by: Lili at April 15, 2006 5:39 PM

Hugh said

On NPR I just heard the mellifluous Robert Siegel ... describe a friend of his who had had relatives, or his own friends, die in the World Trade Center Attacks.

I have written to the mellifluous Robert Siegel on more than one occasion. The most recent time was when he asked the guest the question (now that anti-Semitism has been eradicated in his view) "Does Israel need to exist?".

He scares me. The way he can espouse views so radical and hateful in that silky soft voice that sounds so thoughtful. He scares me.

Posted by: special_guest at April 15, 2006 5:41 PM

I'm not justifying or excusing them BTW, murderous suicides and their masters can rot in hell for all I care. Just wondering about the physical and psychological reasons...

Posted by: Lili at April 15, 2006 5:43 PM

Someday, the future revision of the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) will include Islam. By the way, look up the word "amok" in a medical dictionary; an interesting glimpse into a pathology of Muslim culture.

Posted by: Television at April 15, 2006 6:47 PM

Lili dear,

The SOBs don't need Doctor Ronald Hoffman's Health Talk Program-they need stronger medicine than that. People can only have pity for another when they see the person suffering as themself. They (particularly Moussaoui)don't see Infidels as persons. It is really that simple. They will understand lethal force and it will be therapeutic.

Posted by: Frank at April 15, 2006 7:01 PM

Lili: "Just wondering about the physical and psychological reasons..."

It is a biological fact that excessive drinking and pot use and cocaine use (especially) are direct physical causes of depression. So yes, I think you have a valid point in questioning whether this individual and others like him in the west could have physical reasons for being tired and depressed which could be easily confused (by the affected individual himself) with feeling depressed and disillusioned from a more psychological or spiritual perspective. There's no doubt that when one is feeling down physically, for entirely biological reasons, negative cognitions follow (ask any woman suffering from PMS) - which are then literally felt to BE the cause or the justification for the depressed or negative feelings themselves, when in reality the biology is driving the cognitions.

But the interesting thing is that Muslims on the whole completely refrain from drugs or alcohol and are still the most murderously violent people on the planet. And most of these western Muslims who go jihadi on us after "getting" Islam and cleaning up their act would appear to have been clean long enough to be detoxed from a biological/chemical POV so I don't think this can be directly explained by the biological depression brought about by intense partying. It takes a while to start attending mosque, studying the Quran in earnest, going clean etc. Which brings us back to more existential, psychological, spiritual causes (i.e. "emptiness", as Hugh has so frequently pointed out) rather than physical ones.

Still, it is curious that such people (disillusioned Muslims living in the west) don't bother to explore other spiritual traditions just to see what they're about when they live in societies where they are completely free to stroll down to any bookstore and study all these things with impunity (something which couldn’t be said of many Muslim countries). They could find plenty of alternative spiritual paths to fill the existential void besides fundamentalist Islam. Of course, it's quite likely that many many Muslims in the west do just that. We just don't hear their stories.

BTW Lili - I completely concur with the point you're making about not confusing the attempt to understand the causes of such behavior with justification for said behavior. It's a distinction that is critical to make and one that seems to be poorly grasped. That said, I wonder if there wouldn't be some benefit if truly liberal western Muslims (like Thomas, who posts here - more often under his last name if I have the right poster in mind) - didn't form support groups to identify and intervene on behalf of western Muslims "at risk", as it were, for "sudden-onset-jihadism" (Television - how's that for a new DSM-IV classification?). If they were as moderate as they claim, of course, they would let the person go ultimately, if he or she - as unique human beings - found a more suitable spiritual path for themselves elsewhere - one that would fill their emptiness enough that it would prevent them from committing violence against their fellow human beings. And I’m sure that moderate Muslims would support such intervention groups for sudden-onset-jihadism, in order to discourage senseless violence against one’s fellow man, even if it meant that the person suffering from SOJ ended up rejecting Islam and finding spiritual solace along some other path. Because Islam is a religion of peace, right? Or at least we're told. And that being the case, I am sure that moderate Muslims will prove it real soon. By their actions. By their willingness to let go of their brothers suffering from SOJ - by intervening and guiding these fragile psyches to a different path. "Butterflies are Free" and all that....

Posted by: Caroline at April 15, 2006 9:11 PM

It seems they are all "unlikely candidates" when the conventional assumption is that poverty causes terrorism. They become likely candidates as soon as one adds Islam to the equation. Here's another normal fun-loving casual Muslim...from the 9/11 19 hijackers. (He was one of the one's who put the plane down in the field in Pennsylvania).

ZIAD JARRAH
http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/thepilot/story.html

Posted by: Archimedes at April 15, 2006 9:30 PM

Caroline,

When I first started reading your post about that Bill Murray movie--a movie which I liked but would not wish to see twice--I was thinking of our responses in the west to the major terrorist attacks since 9/11 (Bali, 3/11, Beslan, 7/7, etc.). Most of our media and politicians go through the same routine every time. Indeed, I'm becoming convinced that, while there are some indications of the beginning of a learning curve amongst the general populations, our politicians and media are actually becoming more and more stupid. The more evidence shown that Islam is the problem (recently, cartoon jihad, apostacy jihad, and threats of nuclear jihad), the more vehemently they deny it.

Posted by: Archimedes at April 15, 2006 9:46 PM

Hugh - it is rather silly and narrow-minded to imagine that people who are against the death penalty are simply inexperienced doctrinaires who will change their minds as soon as they come across some sufficiently blatant criminal case. At my time of life, I may be expected to have seen a thing or two, and I am still against the death penalty except under martial law in wartime. I find it disappointing that you of all people should take an attitude that implies that those who disagree with you (and on a matter of such importance, too) are intellectually incompetent or worse.

Archimedes - there are Muslims who enter other religions. A significant anecdote. The Italian Catholic Church had not had any set-up for adult converts for centuries if not millennia, because so many Italians are baptized as infants that the average diocese did not expect to have any systematic intake of adult converts. Any conversions from foreigners, members of Communist and anarchist families, etc., could be handled individually by local priests. Well, in the last few years, over fifty Italian dioceses have set up diocesan programs for adult catechumens; guess who for? But these guys don't like to advertise themselves, for the usual reasons (said he chopping a forefinger across his throat).

Posted by: Paolo at April 16, 2006 4:51 AM

Is it just me, or does the account of Raed Albanna's life and times neglect to mention that he was the grandson of Hassan Al-Banna, a co-founder of the Muslim Brotherhood and a cousin of Tariq Ramadan?

Posted by: waterdragon52 at April 17, 2006 9:21 AM

I'm not buying into the concept that Western immorality (women, drugs, alcohol) had anything to do with it.. The rich sheiks in the mifddle east as men, enjoy their vice's of women and drinking too! It's usually their 'sheep' that get shortchanged and brainwashed in life that do these horific things

Posted by: philSF at April 18, 2006 2:25 PM