The administrative infrastructure is very sophisticated; al-Qaeda is run much like a multinational corporation whose reach and scope extends to many countries. Instead of manufacturing a product, alQaeda aims to export Islamic revolution and death. It is innovative, resilient, and determined. Losses of personnel are replaced by a seemingly never-ending stream of loyalists and recruits. Al-Qaeda learns from its mistakes and constantly reinvents itself.
Another difference between al-Qaeda and killer cults can be seen in al-Qaeda’s interaction with the wider world. Killer cults are often isolated microcommunities that have little contact with the outside world. The vision of the killer cult has to do with defense and survival. Recruitment of new members has long since ceased by the time the leader sinks into madness and the cult begins to disintegrate. No leadership structure remains to counter the leader’s paranoia and enable the group to survive. Al-Qaeda’s strong organization belies the wishful thinking of critics who believe it is only an offbeat killer cult that will sooner or later self-destruct. Moreover, its leadership differs. Although killer cult leaders are often disadvantaged, marginally functioning individuals, al-Qaeda’s leaders are educated and come from the middle and upper classes, frequently from prosperous families. Some of the 9/11 hijackers also came from such backgrounds. Osama bin Laden himself is a multimillionaire. And despite the beliefs of many outsiders to the contrary, there is no evidence that bin Laden or others in leadership positions of al-Qaeda are manifestly mentally ill.
What is most difficult for Westerners and Christians to understand about Islamic terrorists is the desire, even the yearning, that they display for death. This desire, we think, goes against the primal human instinct for life. The suicide bomber believes otherwise. He (or in some cases, she) is overjoyed to join Allah’s jihad against infidels, for the reward is great—eternal bliss in paradise’s garden of sensual delights. As Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran put it, “The purest joy in Islam is to kill and be killed for Allah.” Martyrdom is the only certain path to paradise. Honorable actions, good deeds, and devotion to God do not guarantee entrance to paradise.
People who survived a suicide bombing on a bus described the terrorist as going to his death with a smile. He acknowledged passengers, smiled, then activated the bomb. In the Shia Islamic tradition, this is known as the “smile of joy,” anticipating one’s imminent martyrdom and entrance into paradise. In his last will and testament, the 9/11 hijackers’ ringleader Mohammed Atta used the phrase, “The sky smiles, my young son.”
Radicalized by feelings of injustice, humiliation, and rage by the “crusader” occupation of Arab holy lands, the “holy warriors” accept martyrdom in the cause of Allah. They know that death is inescapable, the common lot of all mankind, and choose to sacrifice their lives because of love for Allah and in submission to Allah’s cause, which is the highest expression of their Islamic faith. The Islamic fundamentalist terrorist willingly exchanges a few paltry years on earth for eternal bliss in paradise.
When the failed car bombings in England and Glasgow in the summer of 2007 were revealed to have been conducted by Islamic terrorists who were physicians and medical students, it seemed inconceivable to Westerners. How could physicians dedicated to saving lives undertake the mass murder of civilians? The Hippocratic oath, cornerstone of medical ethics, enjoins physicians to “First, do no harm.” The contradiction between that oath and the attempted deeds of the car-bombing physicians boggles the Western mind.
However, a number of physicians have become lethal revolutionaries. Che Guevara, a physician, was a Marxist revolutionary. George Habash, a pediatrician, led the Palestinian militant group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Radovan Karad~ic, a psychiatrist who wrote poetry and books for children, led the Bosnian Serbs and was held responsible for the “ethnic cleansing” of tens of thousands of Muslims. And, as noted above, the surgeon Ayman al-Zawahiri is the al-Qaeda second-in-command. There is no evidence of overt mental illness in any of these physician terrorists.
Although Islamic physicians are devoted to a humanitarian ethic, they are not immune to becoming radicalized and may be drawn to serving Allah above all else. Such a physician terrorist might explain that adherence to God’s laws supersedes all allegiance to mere man-made ethics.
As the example of the physician suggests, there is no reliable psychological profile for identifying Islamic terrorists in general or suicide bombers. The job description for a terrorist would include that the work is demanding. The would-be terrorist must be able to conceive, plan, and execute often complex actions. The suicide bomber is the ultimate smart bomb, and the terrorist must handle the bomber well. The suicide bomber, however, must be capable only of commitment to killing and dying for the Islamic cause. Younger people, flush with zeal and idealism, are the most frequent perpetrators of suicide bombings. In the schools known as madrassas, even young children are groomed to be suicide bombers. Older men and women usually do not take such roles. Age tempers idealism. Family relations—spouse, children, extended family—become earthly ties. There are exceptions; a few suicide bombers are middle-aged, married, and even have children.
There is no doubt that individual psychodynamics play an important role in choosing to be an Islamic terrorist. Dr. Varnik D. Volkan, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who has studied the psychology of suicide bombers, states, “Reports show that those who select suicide bomber candidates have developed an expertise in sensing whose personal identity ‘gaps’ are most suitable for filling with elements of largegroup identity.” Furthermore, Dr. Volkan writes, using “borrowed elements sanctioned by God [to replace] one’s internal world makes the person omnipotent and supports the individual’s narcissism.”
A word of caution. Psychiatrists do not examine or clear individuals for the role of suicide bomber. That would be an abomination to the Jihadist. Nor are suicide bombers who have lived because the detonators on their bombs malfunctioned examined by psychiatrists— that would be an even greater abomination. Thus, little can be known factually about the individual psychology of suicide bombers until mental health professionals have an opportunity to examine them.
I look to my psychiatric colleagues raised and educated in Muslim society to shed light on the mind of the Islamic terrorist, a subject that this Western psychiatrist finds opaque. The psychological workings of the Islamic terrorist’s mind is of immense interest to mental health professionals. The history of humankind shows that no class of individuals, rich or poor, educated or uneducated, old or young, is immune from radicalization that can empower them to kill for God’s cause. Throughout history, ordinary, good men and women of many faiths, have committed terrible crimes against humanity while acting in the name of God.
Anticult Organizations
The emergence of cults has been balanced to some degree by the creation of anticult organizations. An original, informal network made up of parents whose children have been cult members, the American Family Foundation has become a leading anticult organization that acts as a coordinating center for the anticult movement. It disseminates information, provides families with a support system, conducts educational programs, and publishes newspapers and reports. The Cult Hotline, the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services, and the Watchman Fellowship (a Christian group) also provide up-to-date information on cults. Anticult organizations originally supported the deprogramming of cult members, but this practice has been in decline.
Sometimes, when a family member joins a cult, the family is seized with an anticult fanaticism. This can further alienate the cult member and be a hindrance to communication with him or her. Family members’ understandably strong but disruptive feelings need to be productively tempered. This can be done with the assistance of knowledgeable mental health professionals and with the support of the groups and informational sources noted above. A major problem with regard to combating cult groups is that religious practices are protected by the First Amendment. No matter how unacceptable
a cult’s religious exercises may be to the family of a cult member, such practices are considered legal. The only legal way to contest a cult is to prove that it has used coercive mind control methods that have reduced a victim’s mental capacity to the condition of being legally impaired.
Many mental health professionals hold an anticult bias. This is understandable because of their humanistic bent, which favors individual autonomy and freedom. Moreover, mental health professionals generally do not interview, and thus have no familiarity with, people from cults who had had positive experiences. Rather, they are usually charged with the treatment of current or past cult members who are mentally disturbed, and with the treatment of their families, who are often devastated and in psychological pain.
It is a fact that some people are psychologically damaged by their cult experience. No doubt there are some who also benefit in various ways from their time in a cult. The statistics on influx to and outflux from cults suggest that the majority of people who enter and then exit cults emerge basically unfazed, going on with their lives after a brief fling with social and personal experimentation.
Apocalypse Now: The Future of a Delusion
Apocalyptic killer cults exist today at various stages of incubation. Some time—sooner rather than later—a new killer cult will burst violently into our consciousness. Similar killer cults, with their apocalyptic messages, have been part of humankind for hundreds if not thousands of years. They will be with us forever because some people will always need to attribute their darkest impulses to others whom they must then kill or escape from through suicide. In Japan, an apocalyptic cult named Aum Shinrikyo, or Supreme Truth, conducted a fatal nerve gas attack on Tokyo’s subway. The Sarin gas killed 12 commuters and sickened about 5,500 more. Shoko Asahara, the doomsday guru of Supreme Truth, said that he had been attacked by the CIA with poison gas. Asahara made repeated predictions that the world was about to end. He listed among his many enemies the Japanese and U.S. militaries. Asahara and a number of his top disciples were arrested and charged with murder and attempted murder. Several, including Asahara and the member who made the Sarin gas, were convicted and given death sentences.
Once a killer cult self-destructs, the violence does not necessarily end. On April 19, 1995, the second anniversary of the government raid that led to the death of 82 Branch Davidians at Waco, Texas, Oklahoma City’s Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was bombed. Investigators believed that revenge for Waco was the main reasons that Timothy McVeigh and his co-conspirator targeted the federal building, which housed offices of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms as well as a children’s day care center. The Oklahoma City bombing focused attention on the emergence of civilian militias onto the American scene. They now exist in almost every state. Some of the more virulent militias have ominous, killer-cult-like traits such as apocalyptic vision and an angry, paranoid view of the government and the world. Unlike most cults, some militias espouse racist and anti-Semitic views.
The future of the “apocalypse now” delusion is a self-fulfilling calamity as horrible and as terrifying as that predicted for Armageddon by the Book of Revelation. Apocalyptic killer cults and terrorist organizations are not born, they evolve through stages. There were ample warnings about al-Qaeda’s determined progress on the path to 9/11. In the heeding of warning signs lie the possible means for preventing what will otherwise be the certain destructiveness of the apocalyptic prophecy.
11
Serial Sexual Killers
Your Life for Their Orgasm
While nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer, nothing is more difficult than to understand him.
—Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky
Few passersby near the steps of the Rostov library noticed 44-yearold Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo, a bespectacled, respectably dressed Russian apparatchik. With briefcase in hand, he chatted good-naturedly with 17-year-old schoolgirl Larisa Tkachenko. While traveling on one of the many assignments that took him away from home each year, he enjoyed reading newspapers and literary journals at the local public libraries. Larisa, a pretty blonde waif from Moldavia, was on a school break, during which she had helped to bring in the crop at the Kirov state farm, not far from Rostov. She had lingered in Rostov for a few days to rest and was now waiting for the bus that would take her and all the other girls back to school. After some small talk, Chikatilo invited Larisa to take a walk to a relaxation station that contained restaurants, cafes, and recreational areas. It was understood between them that they would find refreshments and a private place to lie down together. Chikatilo appeared old and harmless to Larisa. She was unaware of the great strength in his shoulders that he hid beneath his respectable coat. She was not alarmed as he steered her into a hidden area at the center of the woods. She was not aware that the last day of
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her life was winding toward an end. Nor was Chikatilo aware that it would be the first day of his later life, the product of a monstrous epiphany.
In the clearing, Chikatilo pounced on Larisa. He overpowered her easily, with his six-foot-tall, muscular body. He tore off her clothes and underwear. Larisa’s futile struggle only sexually excited him more. To him, it was an aphrodisiac. Her terrified, anguished screams were like a siren’s song to Chikatilo, transporting him into an erotic frenzy. This was nothing like the vapid, tiresome, unsatisfying sex that he had experienced with his wife in the privacy of their home. Larisa was prey to be eaten and consumed. She was, to him, no longer a human being with feelings and a life to live. Like a wild beast, he devoured his victim. She was his, totally. He could do anything he pleased with her.
Her last struggles were hopeless. Chikatilo muffled her screams by shoving dirt into her mouth. He punched her in the head, stunning her, and then, with all the animal power he possessed at that moment, began to strangle her. As Larisa Tkachenko twisted and thrashed, the power that Chikatilo exerted over her aroused him further. He experienced powerful sexual feelings, more arousal than he had ever achieved during ordinary sex. As her life ebbed, his sense of power and excitement heightened. In a moment of ecstatic release, Chikatilo ejaculated over Larisa as she lay dying under him. Then he tore at her dying body with his teeth and fingers. He ripped away flesh. From her dead body, he bit off one of her nipples.
With the mutilated body of Larisa Tkachenko crushed beneath him, Chikatilo launched into a primal celebration of acceptance. He picked up her rumpled clothes and ran around her body, whooping in ecstasy. He flung his arms wide and some of her blood-stained garments sailed high into the trees. He was intoxicated with emotion. This middle-aged, lifelong failure felt he had avenged and overpowered all the wrongs and humiliations that had been visited upon him by God, country, family, and the women who made him impotent. He was floating on air. For a moment, he sank to his knees before the defiled body. He felt tremendously empowered, as if he were one of his wartime heroes who had fought and killed the Nazis that had invaded the motherland. In that instant, he knew that Larisa had been sacrificed on the altar of his new identity. He had killed once before, but it had never been this satisfying. He had had fantasies, but had never completely realized them. Now he had found his true identity and his life’s calling: forever after, he would become one of the most prolific and monstrous serial sexual killers of all time.
The lust murder of Larisa Tkachenko gave enormous impetus to Chikatilo in the acting out of his fantasies. For years, murderous, sadistic fantasies had grown in him, like a cancer in his mind, but he had not known precisely where they would lead. Now he did. When he had first killed little 9-year-old Yelena Zakatovna, he had been terribly shocked, vowing to never kill again. But this time, with Larisa, he felt almost nothing. Now he could kill other women without compunction.
From his earliest school days, Chikatilo had known he was different, an outcast who could not mix easily with the other children. In his first failed and mocked relationships with girls, he felt intense emotional pain. Later he married, but he was imp
otent and dissatisfied with married life. He felt a growing attraction to the children he taught as a schoolteacher. Meanwhile, in his other job as a faceless factory supply clerk, he experienced only continual abuse and humiliation.
Impotent with women, despised and shunned by everyone, he found his life was made tolerable only by his increasingly violent sexual fantasies. At first, in his acting out, he needed only to touch. Later he needed to have total power over the girls, to torture and to kill. He required that they suffer, and it was on this need that he became hooked, because his gratification came not from intercourse but from thrusting his knife into the bodies of his victims. He would masturbate over his victims, then frantically try to push his sperm into their bodies with his hands.
In his parodies of passion, Andrei Chikatilo managed to kill and mutilate at least 52 victims in 12 years before he was finally apprehended. Each lust murder was more grisly and sadistic than the previous one. His hunters later called him the Red Ripper because he slashed his victims’ bodies and stabbed their eyes in a sort of mutilation that they came to know as his “signature” and distinctive trademark. As Chikatilo later told the world, “The purpose of life is to leave your mark on this earth.”
Chikatilo lost an eleventh-hour appeal for clemency. He was taken from his prison cell and marched along a stone corridor to the execution room. Chikatilo was made to kneel as his sentence was read. The executioner drew a Makarov automatic and fired a single bullet into the back of the serial killer’s head. Unlike his victims, Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo died quickly and mercifully.
In a terrible coda, Chikatilo became the model for Alexander Pichushkin, who, according to his confession, set out to murder 64 people—one for each square on a chessboard—to outdo Chikatilo. He was convicted of 48 murders and claimed a total of 61.
Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream: A Forensic Psychiatrist Illuminates the Darker Side of Human Behavior Page 31
