It’s not surprising in our world, but scary and depressing nevertheless, that individuals like the just arrested Magdy el-Nashar are being trained in our and British universities:
An Egyptian scientist who police want to speak to as part of the London bombing inquiry has been arrested in Cairo, it has been reported.
Magdy el-Nashar, who studied for a PhD at Leeds University, is thought to have links to a Leeds flat being searched by anti-terrorist officers.
He was detained in a suburb of Cairo, Egyptian and Western intelligence sources told the US TV network ABC News.
The FBI had been called in to help search for el-Nashar because he attended North Carolina State University in 2000, ABC News said.
I’m still naive, I guess, since I have difficulty wrapping my mind around the idea that individuals like this use their modern scientific education in the service of a bizarre fantasy that a person blowing themselves up will instantly pass through a door into “Paradise.” Pure terror for political ends I could understand, but that is cognitive dissonance of an order I cannot comprehend. And from educated people. The rage and shame must be extraordinary.
UPDATE: More on related matters from Clive Davis’ blog (always a must-read for me).
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13 Comments
1. richard mcenroe:I think somebody has to take a long long look at Leeds University.
Jul 15, 2005 - 7:52 am 2. RBMN:If you start with the view that the “infidels” are inferior, their lives insignificant compared to yours–the fundamentalist Muslim, and you receive constant reinforcement for that point of view from your friends and your mosque, then it’s like living back in that moral universe of the slave owner. For the terrorists, infidels have the same rights and worth that they’d give a sheep, or a goat. Just as the terrorists learn from the West, the slave owners viewed slaves as livestock, but they sometimes learned their farming methods from them too (e.g. growing rice.) In Iraq, terrorists have now extended the inferior status to any Muslims who want Democracy. To the terrorists, they’re just killing inferiors, killing livestock, killing Jews. Remind us all of anything?
Jul 15, 2005 - 8:15 am 3. dilvish:It may not have been a matter faith, but of lucre.
Jul 15, 2005 - 8:22 am 4. PJ:He was working in a field that could be used to create bioterrorism.
http://counterterror.typepad.com/the_counterterrorism_blog/2005/07/arrest_in_londo.html
We need to examine all universities.
Jul 15, 2005 - 8:26 am 5. Clio:Richard,
Why just Leeds? American universities are the most open in the world to international students (mostly a GOOD thing) but they are also the strongholds of uber-political correctness and self-righteous resistance to all attempts by the US govt to know a thing or two about these students living and studying in our midst. This is our Achilles heel. It is OUR wake up call. We do not, as a nation, have a pool of dissatisfied, marginalized Muslim immigrants. We DO have many tens of thousands of foreign students free to do whatever they like on thousands of US campuses, the leaders of which consistently fight attempts to regulate at all their actions. We don’t know who they are, where they come from, what they study, or when they will leave.
I’d call that a big friggin blindspot in our national security, but hey, what do I know?
Jul 15, 2005 - 8:37 am 6. erp:Clio, Ditto Sister, Ditto!
We have to destroy those wanting to kill us from without with no more thought than we kill a germ or a virus that wants to kill us from within. Trying to reason with terrorists is about as useful as having a chat with a staph infection.
The sentence of life imprisonment given to the terrorist in Virginia yesterday is absurd. He’ll be in a position to recruit and train terrorists and send them out fully prepped and ready.
I don’t care what the usual fools do or how much the ACLU jumps up and down or holds it breath and turns blue, he can’t be allowed in the prison population.
He must be sent to Gitmo or put to death. I vote for the latter.
Jul 15, 2005 - 8:57 am 7. Knucklehead:RBMN,
That’s a fascinating analogy. I love analogies (its a fatal character flaw), so don’t take this as an attack, just turning the thing around and poking at it ’cause I admire it.
I think the analogy breaks down. Slaveholders don’t deserve defense by anyone but in general they seem to have had a good understanding of the economic value – to them – of their slaves. By and large they weren’t the least bit shy about treating them like animals and brutalizing them, but they didn’t want them all dead.
Then again, take it a little further and maybe it holds. The salafists may not really want all infidels dead and are using brutatility to try and bring us to submission and under control.
Very good! Mikey likes it! I’m gonna steal it and add it to my collection.
Jul 15, 2005 - 9:36 am 8. Ron Wrght:A CLUE! From Inspector Clouseau
Roger,
I would encourage everyone that has an interest in this disparity go to this discussion at Dean’s World recently on cults. Do read the discussion thread for more information but suffice to say in my book Islamofascism is a cult-like religious movement.
Dean’s Link
There is really no surprise at all.
It’s not the Western universities that are breeding grounds for this madness but the radical madrasses the Saudis have help build and are funding all over the world. The programming of this cult is extremely strong e.g. committing suicidal acts against society to further its cause. The madrasses are the common denominator or nexus points.
In fact it would surprise most folks that many of the followers are very well educated and at some of our best universities in the US and the world. This is not driven by poverty or third world manifestation. The exception perhaps would be the fruitcakes from the PLO and its refuge camps, which is an entirely different matter. While there are things in common, this is not being driven by the Israeli/PLO mess. There is no need for apologists here.
Once this is understood the enemy can be destroyed and its ideology of hate and evil can be wiped from the face of this earth. In short we need to kick major A$$ right now as your friend Michael Ledeen says, “Faster, Faster, Faster, Now Please!” Then and only then will the GWOT be won.
I would suggest reading the comments here in this thread as well:
Read More
and
Here
Sorry to hit and run but my day off and she who must be obeyed has her honey do list that must be attended to :—)
Jul 15, 2005 - 10:18 am 9. John Thacker:Science-based fields seem actually to be much more common among the big terrorist and hijackers than any other field of study, including religion. Hmm.
Jul 15, 2005 - 10:26 am 10. PeterUK:RBMN,
Add to that the politically correct attitude from certain quarters that forbids any criticism and you get what you always get,a spoiled brat.
Jul 15, 2005 - 11:42 am 11. Syl:The study of scientific subjects and radical Islam are not mutually exclusive. If one discovers a scientific fact it is only because Allah wishes you to find it.
There is no free will and the scientific method does not carry through to the rest of life’s questions for it is not truly free and logical inquiry, it is a matter of Allah revealing the facts to you.
Jul 15, 2005 - 1:49 pm 12. Ron Wrght:Time to stick to the enemy in the GWOT!
To All,
David C. has some very fascinating observations in the other thread below on these bombers.
I’m linking here to a comment I just posted there:
*****
David C.
I agree with you completely. Go over to this thread above re Man of Science for my post there. I linked back here.
[...]
I think you and others in the Blogos have just stumbled on why the GWOT and Islamofascism has left so many in the Western world clueless.
It’s time to strike back at the heart of this enemy, the Mad Mullahs of Iran, while there is still time.
[...]
And by ALL MEANS go here and see what Dr. Michael Ledeen has to say [today] at NRO:
[...]
RLS Link
*****
Here’s a direct link to WOC discussion led by Dan Darling re Ledeen’s piece:
WOC Link
Direct link to Ledeen’s piece at NRO:
NRO Link
And if you have time this piece at Dean’s World:
Dean’s Link
Jul 15, 2005 - 2:22 pm 13. Duke:Egypt? That;s the place that barbequed a terrorist on a spit while the guy screamed. THE torture center of the universe (Gitmo excepted where they dress them in bras and dresses before barbeque). He talked the second he was arrested.
Jul 15, 2005 - 4:57 pm