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How a bad U.S. visit influenced ‘Osama’s brain’
MSNBC ^ | 11:36 a.m. ET Oct. 7, 2005 | Daniel Strieff

Posted on 10/07/2005 3:15:11 PM PDT by echoBoomer

Four years after President Bush launched a war to oust Osama bin Laden from his hideout in Afghanistan, many are mystified how a polite son of a millionaire construction magnate in Saudi Arabia could turn into the world’s most wanted terrorist.

According to many experts, a clue may lie in the life and works of Sayyid Qutb, an Islamic ideologue who was radicalized after an overwhelmingly negative experience in the United States and later imprisoned and executed by Gamal Abdel Nasser’s regime in Egypt in 1966...Qutb’s journey to radicalism started in 1948 when the Egyptian government sent the young school inspector to study in the United States.

The time proved to be formative for Qutb, who had closely followed American popular culture and at the time viewed the United States as a somewhat positive influence, especially when contrasted with the European colonialism he had witnessed growing up in the Middle East.

But things started to sour even before he reached U.S. shores — Qutb was repulsed by an American woman’s drunken attempts to seduce him during his sea voyage and, once on U.S. soil, he was shocked at the racism he encountered in the still-segregated country.

Qutb found himself more and more outraged by what he saw as American greed

(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: binladen; binladin; islam; jihad; jihadpropaganda; lamestreammedia; liberalmedia; liberalmida; mediapropaganda; muslim; obl; osama; qutb; rop; sayidqutb; sayyidqutb; swine; terrorism; terrorists; ubl; usama
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To: the invisib1e hand
an apologist for terrorism?

Not really.

It's more a historical analysis of why some people have turned their faith into hate and used it as an excuse to kill for little or no reason.

"The writings of Qutb do not legitimize the killing of innocent people as has occurred in the past few years..."

41 posted on 10/07/2005 4:40:21 PM PDT by alrea
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To: USF

Now this is interesting: http://www.islamfortoday.com/iran.htm

Iran as home to a "full-fledged reformation" of Islam, comparable to that of Martin Luther!

I have to believe that many Muslims must see Qutb, Wahabbi, and such as akin to Hitler, attracting zealots like an addiction.

If he is another madman, and who can doubt that he is, and he has devotees, supporters, and detractors, and perhaps enemies among his people, (Who are about as monolithic as 1930 europeans),then how could anyone say "stop the war", "let Hitler/Osama go", "we can live with him".

Now who is Quisling today? And Lindbergh? And Chamberlain?

And who is Churchill? And Bull Halsey? And George Patton?


42 posted on 10/07/2005 4:42:15 PM PDT by BuglerTex
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To: dighton; echoBoomer; hellinahandcart; Thinkin' Gal; Tijeras_Slim; Petronski; ryan71
"As for American men, he described them as brutish and sports-obsessed, decrying their "primitiveness" when they watched football games, boxing or "bloody, monstrous wrestling matches

What hath Gorgeous Gorge wrought?

43 posted on 10/07/2005 4:46:53 PM PDT by aculeus
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To: echoBoomer

"Four years after President Bush launched a war to oust Osama bin Laden from his hideout in Afghanistan, many are mystified how a polite son of a millionaire construction magnate in Saudi Arabia could turn into the world’s most wanted terrorist."

Who's mystified? OBL is simply following the basic tenets of Islam which have been repackaged with an updated battle cry by Qutb. Islam by definition has never been able to abide any non-Islamic culture nor have competing sects within Islam ever been able to coexist for extended periods. Islam always eventually returns to its jihadist roots and always identifies a new enemy whether it be within or without Islam.


44 posted on 10/07/2005 4:54:33 PM PDT by bereanway
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To: echoBoomer

Had he gone to Europe, the drunken women would have still tried to pick him up. In France at that time, he'd have been beaten in alleys.


45 posted on 10/07/2005 5:14:18 PM PDT by GOP_1900AD (Stomping on "PC," destroying the Left, and smoking out faux "conservatives" - Take Back The GOP!)
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To: GOP_1900AD

I spent about five years working in that part of the world and listened to all these Muslims complain about western decadence. Then every August I couldn't get a flight out because all the Muslims were going on vacation in Europe, the US and Bankok. Guess they needed a little R&R from all that Jihad shit.


46 posted on 10/07/2005 6:09:17 PM PDT by Americanexpat (A strong democracy through citizen oversight.)
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To: edpc
Relatives of Qutb that seemed to like America.

Yes, but were they rushed out of the country after dark on 9/11 on Air Force One?

47 posted on 10/07/2005 6:22:27 PM PDT by the invisib1e hand
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To: BuglerTex
I have to believe that many Muslims must see Qutb, Wahabbi, and such as akin to Hitler, attracting zealots like an addiction.

I agree. Ask the Shiites who will still tell stories of the Ikhwan invading (from present day Saudi), smashing the tombs of their saints and massacring them because they were deemed "mushrikoun" in the eyes of the Salafis and Wahhabis. There's a great many tensions and fault lines with the ummah that can be exploited and used to divide and conquer the enemy, but unfortunately, we're often simply left the choice of siding with the lesser of two evils.

If he is another madman, and who can doubt that he is, and he has devotees, supporters, and detractors, and perhaps enemies among his people

IMHO, Qutb and his kind seem very focused, and rationalize their thoughts by interpreting everything thru the quran and traditions and "fiqh" as opposed to "bidah." On the other hand, MohamMAD, the guy who made all this stuff up, and changing it as he pleased (oh, it was the "voices" in his head!), is another story...

As for enemies of the salafis and wahhabis... google "the prophecy of the 72 sects" and try listening to a sermon or two (you'll find some are conducted in English). Muslims (the slaves of islam) need to wake up and understand that Islam will bring them nothing but eternal bloodshed, oppression, and death. Nobody kills Muslims better than their own "true believers" and their names have already been posted on the list.

48 posted on 10/07/2005 7:14:04 PM PDT by USF (I see your Jihad and raise you a Crusade ™ © ®)
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To: echoBoomer

I stopped reading when it said he was offended by lush lawns. These people are truly crazy.


49 posted on 10/07/2005 11:45:03 PM PDT by Straight Vermonter (John 6: 51-58)
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To: dighton
Who does this guy think he's kidding? Why don't he just admit that Eric Cartman's costume worked??
50 posted on 10/08/2005 6:21:15 AM PDT by MozarkDawg
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To: princess leah
I believe in freedom to worship [...] Therefore, we ought to close ALL Mosques [...]

Be consistent. You don't believe in freedom to worship.

Your opinion is hardly a radical one on these threads, so you don't need to temper your call to eradicate Islam from America by approvingly referncing the First Amendment.

51 posted on 10/09/2005 9:27:55 AM PDT by zimdog
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To: Fitzcarraldo

But they ar notorious for their involvement in crystal meth rings.


52 posted on 10/09/2005 9:31:08 AM PDT by zimdog
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To: aculeus

Ha


53 posted on 10/09/2005 9:33:20 AM PDT by zimdog
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To: SirJohnBarleycorn

"ended up picking a fight with the U.S. "red-state" people"



Well, as we know, one of their salient characteristics is that they don't discriminate between infidels, or even
anyone within the proximity of infidels, as 9-11 proved.
But this piece has to rank with one of the most dishonest
and irrelevant I've ever read---it pretends to be objectively "informative", but what is really going on here?
What is the agenda behind this piece? I remember reading about this Qutb guy in a lengthy NY Times Sunday Mag article maybe 1-2 years ago. Why recycle it, unless both MSNBC or the author thinks a certain "point" needs to be made again, as part of the current relentless piling-on of the Bush Administration. The surface facts of Qutb's worldview are just too fraught with absurdity , hypocrisy and retrograde regression, to even have to answer AGAIN, as we have been answering them now for FOUR SOLID YEARS.
But as a side note I will close with the observation that this Qutb seems to occupy the same position with bin Laden that Carroll Quigley occupied with Clinton.


54 posted on 10/09/2005 9:47:13 AM PDT by willyboyishere ("When the superficial wearies me, it wearies me so much that I need an abyss in order to rest".....)
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To: edpc

Very funny---don't leave out the cast of the musical "Q Street".


55 posted on 10/09/2005 9:49:25 AM PDT by willyboyishere ("When the superficial wearies me, it wearies me so much that I need an abyss in order to rest".....)
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To: Thrusher

#26-----brilliant.


56 posted on 10/09/2005 9:53:20 AM PDT by willyboyishere ("When the superficial wearies me, it wearies me so much that I need an abyss in order to rest".....)
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To: Thrusher
....he had to control himself -- to set his own boundaries, to make himself refrain from temptation, to make up his own mind about right and wrong.

You nailed it. As a previous poster stated upthread, isn't it ironic that it is the blue-staters they are at war against and yet the red-staters are the ones fighting the war.
This also helps to explain why they hate Christians and Jews so much as well. God gave us free will to either refrain from temptation or not, and most choose not to engage out of their love for God and his sacrifice to us. They (terrorists) choose not to believe in God's free will and instead when they succumb to temptation its' the victim who loses their head. Christians and Jews are a constant reminder to them that they cannot handle their lives on their own.

57 posted on 10/09/2005 9:53:27 AM PDT by PLOM...NOT! (Liberal activists are the paparazzi of politics)
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To: echoBoomer

Waah, waah, waah. It's all the Americans' fault for being racists (because of course there's _no_ racism among Arabs, nope, not a smidgeon), and for supporting Israel, and for not acting the way the Wahabbis want us to act.

It's always our fault.

Personally, I think that's a psychological crutch. If this is our fault then we're in control. We're not being randomly attacked by irrationally hostile people who hate us for irrational reasons. If we're guilty we can atone and maybe fix the problem.

Of course, a comforting delusion like that is still a delusion.


58 posted on 10/09/2005 10:01:09 AM PDT by Trimegistus
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To: willyboyishere
#26-----brilliant.

Thank you.

I have had this amorphous theory about the obsessive, fanatical Muslim hatred of freedom mulling around in the back of my subconscious for a while now, but reading that article really collated it all in my mind. I'm not sure it is a complete understanding, but there is definitely some truth there.
59 posted on 10/10/2005 7:58:55 AM PDT by Thrusher ("...there is no peace without victory.")
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To: Americanexpat

Bunch of freakin' hyprocrites!


60 posted on 10/10/2005 1:34:02 PM PDT by GOP_1900AD (Stomping on "PC," destroying the Left, and smoking out faux "conservatives" - Take Back The GOP!)
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