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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
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Posted by so on May 18, 2005, at 1:41:18
In reply to One short anecdote... please be patient » cockeyed, posted by 64bowtie on May 13, 2005, at 2:20:50
> Some time in 2002, I was listening to afternoon talk radio on a local San Fran station while stuck in traffic. Being interviewed on the show was a Palestinian who was stateside prospecting for believers to blow themselves up for "the cause". I was riveted to this interview and horrified by what I was hearing. He gave phone #s and Website info for interested parties to contact the movement.
>>
> He was stateside promising $25,000 to any family who would offer up their children to act as suicide bombers.
>
> He did mention that Sadam Hussein was bankrolling his project under the blessings of Yassar Arafat...
>
>One needs to know something about the provenance of a message before one can conclude with confidence the message reflects the ideas of a particular person. In some highly charged political and cultural arenas, disinformation is sometimes used to discredit an opponent. Evidence of disinformation by US leadership includes the COINTELPRO program that attributed government-created "kill pigs" (sic) literature to African American activists.
Another disinformation tactic can involve "honey pots" that attract prospective recruits of an opposing viewpoint for the purpose of infiltrating opposition organizations. A web site promoted in San Francisco to attract prospective sympathizers with suicide bombing would seem a fine way of identifying potential threats. Especially in the post-911 months of 2002, one would need to ask whether any program in which a foreign national used US airwaves to recruit potential suicide bombers could function without some official sanction. If Mr. Hussein and Mr. Arafat were involved in the program, it would seem unlikely of them to advertise the fact in the United States, where their involvement would do more to discredit them than it would lend support to the cause. For a disinformation campaign, though, it would make sense to implicate those two thorns in US foreign policy.
Of course, none of these possibilities forecloses the possibility that the radio interview was nothing more than what it seemed. Whatever meaning attends the term "monsterous" would certainly find fertile soil in military science, and suicide warfare has a long history as a military science.
It might be worth noting, if this is an occassion to better understand faith systems, that Islamic law as interpreted by many Muslims prohibits investment in weapons making.
This is the end of the thread.
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