BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

Pakistan – Seemingly never-ending tales of terror abound in Swat, where the military has fought against the Taliban for years and where parents speak of being forced to surrender young boys to the militants who train them to become suicide bombers. The scars may take years to heal for Hamad Ahmad, one of many Pakistani boys purportedly brainwashed by the Taliban and determined to enact maximum carnage as a suicide bomber. His mind trained on violence and his heart full of God, Ahmad says he wants to carry a pistol and strap explosives to his body in the name of Islamic law -- not hold books and wear school uniform. "I am ready to carry out a suicide attack against any target with approval of my ameer (chief)," said 15-year-old Hamad, who claimed he received 40 days of training from the Taliban after being snatched last year. Hamad, who talked to AFP by telephone from Qambar village in Swat, is now among a group of teenagers being treated by military psychiatrists in the wa...

Typical sociopath - no remorse, not his fault, playing victim... Tony Alamo, a one-time street preacher who built a multimillion-dollar ministry and became an outfitter of the stars, was convicted Friday of taking girls as young as 9 across state lines for sex. Alamo stood silently as the verdict was read, a contrast to his occasional mutterings during testimony. His five victims sat looking forward in the gallery. One, a woman he "married" at age 8, wiped away a tear. "I'm just another one of the prophets that went to jail for the Gospel," Alamo called to reporters afterward as he was escorted to a waiting U.S. marshal's vehicle. Shouts of "Bye, bye, Bernie" _ Alamo was born Bernie Lazar Hoffman _ came from a crowd gathered on the Arkansas side of the courthouse. Some came from Fouke, the nearby town where Alamo's 15-acre compound sits. Others were former followers of his ministries in Arkansas, California and New York. The jury of nine men an...

by Anna Valerious Have you noticed that even when you do things right it can be crapped all over and made to be "wrong" by the narcissist? One of the ways they accomplish this is quite simple and can often trip us up without us seeing what got us. Even the most benevolent act can be turned into its opposite by the assignation of bad motives. The narcissist reserves to themselves the right to determine your own mind for you. They will tell you what was really motivating you in order to take away from you the truth, reality or rightness of whatever you have done . It can be an amazingly effective sleight-of-hand. When I think back on my relationship with my narcissistic mother this is one of the things that stands out. My mother takes extreme pride in her ability to "read" people. She has done this for as long as I've known her. Mostly, what that means is that she assumes the worst about someone's thoughts or motivations and proceeds on that as if it is the tr...

Believe it or not abuse is hard for me to talk about. Mainly because I have to talk about things that happened to ME. I relate all too well to most of what I hear & read. And I feel stupid for not putting all the pieces together until just a few years ago. I had some pieces right - but not all of them. Part of me just didn't want to admit what was happening. Part of me still cares about a few of my abusers, too. While I intellectually understand I was raised in an abusive, dysfunctional home that appeared to everyone to be upper-middle class and wonderful on the outside, and therefore had no idea I was being abused until it was too late, I still get angry at myself. Why? Because I had zero problem seeing when others were in trouble or being abused, manipulated, dismissed or put down. In High School anyone with a problem would end up finding me because I gave such "good advice." Little did they know I was a sitting duck for emotional and sexual abuse that trigger...

A British cyber groomer was jailed for 12 years today after recruiting the country's youngest terrorist to a "worldwide" holy war against non-Muslims. Aabid Khan, who was possibly plotting to attack the Queen, was a "key player" in radicalising others. He had spent years building up a computer "encyclopaedia" of extremist material, including a file on various members of the Royal family, when he met 15-year-old schoolboy Muhammad Munshi. He lost little time enrolling the teenager in his "mission in life" - the destruction of Western values and the "wiping out" of all "kuffar" or non-believers. The youngster, whose grandfather is a leading Islamic scholar, was 16 and in the middle of his GCSEs when arrested on his way home from school in 2006. London's Blackfriars Crown Court heard he had two bags of ball-bearings - the shrapnel of choice for suicide bombers - in his pockets and notes about martyrdom under his bed. Lea...

I know, unfortunately, what brainwashing, manipulation & coercion can do. You do things that are well outside your normal and even acceptable range. Your emotions and psyche are played with. Are these Islamic Women brainwashed by their culture? Into saying O.K. to the extermination of their own children? I don't know and I can't imagine it for myself. But is it possible that these coercive men literally abuse and beat these women into submission and agreement with the bloody compact of honor killing? It's a Stockholm Syndrome that turns my stomach... but I would have to make an educated assessment that yes - it is possible. However, nothing and no one would ever convince me that makes it RIGHT. MURDEROUS MOTHERS: THE HIDDEN FEMALE FACE OF HONOR KILLING by Phyllis Chesler Texas-born Patricia ("Tissie) Said, formerly of the Owens family, is the mother who lured her two teenage daughters, Sarah and Amina, to their deaths at the hands of their own father this past...

ARE THE NEOCONS TRYING TO PUT US IN A TRANCE ? Thought Reform Exists: Organized, Programmatic Influence ("Thought Reform" throughout this article can be read as synonymous with "Brainwashing" & "Coercive Persuasion". For further information read up on Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), Sales Techniques and Cognitive Dissonance) Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph.D. Recently, cult apologists have attempted to create the impression that the concept of thought reform has been rejected by the scientific community. This is untrue. As recently as May of this year, the new Diagnostics and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) published by the American Psychiatric Association cites thought reform as a contributing factor to "Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified" (a diagnosis frequently given to former cult members). Thought reform (notes 1,2,3 below) and its synonyms brainwashing and coercive persuasion (4.5) were also noted in DSM-III (1...

WELL, WHADDYA KNOW! out of "706 terror-related EU arrests in 2006... Half of the offenses involved threats from Islamic extremists," Europol says SURPRISE SURPRISE SURPRISE (cough cough)!! BRUSSELS, Belgium - More than 700 people were arrested across the European Union for terrorism-related offenses in 2006, and half of those arrests involved threats from Islamic extremists, a European-wide law enforcement organization said Tuesday. The Europol report was released as EU officials debated proposals for boosting the powers of the bloc’s law enforcement arm to enhance police cooperation in fighting cross-border crime and terrorism. Almost 500 terrorist-related offenses were carried out in the 27-nation EU in 2006, most of them by separatists or nationalists on the French island of Corsica and in the Spanish Basque region, the report said. A total of 706 people in 11 EU countries were arrested in connection with terror-related offenses, half of them related to plots by Islamic ex...