While reading an opinion/article in Slate (
www.Slate.com )by Timothy Noah on the topic "why hasn't America been attacked since 9/11? I came across this quote about the terrorists' motives....
In a 2008 follow-up essay, "What Terrorists Really Want," Abrahms explained that terrorist groups are typically incapable of maintaining a consistent set of strategic goals, much less achieving them. Then why do they become terrorists? To "develop strong affective ties with fellow terrorists." It's fraternal bonds they want, not territory, nor influence, nor even, in most cases, to affirm religious beliefs. If a terrorist group's demands tend to sound improvised, that's because they are improvised; what really matters to its members—even its leaders—is that they are a band of brothers. Marc Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist and former Central Intelligence Agency case officer in Afghanistan, collected the biographies of 400 terrorists who'd targeted the United States. He found that fully 88 percent became terrorists not because they wanted to change the world but because they had "friendship/family bonds to the jihad." Among the 400, Sageman found only four who had "any hint of a [psychological] disorder," a lower incidence than in the general population. Think the Elks, only more lethal. Cut off from al-Qaida's top leadership, they are plenty dangerous, but not nearly as task-oriented as we imagine them to be.
I suddenly thought of the impromptu changing of strategic goals, the improvised philosophies, the half baked programs of the early days of GC. What has happened since then? They changed all that by copying other better known, more mainstream, acceptable Christian organizations with their own personal twist.
GC ARE NOT TERRORISTS.... but sometimes it seems that they exhibit some behaviors in common with them. The quote above MAY have a clue as to why some of us were attracted to a self-perpetuating but self-defeating organization. What seems like progress for the sake of the gospel may in fact be the spinning of wheels.
Again, I am
not equating GC with terrorism, I am
not claiming that GC is a terrorist organization, and I am
not going to allow anyone to claim it as such without correcting that mis-information.
Mods, feel free to delete this post if it is deemed inappropriate or mis-used.
