I have read a great deal of excellent information on how the mindset of hatred toward America has developed, Kevin Hogan wrote an excellent article on this (see KevinHogan.com). What I feel we have overlooked is the fact that the activities we are talking about move from any normal behavior into the realm of antisocial behavior, true psychopathic behavior, with a fair amount of narcissistic personality disorder mixed in.

Antisocial Personality disorder is characterized by a total lack of caring of other people's feelings or safety. They will take advantage of every opportunity to advance their own interests. They will lie, cheat, steal, and harm others for what they want. These are the Sociopath predators we read about. When mixed with a high IQ they become very scary people, they can read people better than most psychologists, and have no qualms about any activity to get what they want. They can be very seductive, both one on one, and seducing groups. When this is mixed with Narcissistic traits, you have someone who becomes a true social nightmare. (Read Psychopathic Mind by Malloy and Reed)

Narcissistic personality is when someone thinks so much of themselves they totally devalue others. Everyone lives for me and my pleasure and goals. This leads to a sense of entitlement. Their huge egos lead them to believe they deserve special treatment. These people become dynamic leaders who people want to follow. Self-survival is very important to them; they will sell out others to keep going. Ted Bundy, the serial killer of over 30 women, on his way to the death chamber was still offering more burial sites to stay alive. Charles Manson hid in a closet as his followers were being taken away.

When you combine these two it is easy to believe this type of person is on a mission from God, and any actions (killing thousands, even millions) is part of their divine right. This type of personality will find a cause that lets them act out their natural tendencies (hurting others). Remember the Nazi concentration camps? These types of personalities set them up. Their activities were inhuman, even in a war. Jim Jones fit this type as he got 900 people to kill their families and themselves. At the end of his trial Ted Bundy was complimented by some in the courtroom on his seeming to be a nice guy. Sadam Husein, Charles Manson, Jim Jones, and David Koresh are classic examples.

These types of people are good at getting others to follow them. They are masters at reading people and finding what motivates them and using that information to enlist them to their cause. Political and religious beliefs are the most common things they use. When you blend the two, it is an even more powerful recruitment tool.

When we look at the major people accused we see this type of behavior made manifest. They have found a political ideology, mixed in some religious teachings that allow them to act out against a common enemy. We must remember, some of these same terrorists used us as allies when they were fighting the Soviets. Once they drove them out. Peace does not fit their plans. Keeping with the personality types, they needed a cause and enemy that would allow them to continue the violence and brutality. Before you dismiss the severity of the problem, remember Hitler (who fit this) destroyed his own nation rather than stopping the war, even when the outcome was known, and he had millions following his path of destruction. Think also of Heavens Gate, Jim Jones, David Koresh

When you take into account that these types of people are naturals at using hypnotic techniques they are excellent at recruiting others. They use deep beliefs, mix in natural fear, and you have converts to your cause. What was one of there driving points?

Not sex in the reproductive act, or sexual love, but sex as a power issue. It seems one the Islamic fundamentalist fears is the western idea of sexual equality, and more open sexuality. (This is true as well for some fundamentalist Christians) One need only to look at the countries ran by these fundamentalists to see the role of women. No education for women, no jobs for them, must be covered, etc. The idea of women in positions of power is not just frightening, but against their beliefs. (Now remember women have had the right to vote here in America for less than 100 years, and many would say we still have an unequal power base) When you add in the more open sexuality found in the western world, movies, and TV especially, it targets us as godless enemies. When we sent troops to the Gulf war, female soldiers and sailors was an offense to their deepest beliefs

They also set this up as an ongoing anchor to their cause, a post hypnotic suggestion, to keep them on task. In fact this anchor can actually get their hatred toward America to grow as the terrorist lived here. Every time they saw a female in a position of power (police, politics etc) it reinforced the anchor. This could be a key into how they stayed here so long and still carried out these brutal acts. For years classical psychology thought that after a few months of living in a country it would be hard to carry out a terrorist mission. This is a key on how to keep the mission going, using self-anchors.

The next driving factors are:

By appearing to the world as a soft spoken, almost humble men, these fundamentalists hide their lust for POWER, STATUS, and CONTROL, is hidden. One only need to look into the fact these leaders will tolerate any divergent thinking. There is no questioning their ideas of what GOD wants. (This was also true for David Koresh and the Waco group, as well as Jim Jones and his group) They use convoluted but simple messages from obscure passages in Holy writings to get their followers to buy into the "we are right, they are wrong." They then leverage this into the idea that harming others in the name of these beliefs is not just justified by God, but demanded by Him, because they say it is so. (Remember the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the witch hunts?)

Once some Status has been gained, even "bad" status, the fact that their "ENEMIES" are trying to stop them, actually becomes a launching point to get other followers. The more these "Enemies", whether they are parents, police, other religions or Governments, the Status as outsiders, or rebels, helps them gain influence with the disenfranchised. This also helps them get the means to exploit the power they are gaining. More on this next time as we talk about the training methods used to train their people.