I've started reading a biography of the Bin Ladens by author Steve Coll, in an effort to understand why someone born so rich would want to wage a violent conflict against Western civilization that doesn't agree with his preferential brand of fundamentalism.
In the same vein of things, I heard on the radio last week, an interview with several people who work at the Combating Terrorism Center, and it lead me to their website where they've got translations of many captured documents.
http://ctc.usma.edu/harmony/harmony_docs.asp
Very messed up people, these fundamentalists are.
Christian Fundamentalists:
Eric Rudolph http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Rudolf#Bombings
David Koresh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branch_Davidians
Fred Phelps, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson.... all are in the same boat as these guys who the CTC here documents. Cultural, religious wars of ideology...
... I'm hoping the biography will help me to understand a little better, why a gadgety, pampered, technology focused, brother-of-a-rock-star-thrill-seeker, one-of-54-kids, embraces a fundamentalist theology that desires to take society back to the 13th century, eventually.
9 years ago
I recommend "Terror and Liberalism", by Paul Berman. It's not the last word I'm sure, but it's well worth a read.
ReplyDeleteThe most important point in Berman's book is this: mass pathologies exist.
ReplyDeleteDuly noted. I shall put it on my list. Thank you sir!
ReplyDelete