The Psychological Profile of Al
Qaida -
by Stephen Morgan (Fonte)
The Psychological
Profile of Terrorist Cults
What then is the psychological profile of these elements, which
make the cult cells and networks? Like the camps, they are something
of a rather, messy mélange of neurotics, post-traumatic stress
sufferers (PTSD) and psychopaths. In profiling them we have
to remember that the labels are probabilities and not one single
type suits each particular position within the network. There
can be different types at different levels and also, it is important
to note that the features or symptoms of their disorders often
overlap. When it comes to these types of pathological illnesses
there are no “Chinese Walls” between the manifestations and
behaviours they exhibit. That said there are certain specific
features, which are more likely to occur for certain terrorist
types.
Most of them appear to be veterans of the Afghan war against
the Soviet Union. They are usually also not Afghans, but Saudis,
Algerians, Yemenis or Egyptians. They made up part of the “Afghan
Arabs” (Afghan people are not Arabs, though Muslim); volunteer
fighters who formed foreign battalions in Afghanistan to fight
alongside the mujahideen. Bin Laden himself left Saudi Arabia
at the age of 23 to join the Afghan resistance. In the first
place people like this are brutalized, de-humanized by the experiences
of war.
Many who went in the first place were probably already psychologically
unstable or unwell beforehand and their experiences only perverted
their disorders further. Nearly everyone returns from war damaged
in some way, but those who are healthy and came from loving
families have a better chance of integrating and overcoming
the trauma of war. Many such people did from the 2 World War
and Vietnam. But a large number of people never truly do. Often
at the end of the war, their lives fall apart and they suffer
from PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. This terrible illness
is carried by tens of thousands of vets in the US who live lives
of horror, reliving the war in dreams and daily experiences,
socked in alcohol or drugs, emotionally volatile and depressed
and feeling hopeless. Many try and succeed in committing suicide.
They continue to fight the war in their minds, never able to
leave the psychological battlefield. Some, though not the all,
are violent and anti-social and many hate and despise the society
and world, which delivered such horror on them.
They are killing machines, which seek objects to mangle and
destroy. Having been in or led battalions in the guerrilla war
they are ideal commanders of underground cells. They are held
in highest esteem for their war record and are feared as killers
within their own ranks. They revel in their new terrorist positions
because they can continue to live, as only they know how, in
danger, in secrecy, in adversity, toying and outwitting the
enemy and ambushing unsuspecting victims. They have the opportunity
to relive their war in the streets of New York, Nairobi, Paris
or London. These types must keep going because, if they stop,
they will have to face themselves and their own psychology.
Their PTSD is a sort of violent denial, a way to live through
death. If they stop they are likely to fall apart and self-destruct.
In the end many volunteer to do just that, to destroy themselves
and others at the same time.
War can be an experience of human inversion. You look into the
abyss and, as Nietzsche said, the abyss looks back into you.
The terrorist Lieutenants of Death are the abyss, they have
become a human abyss. As a result of the experiences of the
abattoir of Afghanistan, all natural feelings of affection,
trust, positive relations, honesty and love have been lost in
the unfathomable depths of their abysmal minds. Their PTSD has
become a pathological condition of permanent war psychosis.
They are like the Doors song the “there’s a killer on the road,
his brain is squirming like a toad.”
For these elements, the survival instinct common to all of us,
has been warped and inverted into a death instinct. They have
vomited out all positive human relations and exchanged them
with all the negative ones. They have seen people they loved,
trusted, respected and relations they treasured blown apart
before their eyes. They cannot bear to go through such loss
again, so they cannot bear to ever have those feelings again.
They fear that love, trust, honesty, relations will only lead
to again to having their faces smeared in entrails, watching
brothers writhing in flames, and cradling boys heads absent
of their brains. Being too much for them to bear or integrate,
their damaged psyche has drawn the conclusion that survival
cannot be based on any positive or genuine relations or feelings
whatsoever.
Some also suffer terrible guilt at having survived the war while
their comrades died. Why are they alive? Indeed, why, they may
think, should they have been left in live in such a living psychological
hell? They feel they too should have died for Islam, and this
guilt of being alive, coupled with religious dogmas and justifications,
often empowers them toward terrorist suicide. Ironically, suicide
can actually give them a reason to live. They can make sense
of their continuing survival, until the time has come when they
are chosen to die for Allah.