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Thurs/Fri - Nov 5 -

A CALIPH CHAT POSTSCRIPT -

I had wanted to comment further on Bin Ladin's video address, but the hour grew late, and I grew too tired, so I gave up.

I think Bin Ladin's "explanation" for how and why the WTC Twin Towers were selected as targets was disingenuous. I don't mean that he was lying. I mean that I don't "buy" his version of the process which he gave us. I had a much different sense of it because: I know what I saw. And regardless of what Bin Ladin says now, there is very little possibility that he could persuade me that I didn't see what I know I saw.

When I witnessed the second jumbo jet bash into the WTC building (on live TV), my immediate reaction was that Muslims must have done this. I initially attributed the act to the group which had demonstrated in Manhattan against Salman Rushdie, burning him in effigy and rioting in the streets. I was wrong about which specific Muslim group had done it. But my visceral sense that Muslims had done this was correct. What was it based on?

The event intensely evoked the image for me of a religious ritual central to Islam: stoning the Devil, although I realized that this behavior could not be of a religious nature. What, then, was it?

I was convinced from first sight of it that I was witnessing the commission of an act of Ritual Magic. And, I knew, the FBI has an established profile of those who commit crimes involving acts of Ritual Magic. What does this profile tell us?

The subjects tend to be, predominantly, adolescent or post-adolescent boys. And they tend to come from chaotic and unstable home environments which are out of their control. Part of the cause for this genre of behavior, the experts tell us, is a misguided but desperate attempt to gain control over their world.

Do the perpetrators of this atrocity match the already established profile? Yes, they do.

But if this act was supposed to "bankrupt the US," this magic could not be effective. It simply shows a complete lack of understanding of the American system. The mysterious "magic" of American prosperity is not in the buildings here. Its source is in the Freedom here.

Then Bin Ladin made a point of saying that he and his pals do not hate Freedom. Maybe not directly. But they obviously hate what that Freedom produces: Creativity, Abundance, and Prosperity.

And this is their fatal character flaw-- this twisted envy. Because it is an acknowledgement of their own inadequacy. What do they produce? In this act they are admitting that they produce nothing. But whose fault is that?

Do you think that Atta was suppressed? Or that he lacked opportunity? He could have designed and built beautiful buildings in the Middle East. Unfortunately, he was just too screwed up to accomplish that. And then he fell in love with Bin Ladin who gave him an excuse and rationalization for destroying instead of building. It was a sick chemistry Atta became addicted to so that he could avoid responsibility for his own life.

What a pathetic waste he turned his life into! All his cultivated potential was ultimately scraped from the streets and gutters in bits and shreds.

And you know the rest.

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