Wafa Sultan became disillusioned with Islam when she was in medical school in Syria and some terrorists burst into her classroom and machine gunned her favorite professor in front of the class. She then examined the Koran and found 9:111, quoted above.
People of sound mind would not be suicide bombers, or Muslims.

Posted by: jewdog at February 20, 2008 6:13 PM

I think it's clear enough that these women were mentally disturbed — unless you don't think depression and schizophrenia are a problem — and it's also clear that the women were turned over to Al Qaeda (provided) by the doctor.

Why conjecture that they were themselves Al Qaeda. You just let the men who abused these women and turned them OVER to Al Qaeda off the hook when you do that.

Seems like a habit to let men off the hook for the damage they do to women.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at February 20, 2008 6:18 PM

Down's syndrome or not, they were sent by someone.

Posted by: gymgal at February 20, 2008 6:32 PM

"I think it's clear enough that these women were mentally disturbed" --posted by Morgaan

Islam is mentally disturbed.

Posted by: darcy at February 20, 2008 7:48 PM

Anyone under the influence of islam is by definition "disturbed". Don't believe me? Read the posts from the "house troll" , the thing called Naseem.

I'm pleased to read evidence that the two women who committed the bombings were NOT afflicted with DS. From personal experience I know people afflicted with DS. I say this in all sincerity: everyone should have a DS afflicted person in their life in order to understand (and appreciate) what unconditional love truly means.

Miss Sinclair: this is NOT a gender issue for a feminist studies seminar. The evidence now suggests that these two women acted of their own free will and not because they were afflicted with DS. God help us if all muslim women begin to assert their "feminist identity' by stepping up to the plate and killing in a manner that mirrors their male muslim counterparts.

Once upon a time I thought that muslim women would be the ones to bring down the house of islam. I still hope for that. If you look around you realize that many of the greatest anti islamists are: women. I don't find that surprising in the least.

I wish that you would not blame MEN (muslim or not) for FREE WILL exercised by muslim women. When you blame MEN for actions taken by muslim females, are you NOT allowing muslim women to escape responsiblility for their actions? Do muslim women not have free will? I believe they have a choice. Don't you?

Posted by: omvi at February 20, 2008 7:54 PM

I think it's clear enough that these women were mentally disturbed — unless you don't think depression and schizophrenia are a problem — and it's also clear that the women were turned over to Al Qaeda (provided) by the doctor. Why conjecture that they were themselves Al Qaeda. You just let the men who abused these women and turned them OVER to Al Qaeda off the hook when you do that. Seems like a habit to let men off the hook for the damage they do to women.

Yes, yes. Bad men.

Or perhaps, it's speaking against the dignity and self-determination of schizophrenics to say they can make no decisions for themselves (not knowing the degree of disability or therapeutic status). Or maybe, al Qaeda female operatives talked the mentally defectives into doing it.

...sorry, yes, yes. Bad men. Shame on you, Robert, you habitual apologist for Al Qaeda men.

Posted by: Concerned Citizen at February 20, 2008 8:32 PM

No, they do not have free will. They are oppressed - limited in their ability to move around, do anything they choose, even go out of their house or wear something of their own choosing. They were suffering from mental illnesses & then taken advantage of by jihadists. They MIGHT have agreed with the cause - some do indeed. They MIGHT have just wanted to commit suicide themselves & decided they could do it best in that culturally accepted way of taking others' lives with their own. They MIGHT not have wanted to do it at all, but were strapped with the bombs & given no choice, then remotely detonated. We will never know. There will be surely more to come.

It is a very sad, evil business. That is what we DO know.

Posted by: thatisall at February 20, 2008 8:34 PM

Bravo, omvi! I used to feel sorry for muslim women, but not anymore. What's that saying....if you act like a doormat, people will walk all over you.

I've seen too many muslimas dancing in the streets and tossing sweets for the kiddies, when our soldiers or civilians are killed. I've seen too many muslimas beaming approvingly at their small sons, as the blood runs down their baby faces from ashura celebrations. I've seen too many mothers of "martyrs" basking in the glory of their son's suicides, and too many mothers and their female relatives holding down their daughters while other muslim women cut apart their tiny genitals.

I am, of course, not referring to mentally unstable women used as homicide bombers.

Posted by: ImNoDhimmi at February 20, 2008 8:41 PM

They may not have had a syndrome currently listed in the DSM-IV. But someday, hopefully, that manual of physiological and psychological "syndromes" will include true believers in Islam as a special category of "syndrome".

Posted by: cantor at February 20, 2008 9:06 PM

OK, men suicide bombers are promised 72 virgins in paradise as a reward for their services.

So what's the inducement for the ladies? Maybe they get to become the madame of the house?

Posted by: Eastview at February 20, 2008 10:13 PM

"Both had recently received psychiatric treatment for depression and/or schizophrenia"

Schizophrenia? Reminds me of another historic Muslim figure with false notions. Islam is full of them.

Posted by: champ at February 20, 2008 10:15 PM

"I wish that you would not blame MEN (muslim or not) for FREE WILL exercised by muslim women."

Even as a feminist, I have to agree. In the case of these specific women, we don't know if they were in a state to make any decisions, but generally the west *has* to get away from the idea of blaming everyone except the person who actually pulls the trigger.

Yes, muslim women have fewer choices, are oppressed, may be brainwashed into Stockholm syndrome. But in the end, most suicide bombers, male and female, have a choice and make that choice. At the very worst, if their own lives are really at the end, they could commit suicide without hurting anyone else.

Posted by: Lili at February 20, 2008 10:16 PM

PS, Obviously, the planners and organisers are obviously also guilty.

Posted by: Lili at February 20, 2008 10:17 PM

Any Muslim woman who is NOT depressed is insane.

Posted by: profitsbeard at February 20, 2008 10:35 PM

"So what's the inducement for the ladies?"

Multiple choice:
A) Fresh FGM every day.
B) Perpetual virginity.
C) They get to take the sack off and air out.
D) People believe them when they say they've been raped.
E) slaps heal faster.
F) They get to go to hell, which is better than living as a female under Islam.

Posted by: Concerned Citizen at February 20, 2008 10:36 PM

"Any Muslim woman who is NOT depressed is insane."

LMAO!!!

Posted by: champ at February 20, 2008 10:39 PM

G) Greeter at the gate to Sex Heaven who hands out Viagra

Posted by: champ at February 20, 2008 10:45 PM

PS, Obviously, the planners and organisers are obviously also guilty.

Posted by: Lili

Yes, as are all the imams and muftis who ever preached a sermon about the need to kill apostates; and every madrassa-teacher who taught his students to hate the Jewish monkeys and Christian pigs; and every Moslem TV producer and director who used cartoon characters to indoctrinate hatred in children; and every Moslem apologist for honor-killing and FGM and wife-beating, etc, etc.
If this had been a white supremacist bombing a black shopping area in the U.S., the politicians and news editors and university deans and other "enlightened" opinion-leaders would be engaged in a fire-storm of wailing about the "engrained racism" and "systematic bigotry" of American society. But the idea that a whole society is to blame is never applied to Moslem atrocities; it's always a "tiny minority" who "misunderstand" their religion.
When a black church burns in the U.S. all of white America is blamed, although it usually turns out that the blaze was due to old, worn wiring or a faulty space-heater.
But when Moslems set off a bomb killing dozens, it's NEVER Islam that's to blame, only a few "misguided" individuals.

Posted by: ebonystone at February 20, 2008 10:45 PM

I wish that you would not blame MEN (muslim or not) for FREE WILL exercised by muslim women. When you blame MEN for actions taken by muslim females, are you NOT allowing muslim women to escape responsiblility for their actions? Do muslim women not have free will? I believe they have a choice. Don't you?
omvi

You obviously know little about mental illness.
Schizophrenia, gives little in the way of free will.
Schizophrenia is a catch word because there are at least five main types, and numerous sub types.
It would not be possible to direct anyone afflicted with catatonia, nor hebephrenia, nor simple shizophrenia, nor those with chronic brain syndrome.
But a paranoid is another matter. Paranoid schizophrenia is the most dangerous kind. These people, some of them anyway, can be convinced to attack real or imaginary enemies. This is not a free choice, but a manipulation.
Downs syndrome people are usually happy, but headstrong, you can strap a bomb to them and point them in the right direction, but there is no guarantee they will follow it. They may just wander around, and never get to the real targets.
Paranoid schizophrenics are the best bet.
They can have burning desire on their own, and only need a little coaching. But the fact that they are schizophrenics means that they are not responsible for their actions. At least not in the west where the most noticed are picked up and placed in institutions.

Posted by: duh_swami at February 20, 2008 10:50 PM

The one pic that I saw of the head of one of these poor women showed clear evidence of Down Syndrome. Put this in the category of:

We don't have alcoholics.
We don't have gays.
We don't have Down Syndrome.

Posted by: Bingo at February 20, 2008 10:55 PM

Eastview,

"So what's the inducement for the ladies? Maybe they get to become the madame of the house?"

No. They get to remove whatever trumped up "family honor" crime they had against them.

Posted by: mrockroll1969 at February 21, 2008 12:21 AM

Islam prohibits suicide so it looks like the ladies found a workaround. They could very easily have wanted to kill themselves and chosen the islamic form of suicide. One of the first female suicide bombers in the Palestinian area was an infertile woman who had no prospects of marriage for that reason alone. She went from damaged goods to heroine in one second. All it took was the killing of innocent people. What about these women? Assuming they didn't have Down Syndrome, did depression render them unfit for marriage in the eyes of Muslim men?

Posted by: PMK at February 21, 2008 8:31 AM

"...this is NOT a gender issue for a feminist studies seminar."

Why isn't it? Did Islam become woman-friendly, last night, while I was sleeping? I hear diminishing echoes of "Where are the feminists? Where are the feminists?"

"The evidence now suggests that these two women acted of their own free will and not because they were afflicted with DS."

I'm a bit suspicious of the "own free will" part. Weren't they remotely detonated? This phrase implies they were: "the women used in the Feb. 1 pet market bombings..." To me, this casts a scintilla of doubt on the prospect of "free will" having been the driving factor.

"God help us if all muslim women begin to assert their "feminist identity' by stepping up to the plate and killing in a manner that mirrors their male muslim counterparts."

These two were puppets. Others will be driven by notions of reclaiming "honor". Still others will be manipulated into believing they are more inferior than most women, because they are ill, crippled, mentally or emotionally unstable, or just plain undesirable. They'll all have reasons, given to them by someone else. That's the way Islam works, on its women.

I doubt many of them will use mass murder to assert their "feminist identiti", since feminist identity to a muslima rests largely on how well she obeys her husband (father, brother, uncle, cousin...), and how many children she can produce.

Posted by at February 21, 2008 10:30 AM

Posted by: Abscedere at February 21, 2008 10:33 AM

Abscedere,
Just because they were remotely detonated, if that is the case, doesn't necessarily mean they were forced to do it. I can see the remote detonation being used to guard against someone pulling the button prematurely and so getting less than maximum impact. Let the "expert" decide the best time to set it off. If these girls were mentally impaired or unsure of how to set the bomb, they might have preferred it that way.

Posted by: PMK at February 21, 2008 2:35 PM

Please, let's stop assuming that Muslim women must somehow be more humane and less amenable to the fanatical brainwashing that is so rife in Islamic culture.

This assumption about Muslim women is itself a hangover from pre-Feminist days, assuming, in paternalistic fashion, that women must be more humane than men are, and couldn't possibly be complicit in the pathology of Islam and the cruelties and atrocities that flow from it.

Posted by: cantor at February 22, 2008 11:40 PM