What At All Is Inside These Terrorists' Minds? By Cameron Duodu

It is so sad that West African travellers to the USA and Europe, already targeted often by airport security agents for special screening, are the ones who will bear the brunt of strict new safety measures at airports, as a result of the failed attempt by the Nigerian student, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, to detonate an explosive device on board a Northwestern Airlines flight.

Had Mutallab been successful, he would have slaughtered nearly 300 passengers and crew, none of whom had ever offended him. I am sure that as is usual with adherents to his peculiar religious mindset, if someone had asked him why he thought it was all right to kill so many innocent people to make whatever point he wanted to make, he would have answered “That is unfortunate.”

Yes – “unfortunate”. To people of his ilk, Allah has decided everything for mankind already, and if these decisions happen to affect any particular individual, that is ”unfortunate”. Is there any more cold-blooded attitude for a human being to posses in relation to other humans?

Oh yes, you were brought up in the world by loving parents. They looked after you when you were sick. They showered love upon you. They were happy just to hear you talk and laugh and enjoy yourself. But I have the right to bring all that to an end and kill you and fill their lives with sorrow, in remembrance of you. Because my “Cause” is great. It has been decided by Allah himself. It is unfortunate that in executing that cause, I should execute you and those you love (if they are with you on an aeroplane I have targeted) and eliminate all of you from the face of the earth.

The guy doesn't know how the earth was made and hung in its peculiar position in the universe. He doesn't care to ponder how it is that you and him -- conscious beings both –- happened to be alive at this particular time. Why, out of the zillions of particles that form the material of the universe, a congruence of atoms in space and time, should have resulted in your being you – an individual with a name, who can think and feel. The wonder of it all, the stupendous impossibility of it all becoming possible, doesn't cut any ice with him. You should die by the premeditated deeds of his hand. Unfortunate for you! But no big deal, in the scheme of things.

This mindset is very real and we are going to see more of its consequences. It is absurd beyond belief.

When the 'Boko Haram' leader in Nigeria, for instance, was asked why he enjoyed the fruits of modern civilisation – cell phones, radio and television and good food – while he taught his followers to eat dates and other rudimentary stuff to survive, he answered that radio, television and cell phones were merely the products of ”technology”. Yes – he was eloquent enough to use that word! As to the difference in the standard of living between himself and his followers, again his answer was pure, refined sophistry: “Each person lives according to his own circumstances”. And someone like that could lead thousands of people to fight and die and cause death and injury to others.

These lunatics exist, and yet the security agencies upon which we depend for protection from them, spend enormous sums of money, and expend huge human resources, in fighting phantoms whose existence poses no threat to man or beast. People who are non-violent but whose politics happens not to suit politicians in power somewhere or other.

For instance, in the build-up to the Iraq war in 2003, the telephone of the then United Nations Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, was bugged by the British Government, and the information obtained shared with the United States. This is how the then British Secretary of State for International Development, Clare Short, disclosed the matter to the world:

[Ms Short]she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that British spies were involved in bugging Mr Annan's office in the run up to war with Iraq.

"The UK in this time was also getting spies on Kofi Annan's office and getting reports from him about what was going on," she said.

"These things are done and in the case of Kofi's office, it was being done for some time."

Asked if Britain was involved in this, she replied; "Well I know - I've seen transcripts of Kofi Annan's conversations.”

When asked about Ms Short's allegations, all the then British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, could say was that Ms Short's statement was “irresponsible.” Not that it wasn't true, mind: it was “irresponsible”

If Britain spends resources bugging peace-loving individuals like Kofi Annan, how will she have any resources left to detect the plans of real terrorists like Abdul Mutallab?

In Mutallab's case, the failure in intelligence is so monumental that it ought not to be forgotten in the way these things have a way of doing, whereby after the initial hullabaloo has been made about the howler, stupendous efforts are made to cover them up, and the cover-ups succeed, because no-one is alert enough to refuse being fobbed off and the guilty or negligent parties are named and shamed and if necessary fired from their sensitive positions.

Come to think of that, is the US Government ever going to tell us how it was that a publicity-mad person and his wife were able to crash a dinner party held in the White House by President Barack Obama for the Indian Prime Minister? How it was that this woman was able to go and shake Obama's hand?

The big elephant in the room of the Mutallab episode is this: who was it in the US embassy in Abuja that Mutallab's father contacted to express his unease about his son's relations with dangerous elements in Yemen and other Arab countries?

Did this official follow up to ensure that Mutallab was assessed As very dangerous, or was his classification toned down because it was assumed that his father was only concerned that he would come to personal harm? (That often happens: when a father thinks that his child might come to harm because of dangerous associations he has cultivated, he reports the matter to the authorities with a view to obtaining protection for the child, not necessarily to protect the public from him.)

Anyway, what the episode teaches us is that all of us must consider ourselves at the mercy of these potential terrorists and so we must keep our eyes open for them. Freedom of religion is enshrined in our constitutions, but not freedom to use religion to kill innocent people.

A happy, safer, better New Year to all my readers. Let's all hope and pray that by this time next year, we shall be thinking about something much more pleasant than failures in intelligence, bombers and terrorists.

Development / Accra / Ghana / Africa / Modernghana.com