Believe, Hate, Dehumanize

NMB, Florida December 14, 2001 A.H. Schectman

THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on Issues, Ideas and Reflections on the Times. Published Now and
Then. Opinions Pro or Con Are Welcome.

BELIEVE, HATE, DEHUMANIZE
If you have been watching and reading the video rebroadcasts on every news
station and filling the newspapers about Osama bin Laden you cannot escape
the realization that in order to do what he did he was and is controlled by
three essential mental processes.

Osama bin Laden believes, hates and dehumanizes in order to be able to
launch a war against half the world. He believes in his version of Islam.
When he finishes off the infidels of the West, the Jews and the Americans he
will turn against his fellow worshippers of Allah who do not quite see what
he sees or follow exactly in his fashion.

He has come to hate what he sees as his enemy. His version of reality is
different from yours and mine. He hates and controls this hatred in order
have the energy for establishing the kind of organization necessary to wage
a war on the magnitude of the one he set loose on September 11, 2001. In
order to do this he logically carried forward his scenario and did not see
us as human when he planned for the planes, the suicides and the victims.

It is interesting to note that he calls his cadre of suicides, "brothers."
It seems evident that these brothers did not know beforehand they would be
sacrifices to his overall plan.

Americans, hearing bin Laden laughing about the extent of destruction that
he had not predicted, cannot believe anyone could be this grotesque. We are
still trying to deal with how to measure how he imagined the unimaginable.
We now have "ground zero" and know that the planners lived among us. We
know they used our productivity and genius against us.

It is somewhat like the violation you feel when you find that someone
unknown has entered your home, ransacked it and stolen from you. The things
that were taken have not the same value as the peace of mind and equanimity
you felt before. Now the world has changed and you feel monsters watching
you. They believe strange things and they hate and dehumanize you. Carol's
Evaluation: 10 out of 10.