Remembering 9/11 . . . It’s been 10 years
Or . . . 72 Virgins and the Suicide Bombers . . . Do the math.
I was reading an article about all of the suicide bombings in the Middle East and in Pakistan and how the tactic strikes fear into those regions where it is used. We have had some experience with its use in the U.S. with the upcoming reminder of the tenth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on American soil.
What started out as a semi-comical look into a form of world wide terrorism used to inflict trauma to those close by slowly evolved into another remembrance of a day when America was attacked and many lives were lost.
In vain . . . I hope not but there are still people out there ready to continue their battle just as we continue to defend against it. Once again, thanks to our military and their families whose sacrifices are given from a grateful nation!
In the 1970’s film M*A*S*H the theme song for the movie and the following television series was “Suicide is Painless” a catchy tune with great instrumentals used throughout both genres. The lyrics written by Johnny Mandel had several sing able lines and over the years I have heard them being played on radio stations, banks, elevators, and I think at one of the amusement parks many years ago.
Getting back on track of this post I started looking up research on just how many suicide bombings had been done over the years and it was interesting that the tactic had been used for centuries but only as the mid-70’s has many of these attacks been recorded. It appears that approximately 3,600 people have committed these acts of violence succeeding in blowing themselves and others around them into oblivion over the last 10 years. There have been many more that for one reason or another botched the attempt and continued to remain in this worldly realm forever cast out into limbo never seeing the light of paradise.
One of the Islamic thoughts (there are many both pro & con) is the idea that if a male commits a suicide (intihar) attack for jihad (holy war) that there will be 72 virgins (houris) waiting for him in Islamic paradise plus his wife(s) he had here on earth.
I wanted to also play devils advocate and look to the socially/politically correct version of female bombers but figured that should be left to another time and discussion.
According to one 2011 estimate there were approximately 216 million people in the middle east of which 67% were male. Of that remaining 33% who were female it showed that 70% of those were under the age of fifteen years old leaving roughly 144,700,000 women.
If we divide that by the 72 virgins’ theory then it leaves us with approx. 2,009,000 left for those lucky insurgents to die for. Keeping another million alive to procreate and keep their live styles going strong for that next generation of terrorist it leaves about 1 million virgins left as incentive to kill yourself for martyrdom (istishhad). Using the 3,600 as an average in our earlier 10 year plan, that gives jihadist about 277 incidents a year until they RUN OUT OF VIRGINS.
The year 2021 is too long a time for our troops to be away from home, leaving families and friends. Let’s bring them back to America and stop being the world’s police force unless we take some of the resources to compensate for the costs of such long term actions. We can never recover the valued loss of lives in these conflicts so let’s stay home and let the other nations battle it out and settle their own disputes.
All gave some . . . some gave all
Let’s remember our service men and women and those who lost their lives on a sunny September morning almost ten years ago along with the families left behind to pick up the pieces and carry on.
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