Suicidal Brainwashing

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright Jan.. 9, 2010
All Rights Reserved.                    

             When Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian born in Jerusalem but raised in the States since age 12, assassinated Robert F. Kennedy June 5, 1968, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was back in the headlines.  Exactly one year earlier, Israel began June 5, 1967 what was known as the Six-Day War, ending June 10, 1967, when Israeli Defense Forces repelled Arab armies of Jordan, Syria and Egypt, supported by Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Morocco and Tunisia.  When the dust settled, Israel had taken Egypt’s Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsuala, Syria’s Golan Heights and Jordan’s West Bank, land now called “occupied” territories.  While Sirhan regarded himself a Christian, he admitted his blinding hatred of RFK for his support of Israel.  Much was made by Siran’s defense counsel about his alleged “mental illness,” causing a break with reality that led to the assassination.  

            While RFK’s murder was regarded as a political assassination, Sirhan gave the first clues of the Arab extremism that would come not from Christians but a growing Muslim majority, stymied by corrupt and failed governments.  Fast forwarding 42 years later, a 33-year-old Jordanian doctor Humam Khalili Abu Mulai al-Balawi, walked into to CIA headquarters Dec. 30, 2009 at Forward Operating Base Chapman near Khost along the Afghan-Pakistan border and blew himself up, killing seven CIA officers and a Jordanian intelligence official.  What makes the al-Balawi situation so exceptional was his medical education.  Unlike al-Balawi, most suicide bombers are younger and less educated.  While al-Qaeda leaders come from wealthy families, like Saudi Arabian Osama bin Laden or his Egyptian lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri, they don’t volunteer for suicide missions.

            Al-Balawi was recruited in prison by the Jordanian Security Directorate, looking to infiltrate al-Qaeda.  Since graduating a Turkish medical school in 2002 and returning to Jordan to practice medicine, al-Balawi was involved with jihadists Web sites operating under the nom de plume Abu Dajana al-Khorasani.  “When will my words drink from my blood.  I feel my words have expired, and to those who preach jihad, I advise you not to fall into my dilemma and nightmare I have that I may die one day in my bed. . .” said al-Balawai shortly before his suicide bombing.  Jordanian and CIA officials looked the other way while al-Balawi promised himself as a suicide bomber.  Balawi’s radical involvement eluded Jordanian and U.S. security, permitting him without clearance to enter CIA Forward Operating Base Chapman.  His suicide bombing raised questions of Taliban or al-Qaeda infiltration.

            What al-Balawi and Sirhan had in common was neither their Muslim faith nor the different societies in which they grew up but their paranoia, hatred and fanaticism that led them to commit murder.  Sirhan wanted to avenge the death of Palestinians by murdering Kennedy, a political symbol of Zionist sympathy.  New reports about al-Balawi indicate he idolized Osama bin Laden, the terrorist mastermind of Sept. 11, whose criminal enterprise has attracted disenfranchised Muslims seeking jihad and immortality.  His Internet postings should have alerted Jordanian and U.S. intelligence that he was radicalized and dangerous.  U.S. and Jordanian spy agencies, blindly pursuing leads to infiltrate al-Qaeda, ignored al-Balawi’s radical roots, opening the door to his Christmas Day massacre.  CIA and Jordanian officials had every obvious clue that al-Balawi was a dangerous terrorist.

            When mass murderers borrow a cause or political ideology they’re somehow glamorized by the news media.  There’s no real difference between serial killers or mass murderers like Charles Manson, the leader of a doomsday cult called the “Manson Family” that targeted the rich-and-famous when his followers struck Aug. 9, 1969 murdering director Roman Polanski’s eight-and-a-half-month pregnant wife actress Sharon Tate, hairstyling-entrepreneur Jay Sebring and coffee heiress Abigail Folger.  While Manson didn’t wield the knife, he was convicted of murder June 25, 1971.  Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri don’t sacrifice themselves, only direct others like al-Balawi to commit mass murder.  On closer inspection, Manson and al-Balawi share the same hatred and paranoia that leads them to murder.  Religious or secular ideology provides convenient excuses to psychotic killers.

            Looking at the bigger picture, cult leaders, mass murderers and Islamic terrorists have a lot in common, joined at the hip by their paranoia, hatred and feeble justifications for committing homicide.  There’s nothing more legitimate about Islamic extremists over garden-variety serial killers and mass murderers.  “I never want to be in Gaza more than not or to become a suicide bomber who would drive a taxi that would take as many Jews to hell as I can,” al-Balawi wrote in a recent Web posting, unfortunately too late for the CIA to save itself from a premeditated rampage.  Manson, too, felt justified sending his programmed assassins out to massacre his innocent bystanders.  Defining serial killing or mass murder as “terrorism” or “jihad” doesn’t change its criminality.  Calling Islamic killers “martyrs” tortures logic and does nothing to advance the understanding of how educated people commit heinous crimes.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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