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Posted on 09/29/2001 3:30:22 PM PDT by Paul Ross
Fearful, chilling, grotesque – but also very, very odd. If the handwritten, five-page document which the FBI says it found in the baggage of Mohamed Atta, the suicide bomber from Egypt, is genuine, then the men who murdered more than 7,000 innocent people believed in a very exclusive version of Islam – or were surprisingly unfamiliar with their religion.
"The time of Fun and waste is gone,'' Atta, or one of his associates, is reported to have written in the note. "Be optimistic ... Check all your items – your bag, your clothes, your knives, your will, your IDs, your passport ... In the morning, try to pray the morning prayer with an open heart.''
Part theological, part mission statement, the document – extracts from which were published in The Washington Post yesterday – raises more questions than it answers.
Under the heading of "Last Night'' – presumably the night of 10 September – the writer tells his fellow hijackers to "remind yourself that in this night you will face many challenges. But you have to face them and understand it 100 per cent ... Obey God, his messenger, and don't fight among yourself [sic] where [sic] you become weak ... Everybody hates death, fears death ..."
The document begins with the words: "In the name of God, the most merciful, the most compassionate ... In the name of God, of myself, and of my family.''
The problem is that no Muslim – however ill-taught – would include his family in such a prayer. Indeed, he would mention the Prophet Mohamed immediately after he mentioned God in the first line. Lebanese and Palestinian suicide bombers have never been known to refer to "the time of fun and waste'' – because a true Muslim would not have "wasted'' his time and would regard pleasure as a reward of the after-life.
And what Muslim would urge his fellow believers to recite the morning prayer – and then go on to quote from it? A devout Muslim would not need to be reminded of his duty to say the first of the five prayers of the day – and would certainly not need to be reminded of the text. It is as if a Christian, urging his followers to recite the Lord's Prayer, felt it necessary to read the whole prayer in case they didn't remember it.
American scholars have already raised questions about the use of "100 per cent'' – hardly a theological term to be found in a religious exhortation – and the use of the word "optimistic'' with reference to the Prophet is a decidedly modern word.
However, the full and original Arabic text has not been released by the FBI. The translation, as it stands, suggests an almost Christian view of what the hijackers might have felt – asking to be forgiven their sins, explaining that fear of death is natural, that "a believer is always plagued with problems''.
A Muslim is encouraged not to fear death – it is, after all, the moment when he or she believes they will start a new life – and a believer in the Islamic world is one who is certain of his path, not "plagued with problems''.
There are no references to any of Osama bin Laden's demands – for an American withdrawal from the Gulf, an end to Israeli occupation, the overthrow of pro-American Arab regimes – nor any narrative context for the atrocities about to be committed. If the men had an aspiration – and if the document is above suspicion – then they were sending their message direct to their God.
The prayer/instructions may have been distributed to other hijackers before the massacres occurred – The Washington Post says the FBI found another copy of "essentially the same document'' in the wreckage of the plane which crashed in Pennsylvania. No text of this document has been released.
In the past, CIA translators have turned out to be Lebanese Maronite Christians whose understanding of Islam and its prayers may have led to serious textual errors. Could this be to blame for the weird references in the note found in Atta's baggage? Or is there something more mysterious about the background of those who committed a crime against humanity in New York and Washington, just over two weeks ago?
From the start, the hole in the story has been the reported behaviour of the hijackers. Atta was said to have been a near-alcoholic, while Ziad Jarrahi, the alleged Lebanese hijacker of the plane which crashed in Pennsylvania, had a Turkish girlfriend in Hamburg and enjoyed nightclubs and drinking. Is this why the published text refers to the "forgiveness'' of sin?
The final instruction, "to make sure that you are clean, your clothes are clean, including your shoes,'' may have been intended as a call to purify a "martyr" before death. Equally, it may reflect the thoughts of a truly eccentric – and wicked – mind.
The document found in Atta's baggage ends with a heading: "When you enter the plane". It then urges the hijackers to recite: "Oh God, open all doors for me ... I am asking for your help. I am asking you for forgiveness. I am asking you to lighten my way. I am asking you to lift the burden I feel ...''
Was this an attempt to smother latent feelings of compassion towards the passengers on the hijacked planes – who included children among them – or towards the thousands who would die when the aircraft crashed? Did the 19 suicide bombers say these words to themselves in their last moments?
Or didn't they need to.
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A Question my wife asked that I wasnt really able to answer. Why would you even PACK LUGGAGE if you were on a suicide mission???
Ha! Maybe I should brush off that Aluminum Beanie...
I'll believe you are a good person, maybe you are naturally a good person and it isn't because or or in spite of Islam. But I'm wondering alot about Islam now, since bin Laden and all the terrorists seem to find something in the Koran that justifies mass murder, what evil is it that they are tapping into and how does it seem to have made it's way into the Koran itself?
At the colleges I went to it was more than "some", it was most and it certainly didn't seem to be a new trait they had just picked up upon landing in the US. In fact when asked, they universally refer to Islamic law (and I believe they find this justified in the Koran) about the mut'a (temporary marriages). They told me the marriages can last one night, one week, or whatever agreed upon amount of time and there is some kind of material gift made to the woman as part of the deal. They all seemed to have had temporary marriages the same way back home so I question the purity of many of the women too.
The reference was to America. The time of fun and waste is over [for America].
What an idiotic statement. The letter was not intended for public consumption--it was in the baggage that Atta believed would be burned up with the rest of the plane. Why would it be expected to mention "any of Osama bin Laden's demands"?
I too am sceptical of this government evidence. This sounds more of a mistake, hoax, manufectured government lie. As if hijackers who are alleged to have planned this for many years wanted to leave evidence so obvious that even dumb criminals would not.
One reason to leave evidence is so that you can be indentified and remembered forever in this world.
And you still have an iron-clad deal that if you die in the act of slaying infidels, you go straight to Allah's Paradise, to collect your 72 virgins and begin your eternity of fornicating.
It's the "best of both world's" for suicide commandos. Guaranteed by Allah, or so they believe.
It is no good coming to Free Republic to convince non-moslems about what a peaceful religion Islam is: we have eyes to see the results, in New York and elsewhere from the Phillipines to Nigeria.
You need to get on the Islamic bulletin boards and convince your murder-bent co-religionists of the error of their ways before they bring ruin to the entire moslem world.
You need to understand that if there are a few more 9-11s, trade and travel between the West and Islamic states will cease. The West will hit hard at the terrorist sanctuaries, the Islamic nations will lynch all Westerners they can find, and Arab Moslems will be dealt with harshly in the West, either by our governments, or our well armed people.
We cannot simply allow hidden terrorists the luxury of living among us by wearing the sheep's clothing of "moderation". Mohammed Atta was a very "moderate" Moslem Arab until the day he slit the throats innocent stewardesses and pilots and flew a large Boeing jetliner into a building full of 20,000 innocent people. If terrorists can so easily hide among us, then after more terrorist attacks we will corral the sheep these wolves hide among so effectively. We are talking about national survival.
This ugly future is assured if you cannot persuade your mad co-religionists to take some sort of rabies shots.
There is no middle ground, my American friend: you either stand with America, or you stand with the terrorists.
Well, I guess we know what we call it in this culture when a material gift is made to the woman as part of the deal. Thanks to the libbers, our women now give it away without even expecting marriage or a "material gift."
Well stated and THANK YOU! I wholeheartedly concur!
No we are not going to let Cain sucker us this time into going out into the field on a peaceful pretext only to get creamed.
Like Travis stated, "You are either with US or with the terrorists".
You're right there. I did know many more Persians than Arabs and the Persians were the ones who told me about mut'a. They claim the Arabs are far less moral than Persians, the Arabs practice polygamy much more and Persians are almost monogamous. They pointed out that many Arabs unlike Persians have the big oil money dollars and are the ones living it up drinking and going to Las Vegas and buying gaudy jewelry and cars.
In word, what are the Islamic nations going to eat after they succeed in destroying trade and travel between Islamic countries and the West? And never mind the type of fertilizer.
You asked my "agenda" a few posts back, and I answered around #24, but now you are ducking me and going off on tangents.
Also address the fact that the insane death cultists in Al Qa'ida etc are Wahhabist SUNNI Moslems, not Shi'Ah as you try to make them out to be.
I don't think you can blame Americans for Arabs' wild ways when they come here. I read one of Osama bin Laden's wives was just 12 when he traded on of his little daughters to another older man for her. Pedophilia isn't moral and obviously that means little girls lose their virginity very young so you can't compare that with American women waiting until they are 20 or so.
I like that too, and I don't care if I AM rude!
The muslims in this country better start policing themselves and start denouncing the terrorists from the rooftops. I don't mean like the shills we see on TV that we later find out are Hamas supporters either. Was that guy the BEST they could come up with, or are they all like that?
These terrorists are still among us, and it appears they have lots of support. Get the internment camps opened up until we get them sorted out! Right or wrong - it doesn't matter. It's what's safe and smart for OUR country. We've been been around for 225 years while these bums were still living in dirt in their backwards hell holes, waiting on someone to show them how to pump oil.
I feel better now!
(Until their wedding night, when they meet their new 45 year old husband/rapist as wife #4 for the first time.)
Lovely culture. (The ideal wife is buried in her perfectly clean and new ceremonial wedding shoes as a sign that she never had to ever leave her husband's house: the lesser wives, servants and slaves did all the shopping.)
If they do, where's the paradise?
If they don't, then even though they WERE virgins, sooner or later in eternity, they're gonna start getting pretty sloppy.
Not only that, but eventually, they'd all start fighting, and bitching over "the heroe". Again - where's the paradise here?
I think most of us believe the terrorism is being done by foreign born muslims but in war there are always backlashes to the possible innocent people who had nothing to do with the problem. Not too many of us have ever met an American muslim who has been American for many generations because in most cities there were no mosques or muslims just 30-40 years ago. If American muslims aren't wearing towels on their heads or speaking with heavy accents, I don't even know how someone would pick them out of a crowd since they're Caucasian just like many of us are.
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