Posted on 10/14/2002 2:44:20 AM PDT by MadIvan
I was appealing to your better angels, but apparently you have none. C'est la vie. We'll now be treated I suppose to your master theses about President Bush being a liar, and how removing Saddam is wrong, and ad nauseam, et ad nauseam.
Ivan
A devout Muslim who's read the Hadith's and Sura knows that it is acceptable under the Islamic "faith" to deceive ones enemies.
Using a tarot card fits perfectly into the scenario, assuming deception is in fact, being used.
The one shooting in D.C. was just barely inside D.C., just south of the boundary with Montgomery County, MD. In fact, as I determined from personal observation on Saturday, the sniper may have shot from inside MD: from the roof and upper stories of the Ramada Inn three or four blocks of the place where the victim was hit, you would have had a clear line of sight to the victim -- and the Ramada Inn is in Montgomery County, MD.
But I still don't see how that points to AQ any more than it points to either an incredibly clever or incredibly lucky domestic killer, or an unaware public, or incompetent police. I mean to say that I just don't see this as an indication that this is a middle eastern terrorist - it could be indicative of any killer, regardless of race/religion/agenda.
I also pondered this possibility over the weekend. I agree that this could be a playbook. However, if the terrorists (if that is who they are) in the DC area are some of their better-trained ones, they could do a lot of damage in the DC area, creating a high note of terror, and then simply carry out successful (single) incidences in several other cities (with lesser-trained terrorists) at the same time to create sufficient terror effect without multiple killings in those cities.
They are not separate issues when the religion, as practiced, forbids individual initiative. Those countries that enforce religious conformity as government policy are likely to be poor, Muslim or otherwise. Most Christian countries have official religious freedom. Only a few Muslim countries do. and these are under constant attack.
I recently heard a speaker who shed a lot of light on the Islamic faith. He said that they believe that no matter how wonderful a life you live, you never have assurance of "heaven". It is up to the sole discretion of Allah as to who gets in and who doesn't. While leading a good life is certainly encouraged, it doesn't assure you of paradise.
One of the few ways an extremist believes he can have certainty of paradise is to have killed an infidel, one who is against Allah.
Possibly those men knew, because their planned deed, that they were going to be good to go, no matter their pre 9/11 activities??
Let's choose another example, since the Mass Murderer of Men, Women and Children named Tim McVeigh seems to be too charged a subject.
I remember what it was like during the Atlanta Child Killings. Young people were specifically targeted. Children. The killer was an American. Some of his victims were adults as well. Jeffrey Dahmer, I believe killed minor boys among his victims. John Wayne Gacy? Can't remember for sure. Look at this young child from Utah and the one from California. People do in fact target children and they are in fact Americans.
To say that no American sniper (whatever that means) would target children because American killers have social taboos against killing children is clearly preposterous. It doesn't add up. A cold blooded killer like this sniper(s) has zero respect for human life. I don't think it makes one whit of difference to him whether his victims are black, white or orange, male or female, grownup or child.
NOT EXACTLY - I am inspired by other serial sniper killers and our own violent past with these people. I don't side with the government but I am thinking in terms of our past experiences with serial killers and serial snipers. Nothing they are doing is different from those in the past except maybe the victims and the year it is happening. The serial/sniper killers have alot more to go on nowadays then they did a long time ago. They have access to better weapons on line and in the stores than they did in the past and they also have the internet which gives them plenty of ideas on how to map out scenarios and also how to get from one place to another. And that means it will take THAT MUCH LONGER for the cops to catch up with them. This has nothing to do with the government's way of thinking - it has to do with past experiences. I am a female and have lived thru the terror of Son of Sam when I was young (I also had long brown hair which was apparently his MO until he shot a blond girl which totally confused us. The fear everyone is experienceing is just returning again and we can't confuse that with our fear of terrorism.
I'm just a little confused as to why though. I do believe it was a serious possibility at the time of the anthrax mailings because we weren't ready to go to war. But we're in a very different situation now. GWB WANTS to go to war and we're READY to go to war. This would be the perfect opportunity to get everybody behind him and get Saddam right away. Plus with the upcoming elections, a very uncomfortable position for all the gun grabbers. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that I don't understand the reasoning on this one.
It could be the "pale horse with rider" the symbol of death in the book of revelation.
Also, I received the following email recently from a friend:
Excerpt from: http://skepdic.com/tarot.html
Gypsies didn't begin using tarot cards until the twentieth century. Today, there are many different tarot decks used in cartomancy. The meanings of the figures and numbers on tarot cards vary greatly among tarot readers and advocates, many of whom find connections between tarot and the cabala, astrology, the I Ching, ancient Egypt, and various other occult and mystical notions.
The oldest playing cards date back to tenth century China, but the four suits of tarot and modern playing cards probably originated with a fourteenth century Muslim deck .[Decker]
According to de Givry, in the modern 52-card deck of ordinary playing cards, sticks or wands = clubs (and announce news); swords = spades (and presage unhappiness and death); cups = hearts (and presage happiness); coins = diamonds (and presage money). According to Decker, the Muslim sticks represented polo sticks. As Europeans were not yet familiar with polo, they changed the suit of sticks to that of wands, cudgels or batons.
Are you suggesting that those of us who don't believe this spate of killings is the work of a Muslim terrorist are part of some vast government conspiracy? If so, that's verging on ludicrous.
Our theories just differ from yours. You say Muslim, I say domestic. Let's call the whole thing off.
All angles should be considered because nothing has been conclusively proven - but to be utterly closed to any possibility BUT Muslim terrorists based on scant evidence is as stupid as dismissing ANY possibility for which there is sufficient evidence. To suggest that the government is insidiously trying to hide the facts of this case and turns to using regular josephines like me to hornswoggle the rest of the population is paranoid and ridiculous. The government is not all-seeing, all-knowing and benevolent, but to suggest that those of us who believe something different from what you believe are swept up in some scary government brainwashing scheme is just... beyond the beyonds.
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