I was just thinking the other day, that I used to carry swiss army knife on a belt pouch to high school back in the day.

Now a days, the school staff would come down with a severe case of the vapors, and I'd probably get shot by the responding SWAT team.

Um, what made 9/11 possible is our lack of understanding of Islam -- that it commands its followers to convert or kill the infidel and install The New Caliphate around the globe. Before 9/11, as I've said before, we thought hijackers wanted a bag of money and a trip to Bolivia.

Before the 1970s, hijackers did want a bag of money and a trip to Bolivia. In the '70s, hijackers wanted the mass release of "political" prisoners - or used it as an excuse to kill all the passengers of whatever group they hated.

Suicide attacks were rare, even in Islam until recently. The Japanese Kamikaze are the best-known semi-modern purveyors of organized suicide attacks.

Even Assassins, who often found themselves outnumbered after executing their trademark public attack on a target, preferred to be killed by their opponents rather than commit suicide.

Modern Islamic suicide terrorism began in 1981 with attacks on the Iraqi embassy in Beirut. Those attacks were considered isolated events.

Then, in October 1983, a suicide bomber killed more than 250 US Marines in a planned attack on the barracks in Beirut. The Marine barracks attack shocked most observers - suicide attacks were not common in Islam at the time. In fact, the driver of the truck was dismissed as a statistical outlier, a lone psychotic.

Despite a slew of suicide attacks - on the Marine barracks, the Khobar Towers, the USS Cole, several US embassies, and more than a few Israeli pizzerias - no one on 9/11 perceived that the 19 hijackers were not the traditional hijackers who would demand money and political concessions before releasing their hostages (or dying in a hail of gunfire as a rescue force stormed the plane).

Until then, suicide attacks were always one-offs perpetrated by single attackers with no organization behind them. No one in the West had yet conceived of anyone using suicide attacks as a planned weapon of war - especially in a coordinated attack on multiple targets far from the attacker's home base.

So ... what changed in Islam that a large number of its adherents worldwide now sanction, even cheer, suicide attacks? What made a religion that condemned suicide (even in attacking infidels) change its collective mind? And so quickly?

Most Islamic suicide bombers are not poor, illiterate wretches with no hope of a better life - so poverty is not the motivator for suicide attacks, nor for its now-widespread acceptance.

If you'd visited the Middle East in the middle of the 20th century, you would have found a land and people eager for modernity. Now, you find the entire area hell-bent on returning to the 14th century and making the world pay the freight to get it there.

What turned a reasonably forward-looking religion into a death cult?

Now, you find the entire area hell-bent on returning to the 14th century and making the world pay the freight to get it there. -- Conan the Grammarian at September 9, 2013 4:02 PM

I have no idea how to answer your question. I do have some suggestions on how to return them to the first or second century though. ;-)

My god, man! With a knife like that anyone could cut ... the cheese!

Very dangerous in an enclosed space, let me tell you.

WSB reported that traffic was stopped in Atlanta today because of a "suspicious package".

It was a picnic basket.

Good thing it wasn't one of those big Igloo coolers. They'd have evacuated the city.

Americans are frightened little children now, aren't they?

Americans are frightened little children now, aren't they?

Which, quite possibly, was the goal all along, perpetrated by the "powers that be" whoever they are. Muslim leaders? Most likely, but backed by whom? That's what I'd like to know. In whose best interest would the USA be best on its knees? And what better way to disguise your motives than to bring in a large group of haters of damn near everything?

Not that I'm a conspiracy theorist or anything. I've just been thinking about how things have come about the past 10 or so years, and why. Ain't no easy answers, no how.

I do have some suggestions on how to return them to the first or second century though. ;-)

Yep. If I'm paying the freight, I get to choose whether to use express shipping.

...traffic was stopped in Atlanta today....

How could they tell?

Yep. If I'm paying the freight, I get to choose whether to use express shipping. -- Conan the Grammarian at September 10, 2013 10:19 AM

Way back when the SAC bombers and missile crews had a few joking quotes:

Bombers: We deliver overnight. Delivery guaranteed.

Missile crews: We deliver in thirty minutes or less. Limited delivery area.