Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Dr. Nancy Kobrin, a psychoanalyst with a Ph.D. in romance and semitic languages, specializing in Aljamía and Old Spanish in Arabic script. She is an expert on the Minnesota Somali diaspora and a graduate of the Human Terrain System program at Leavenworth Kansas. Her new book is The Banality of Suicide Terrorism: The Naked Truth About the Psychology of Islamic Suicide Bombing.

FP: Nancy Kobrin, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Congratulations on your book. Tell us about its significance and what makes it different from all other books on suicide terrorism to date.

Kobrin: Thank you so much Jamie. I must say how indebted I am to you and the entire staff at Frongpagemag.com because you provided the opportunity and invaluable space to discuss and debate my theory for the suicide attack with other colleagues. If it hadn’t been here at Frontpage, I wonder if this book would have ever been written. My thanks and gratitude to you all.

This is a psychological study and its significance is that it is the first to address early childhood development and its crucial role that it plays in suicide terrorism with regard to the psychology of extremism and gender – specifically with the emphasis on the devalued female in Arab Muslim shame honor cultures which have developed suicide terrorism. This is not to blame the female or the mother but to understand the power and control of her and its devastating consequences.

To the best of my knowledge and to date, I know of no other book or theory, which has made the link between the horrific abuse of the female and its ramifications with regard to murder-suicide, her split-off body parts and the alleged honor killing. I hasten to add that we are only at the beginning of understanding the phenomenon and we are in the model T stage of integrating a more in-depth or shall we say psychodynamic approach to the knowledge that we have about terrorism.

Because I understand non-verbal communication and ninety-five percent of what we communicate is nonverbal, the focus of the book is primarily on the nonverbal predatory behavior of these terrorists by looking at the imagery.

It is understandable that we tend to stress the terrible nature of the incitement of the ideologies of Jihad and violence, which are indeed extremely important. However, by over focusing on its “verbiage”, this tends to obscure an already confusing and terrorizing picture. The ideologies act like a girdle, which harnesses the pre-existing rage of a fragile abused child grown into a “time-bomb” of a personality. I’ll give an example later in the interview when I address the issue of the female suicide bomber, how we can easily miss a “hidden communication” in this terrorism, precisely because it is so deeply terrorizing.

This is why people are always mystified by the “nice guy or gal jihadi next door.” The mask of “peace” is so well developed, giving perfect cover for a rageful personality. It hides the embroiled rage and it is so terrorizing that “We just don’t want to go there. . .” This is also why Islam can present itself as a religion of peace when it is a religion of two pieces – Jihad and Peace – two sides of a coin. If we are going to be effective in filleting the phenomenon of Islamic suicide terrorism, it is imperative that the imagery be taken into consideration and factored in with the ideologies. When read together, then other questions can be raised concerning the psychological function of religious and cultural practices.

How did I come to this realization? I recall the first psychiatric child patient that I ever had to interview. It was on a locked ward and I was tasked to establish a rapport with a five year old boy who was hospitalized for setting fires — immolation.  I was told to talk with him and engage him through a game of checkers. No sooner did we sit down that he had his foot on top of mine under the table. I said to myself – OMG, alpha male dominance. I realized that he was absolutely terrified of me.

Terror is not to be equated with fear. It is nameless dread, non-verbal which encapsulates a complete sense of utter vulnerability, tantamount to death.

FP: It took very long to get the book into print. How come?

Kobrin: You know, I didn’t quite understand it at first myself but it turned out to be a valuable experience and it taught me a lot about terror. It was a humbling experience.

In January of 2002 I took a month sabbatical in Jerusalem. Suicide bombings became an every day occurrence. Lots of suicide bombings were going on. It was there when I came across the image of Shakespeare’s Othello who commits murder-suicide that I grasped the violent simplicity of Islamic suicide terrorism. Let us recall that Othello was a North African, a Moor and military man who married Desdemona the daughter of an Italian senator. He murders her and then commits suicide. Islamic suicide terrorism grounds itself in this kind of death though it is a hybrid of murder-suicide, serial killing by the suicide bomber proxy and a jihadi honor killing. But this is territory that few want to explore.

The book was sketched out in 2002. Bottom line – it was at two different publishing houses before it wound up at Potomac. I believe the two other presses were too “freaked out” to publish it because of the function of terror, especially the terror of retaliation, being targeted. Again, people have a very poor understanding of terror. The terrors run so deep that we tend to be dissociated from them. Most of us live in denial, busy with our daily lives. It is too terrifying to recognize the impending death threat of power and control, so we disengage. It is also too terrifying to tap into this primitive unexplored territory (i.e., the unconscious motivations behind terrorism).

FP: What is your background? What influenced you to come up with your ideas about suicide terrorism?

Kobrin: I have always followed my passion and my studies evolved. I did a doctorate in comparative literature, romance and semitic languages. I am dyslexic so I came to be fascinated with verbal and nonverbal language very early.

While writing my dissertation, I wound up on a training analyst’s couch; this is when it all came to life. I discovered a new world in depth but fascinating in its valuing the simplicity of explanation. I found the analytic experience extremely helpful and interesting.  I became very interested in trauma.

I was following all the research coming out of Israel concerning the victims of terrorism and it dawned on me that I needed to understand the mind of the perpetrator. So I started studying this on my own after the truck bombs went off in Lebanon in the early 1980s. I then realized that it had to be looked at functionally – victim-perpetrator together as a kind of unhealthy bonding. The terrorists do not have a sense of intimacy — they bond by maintaining a connection to those they murder and over whom they take control.

The summer before 9/11 Dr. Joan Lachkar invited me to participate in a seminar on suicide terrorism in Los Angeles. She wrote a very important dissertation on the narratives/fantasies in the Bible and the Quran. I also had some questions, which I sent to the Interdisciplinary Center in Counter Terrorism in Tel Aviv and the Israeli who identified Osama Bin Laden wrote me back. This fellow informally mentored me and inspired me to study the history of terrorism. He does not necessarily agree with my theory but I remain deeply indebted to him. He has practical knowledge of the “Matzav” = the situation that is unparalleled and unequalled.

While I was schlepping back and forth to Israel, I realized that the jihad was going on in Minnesota. We have the largest population outside of Mogadishu of Somalis in the world. I familiarized myself well with the peoples, the cultures and af-Somali, the language. I am a very practical person. I went into the community as well as the county jail and did prison interviews. So I have hands on experience right in my own back yard. I want to stress that the major of Somalis are law abiding good people who want to put food on the table, clothe their children and send them to school. However, there is an element that seeks jihad.

FP: Talk some more about Arab culture and its views of mothers.

Kobrin: In Arab Muslim culture you are never ever permitted to separate from your mother, ever. This means that you are glued to her and she is more important than your wife. It means that you are not permitted to establish your own sense of self, i.e. separate from her. Your wife is ultimately devalued and the upshot is that you harbor unbelievable, disavowed rage toward your mother, in essence one has no real effective father – the father is too busy with his other wives and women.

This creates tremendous ambivalence, on the one hand to want to bond with mother (ummi) and on the other hand at the same time remaining terrified of her, resulting in a confusing sense of identity. Perhaps this is why Muslims struggle so and are always fighting to prove their identity.  Proving their existence becomes a more pervasive force than life itself. “I’d rather die by blowing myself up than looe my identity as a Muslim brother.”

Counter terrorist experts are often taught that Arabs need very strong fathers because the father is absent and that is what they respond to. However, this is merely the symptom of the problem – that the devalued female has been internalized by them and they can not relate to the female. They, the males, are terrorized by her and her body. The mother is larger than life, almost in a category un-to-herself. This is where the bitter paradox comes in as much as males can idealize the female, they can also feel enormously terrorized by the female body.

The end result of these tragic forces leave these males very confused. If we could put them on the couch we might suggest they are in desperate need of sex education. The males are not only confused, they suffer from severe deprivation ending up depriving themselves of very basic human needs. The irony is that they shame/blame everyone for depriving them but ultimately they are the real “deprivers.” So instead of love for the mother/female, the replacement becomes the destruction of her. In psychodynamic terms this is known as primitive envy. In essence the very love that is required to maintain healthy love bonds, is the very thing that makes them feel powerless and impotent so they must defend against this by becoming killers and murderers. We however pay the price. Sometimes I think of myself as the Dr. Ruth of counter-terrorism. I kid you not.

FP: Your position on Islam?

Kobrin: I take the same position as my colleague Ibn Warraq – I believe that there are millions upon millions of moderate Muslims but Islam itself is not moderate, especially those who identify with Sharia law.

Having said that – I endorse Tawfik Hamid’s position that the ummah, the world-wide Muslim community unwittingly and wittingly engages in passive terrorism. All too often they can too easily hide behind the mask of peace and let the jihadis do the dirty work.

This is not acceptable and they need to be called on it.

FP: Revenge and deprivation in and of themselves clearly does not explain female suicide bombers as in the recent bombings in Moscow. Tell us your views on why.

Kobrin: Actually it is quite simple and bizarrely clever – this kind of terrorism and rage is about the prenatal mother. The male terrorists make a concrete image of the prenatal mother — the female suicide bomber who is repeatedly described by the media as if she were pregnant, symbolized by hiding the bombs under her clothing. This is a good example of a not so hidden communication per se but one that is readily missed if a person does not know well his or her own terrors from our first years of life. In some instances the female suicide bomber has actually been pregnant and in other instances, faux pregnant bellies have been made for the female suicide bomber to hide the bombs. It is a “two-fer” for the male terrorists – they get to kill off their own females while at the same time murdering us.

The prenatal mother is the essence of dependency needs. It is the time in life when everything is taken care of for us. While it might not be perfect, nonetheless it is a time of encapsulation where the majority of one’s needs and vulnerabilities are taken care of. Yet after the female being devalued for centuries, the female suicide bomber can find honor and respect within the twisted psychology of the male dominated terrorist group.

Yes, it can be reported by the media and the foiled female suicide bombers can say that they were “seeking revenge” but the complexity of the early life history of these devalued and abused females make them ripe to be brain washed which harnesses their own unconscious rage about having been manipulated and abused to turn this outward by murdering others. It is uncontrollable unleashed rage, which exceeds murder itself because body parts are created in the process as in serial killing. Simply stated it is a way of maintaining a bond with the mother of pain – a part objection connection – her dismembered body parts which are now the body parts of the targeted innocent victims.

The female suicide bomber merely internalizes the male rage of the female as self-hatred. She becomes victim-victimizer as my colleague Dr. Anat Berko has named her. The female suicide bomber is the most expandable of the terrorist chain. The Islamic female suicide bomber image is in stark contrast to Christianity where the prenatal mother, Mary and her post-partem motherhood with Jesus, are sacred images, venerated and cherished.

FP: What can we do to fight to this pathology and enemy we face?

Kobrin: We must invest in the little Muslim girl. We must help all those who live under a death threat. For brevity here I refer your readers to the last chapter of my book where I make a series of suggestions.

In addition to this I have recently also started to work on a conceptual dictionary of this peculiar language of the terrorists, which I call Desperanto. I hope to map out images, use of objects by terrorists and their tough talk, using open sources from journalism, etc. to show other primitive  nonverbal and verbal communications in this vein, in order to help counter terrorist experts expand their understanding should they so desire. I believe that these communications can be extracted from what we know about terrorism and from it, a language can be built which in turn can be hooked up with the ideologies. I parallel this understanding of communication to an abused child in play therapy. If a child took a car and rammed it repeatedly into the back of a truck, we would wonder if he or she had been anally raped. While it is not exactly the same and we do not have terrorists in therapy nor am I advocating that, we should still try to map out the nonverbal communications in a more systematic manner. My hunch is too that the people who work in biometrics have a good sense of this body language but alas, I have not had the opportunity to work with them. This would help us make better interventions, earlier as well as better profiling. The reason why it is so difficult to profile is that the psychopathology is very early developmentally and it takes us outside our comfort zone.

FP: Nancy Kobrin, thank you for joining us. This is all fascinating, original and frightening stuff. Hope to talk to you again soon.

I encourage all our readers to order Dr. Kobrin’s new book: The Banality of Suicide Terrorism: The Naked Truth About the Psychology of Islamic Suicide Bombing.

Contrary to myth, Islamist female suicide bombers are neither “liberated” nor empowered women. They are not driven by feminist or nationalist ideologies. They are not always “black widows”—women, (most recently in the Moscow train bombings),   who have lost terrorist husbands to the enemy and who want revenge.

Some  female (Palestinian suicide bombers) are clinically depressed after years of family abuse, or upon discovering that they are infertile and that their husbands are divorcing them. Some female (Iraqi suicide bombers) are desperate for “mothering,” and are easily indoctrinated by an older woman figure who “mothers” them into martyrdom. Some female (Palestinian suicide bombers) are trapped by male indoctrinators who seduce them, then threaten to tell their husbands or families if they do not go out in a redemptive blaze of glory; otherwise, they will be honor murdered.

According to Israeli criminologist and author, Dr. Anat Berko, a researcher at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, and quoted today in Ha’aretz:

“Although no one will admit it openly, people talking behind closed doors will make all sorts of negative comments about female terrorists and will refer to them as ‘damaged goods.’ When a woman becomes a terrorist, her status is invariably diminished in the eyes of the average Palestinian. Female terrorists who are caught and sent to an Israeli prison are ‘damaged goods’ because they were behind bars, and that fact does not enhance their status, in blatant contrast with male terrorists. Female participation in terrorism does not advance female empowerment; it holds it back.”

Berko is the author of The Path to Paradise: The Inner World of Suicide Bombers and Their Dispatchers.

The good news is that she has written a new book in Hebrew which is now being translated into English. It’s title? The Smarter Bomb. Women and Children As Suicide Bombers.

Expect to see more and more  female suicide bombers—as well as male bombers  dressed in burqas. Iran has sworn to send an army of such women our way.

But don’t forget: Their main victims so far are other Muslims. Infidel civilians are targets of course, but suicide bombers, both male and female, have done their greatest damage to other Muslims.

Female Muslim doctors and nurses are to be allowed to wear disposable sleeves in order to comply with NHS rules to prevent the spread of hospital superbugs. All staff involved in caring for patients should be 'bare below the elbows' to ensure sleeves do not become contaminated and hands can be washed thoroughly to prevent infections passed around the ward.

However female Muslim staff had been concerned about the rule as exposure of their forearms is seen as immodest.

Staff in several hospitals had reportedly refused to expose their arms for hand washing and 'scrubbing in' procedures before surgery.

New guidance from the Department of Health said staff can wear disposable sleeves which are elasticated at the wrist and elbow when in contact with patients.

The guidance also states that using alcohol gel to cleanse hands between treating patients does not contravene strict Muslim rules on alcohol.

The guidance was drawn up following meetings between the Muslim Spiritual Care Provision in the NHS group and Islamic scholars, chaplains, multi-faith representatives and infection control experts.

It said: "Use of hand disinfection gels containing synthetic alcohol does not fall within the Muslim prohibition against natural alcohol (from fermented fruit or grain)."...

What a relief!

Al-Qaeda operatives have added a new weapon to their terrorist arsenal: killer cleavage.

Female suicide bombers are being fitted with exploding breast implants which are almost impossible to detect, British spies have reportedly discovered.

The shocking new al-Qaeda tactic involves radical doctors inserting the explosives in women’s breasts during plastic surgery — making them “virtually impossible to detect by the usual airport scanning machines”.

But according to Slate’s XX Factor blog, there may be a silver lining to this threat. After sharing a handful of obligatory booby trap jokes, writer Hanna Rosin asks:

Does this mean jihadi circles are becoming places where you can freely discuss sexual parts? That is actually possible.

Duh! Of course that’s what it means. At long last, Islamofascists have overcome the repressive taboo on openly discussing T and A. Next thing you know, female jihadists will be flaunting their tramp stamps and whale tails, gyrating lasciviously as they belt out, “My milkshake brings all the boys to jihad.”  Wouldn’t a sex-positive global caliphate be awesome?

Ugh.

I realize Slate’s shtick is round-the-clock contrarianism, but the suggestion that exploding breast implants are indicative of feminist progress among Islamists is either indescribably depraved or breathtakingly ignorant.

Exploding breast implants do not signify the freedom of Muslim women to discuss their bodies in mixed-gender company.  The slicing and dicing and surgical crippling of female sexuality is nothing new in the Islamic world, and in fact, the link between female sexuality and male violence is codified in Islamic scripture.

Turning women’s breasts into vessels for lethal explosives is not a sign of moderation or liberation. It’s yet another illustration of how Islam reduces women’s worth to the utility of their sexual parts.

—–

Follow Jenn Q. Public on Twitter and read more of her work at JennQPublic.com.

American law enforcement officials have been told to be on the lookout for female suicide bombers who may attempt to enter the United States, law enforcement authorities tell ABC News.

One official said at least two of them are believed to be connected to al Qaeda in Yemen, and may have a non-Arab appearance and be traveling on Western passports.

The threat was described as "current" but not imminent, said the official.

"They have trained women," said former White House counter-terrorism official Richard Clarke, an ABC News consultant.

Separately, Britain raised its terrorism threat level to "severe," its second-highest level, days before London hosts major international meetings on how to deal with militancy in Afghanistan and Yemen. Britain's threat level had been labeled "severe" for several years before being lowered last summer to "substantial."

American officials say a U.S. air strike on Christmas Eve against suspected al Qaeda training camps is believed to have killed many, but not all, of a group of suicide bombers being trained in Yemen.

The man accused of attempting to explode a bomb on Northwest flight 253, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, told FBI agents there were a number of other people who trained with him in Yemen.

"There are others who are still out there who have been trained and who are clean skins -- that means people who we do not have a record of, people who may not look like al Qaeda terrorists, who may not be Arabs, and may not be men," said Clarke.

The alert comes during a week in which American law enforcement officials described an "unusually high" number of people on the no-fly list attempting to board flights to or in the United States.

Six on No-Fly List Stopped in 48 Hours

At least six people on the no-fly list were denied boarding in a 48-hour period between Saturday and Monday this week, according to the officials. [...]

"What we don't know is whether this is because everyone is doing a better job of enforcing the no-fly list, or because the list has been expanded, or because the terrorists are attempting to probe our security," said ABC News consultant Clarke....

Read it all.

FP: Ines Laufer, welcome back to Frontpage Interview.

In our last discussion, we focused on how Germany has exposed a young girl to female genital mutilation and how Germany, and Europe in general, is not protecting young girls from this barbaric crime.

Today I would like to talk to you about a new campaign you have started. Tell us about it.

Laufer: Thanks Jamie.

Our research brought to light that to up to 400,000 sponsored girls who are marketed by the big development organizations PLAN International, World Vision, Kindernothilfe and ChildFund do not receive protection from female genital mutilation. We have started a new campaign, at sponsoredgirl.com, to protect the girls from female genital mutilation. We invite your readers to come join us.

These children are marketed in order to acquire money from trustful donors. The donors pay about 30 Euros per month – which means 360 Euros per year, in the belief that the organizations do all they can for providing a better life — including health for the sponsored children. PLAN International for instance, acquires about 72 million Euros every year, just by marketing the 240,000 concerned girls.

But asked about female genital mutilation on the sponsored girls, these organizations openly and publicly claim that demanding the safe protection of the girls would be against their approaches and against their policy.

So, by failing to demand, to stipulate and to control the protection of the sponsored girls from FGM, the organizations must be considered complicit in every single crime perpetrated against a little girl in this regard.

We are The Alliance for Protection of Girls from Female Genital Mutilation. We consider this simply scandalous and unacceptable. It is a crime against the girls and also a system of defrauding the donors.

That’s why we launched this campaign. It is suited to go the largest step forward in the direction of an end of FGM since the beginning of the fight against these practices. It could lead to true and immediate protection of a few million girls.

FP: Ok, what concretely does the campaign demand?

Laufer: It demands that all organizations who work with the sponsored-child-system, should make sure that all girls in their projects – in the relevant regions – are safely protected from violence like female genital mutilation.

This demand is based on the cognition that it is not only possible but very easy to achieve that goal – and even more: It does not cost any money.

It is just about the change of the attitude, approach and policy of the organisations. We call for:

[1] The stipulation of the safety and protection from FGM of the sponsored girls in the preconditions for support for the communities – and regular check ups.

[2] A careful selection of the project partners, which means that only those communities that support children’s rights will be targets of help. This means an investment of donations in the most economic and effective way.

[3] The complete solution – the two steps to safe protection – you find here.

FP: How do the mentioned organizations react to your activism on behalf of the victims of FGM?

Laufer: To be honest, Jamie, they all react quite similar so far, with a mixture of ostrich behavior (putting their heads into the sand) and helpless efforts to defend their current policy of tolerating and accepting the mutilations of thousands of sponsored girls.

But in fact, they deliver us one proof after the other that confirms how much this campaign is needed – how important it is and that it will have a deep impact to truly stop FGM.

To the people who sign and send the petition letters, they send standard-answers which make clear that they did not even read or understand what we demand. They still refuse to admit that they are fully responsible for every single mutilated girl in their projects because of their failure to implement the adequate protection measures. And they do not have any scruple to simply tell tales.

We can sum it up as following: There is much ignorance and denial and no adequate seriousness or goodwill to even understand what should be changed and how.

But I am sure this will change soon.

Only, it doesn’t lie in our hands anymore. Now, the world public – every person who feels concerned and disturbed by the knowledge that every day, thousands of little girls are mutilated by FGM – is asked to help the campaign.

FP: What exactly can people do to help the campaign? Is it about money and donations?

Laufer: No, Jamie – it is absolutely not about money or donations. It is about something much more important: It’s about the power of everyone’s voice. By investing exactly two minutes of time and a few clicks, everyone can help – while comfortably sitting in front of the computer. Every reader can help free this world from the nightmare of female genital mutilation. It has never been so easy.

At the www.sponsoredgirl.com website, you find four prepared letters, addressed to PLAN International World Vision, Kindernothilfe and ChildFund, see here.

Every person who signs and sends the letters – and who even steps back from current sponsorship-contracts, enlarges the pressure on the organizations. And this helps us to strengthen our efforts in demanding them to consequently protect the children.

That’s why: Please sign the letters and send them to your friends that they can do it too.

FP: So how has the campaign been going?

Laufer: Well, let me tell you this. In the last ten days, more than 750 letters have been sent to the organizations already. But we would like to achieve at least 5,000 to put the campaign at the next level of public pressure.

FP: Ines Laufer, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview. I encourage all of our readers who want to help stop this genocide against girls to go to www.sponsoredgirl.com.