The eyes have it: Atta and company
Over two years ago I wrote a post about Mohammed Atta’s eyes. In it, I quoted an airline employee who waited on Mohammed Atta early on the morning of 9/11, and described him thusly:
It was just the look on the one man’s face, his eyes”¦everyone in America has seen a picture of this man, but there is more life in that photograph we’ve all seen than he had in the flesh and blood. He looked like a walking corpse. He looked so angry. And he wouldn’t look directly at me.
Atta had a look in his eyes that seems to have been similar to the expression described by noted criminologist James Gilligan as characteristic of many murderers; what he calls the expression of “dead souls.” Here’s what I wrote about Gilligan in that earlier post:
Gilligan describes looking into the eyes of men who appear to have had the humanity scooped out of them. These men would kill (and did kill) with little provocation or remorse. Their eyes told the tale. Not all killers are like that, of course; some seem to retain elements of what we would regard as normal human emotions. But Atta clearly appears to have been a member of the subset Gilligan describes as “dead souls.” We don’t know how they got that way, and although Gilligan has some ideas about commonalities they all share (fairly substantial abuse and shame in childhood), no explanation exists. Lots of people are abused and shamed; few (fortunately) grow up to become cold-blooded killers.
Yesterday in London seven men were sentenced for their roles in the “dirty bomb” terrorist bombing plot. Take a look at the photos of the seven. Take a good look; especially their eyes.
And here’s the mastermind of the plot, sentenced earlier.
One of the reasons I value your blog and your insights, Neo, is due to your extensive experience with psychology. Not just theoretical psychological research and such, but actual experience with helping people and solving their relationship problems.
It provides details, like the eye bit, that might normally slip past me. Everybit helps is my view.
Humans instinctively, unconsciously look into other human eyes. We are searching for something we can intstinctively see there. When we were/are searching for a romantic partner, we pay special attention to the eyes of potential candidates. We are searching out something there – something we maybe do not have words to describe – yet we seem confident of our chances of seeing it – whatever it is.
Though I vaguely recall that you are athiest(?), this seems appropriate:
Matthew 6: 22-23:
The lamp of the body is the eye;
if therefore your eye is clear,
your whole body will be full of light.
But if your eye is bad,
your whole body will be full of darkness.
If therefore the light that is in you is darkness,
how great is the darkness!
I must confess none of those London terrorists’ eyes looked any deader than those in the average driver’s license photo. Psychopaths can be very good at manipulating others and simulating genuine feeling. And I suspect anyone having a mugshot taken will look rather blank.
The sad fact is that terrorists and suicide bombers aren’t madmen or “dead souls.” They are alive and carried along by transcendant, ecstatic religious faith. The last emotions of Atta et al were almost certainly joy.
That’s the real horror of Islam: it is a vast, organized belief system which perverts the basic human emotions to a purpose which can only be called evil. Love between man and woman is perverted into cruelty, paranoia, and slavery. Faith in God, which in other cultures sustains people and gives them hope, is perverted into nihilistic violence. Creativity and reason are perverted into mindless ritualism and endless study of one dead man’s rantings. Progress and hope for the future are perverted into an obsession with the past — in Islam it is always A.D. 632.
We must not delude ourselves by thinking the terrorists are stupid or crazy. They are not. They have shown themselves to be extremely sane, extremely clever, and extremely patient. We cannot depend on them making mistakes, and we cannot allow them the luxury of developing their plans against us. We must destroy them and the vast system of evil which produces and sustains them.
Our traditions of religious freedom and tolerance make this hard — how can a nation devoted to freedom of religion wage a crusade? And yet it is becoming a matter of survival. For a century the world has been waiting for Islam to adjust to modernity, and in that time Islam has only grown more violently xenophobic, more mired in its own pathologies, and more dangerous to the rest of humanity.
We can fight Islam now, while we are very strong and they are weak, or we can wait for them to gain new weapons, wear down our allies, and sabotage the global economy. But the fight will come, whether or not we want it, and we will someday be faced with the choice of fighting or submitting. Once I would have confidently predicted we would fight and win, but now I am not so sure.
The look in their eyes might in fact be fanatical zeal, Neo. Fanatical zeal and nervousness on the eve of their martyrship. They would naturally look indifferent or perhaps stressed under arrest and being photoed.
Even still, the top two on the left pretty much had a hollow expression around the eyes. I suppose that is what people really mean when they say eyes, the expression in and around the eyes, pupil dilation and location it is focused on.
Trimegistus,
Wow, what a spot on synopsis of the situation.
I have encountered two ME men, who, if they weren’t Islamic terrorists, certainly did a fantastic job of impersonation.
The scene was a Safeway deli near the Canadian border. My wife and I were grocery shopping and decided to have a bite to eat.
The two men were sitting at a table eating. I looked at them and smiled. They acknowledged my smile with scowls of hatred. I could see the deadness behind the eyes and feel the burning anger. It was such a shock that I will never forget it. I had read about the Islamic warriors in Kosovo and Serbia who were “dead men walking.” That was the first thing that came to my mind. That fit these two exactly.
My wife had noticed also. As we ate she slipped me a note that said, “I’m not leaving the store until those men are gone.” Later we talked about the encounter. Her feeling was that they were very dangerous and if we gave them the opportunity they might have tried to follow us with mayhem in mind.
It’s not surprising to me that other people notice the characteristic deadness behind the eyes along with sensing an underlying, seething, barely-contained rage. These terrorists are not just sociopaths, but they are sociopaths with a purpose and a worldwide organizing principle. Just as a rabid dog or bat is a danger to the community, so too are these monsters.
They are looking like every day men using the underground.
Now, now guys, shame on you. You are deliberately demonizing other human beings merely because you have been whipped up into a fearful frenzy by Bushco and the corporate media whoremongers.
/ liberal apologist mode off
We used to call it the Birch Society Stare.
“how can a nation devoted to freedom of religion wage a crusade?”
But WWII was a crusade of some sort, just as Nazism was a religion of some sort. You must just understand one simple thing: not all religions are benign, some are VERY MALIGNANT, and have to be eradicated by all means (including Inquisition and genocide) so that civilization be saved. That was the real consideration behind every crusade, including Albigensian, leading to establishment of Dominican Order and Inquisition.
There are truly satanic religions, like Nazism, Communism, and sects like People Temple or Heaven Gates; nobody in his right senses can be tolerant to these. If it makes it more easy for you, think about them not as religions, but as political ideologies or mass psychoses; militant Islam neatly admits both classification. But religious fanatics are no less dangerous than political ones, and often are more dangerous. Kill them as rabid dogs, not as punishment or revenge, but in cold blood, as necessary measure of societal self-defense. Ideology is a mental virus, it can be deadly, and quarantine measures and liquidation of its carriers sometimes seems appropriate.
The eyes have it…or they don’t.
Our defeat will come from our lack of unity, an abundance of which bubbles in the blank stares of our enemy.
I see the same “eyes” in Bob Dylan, and yet he is a very sympathetic person. Anyone looking into the lens of a driver’s license or passport camera is going to have that “bored with bureaucracy” stare. Are we going back to feeling for lumps on peoples heads to determine their personalities?
Bob is funny, but I’ve also seen pictures Bob Dylan, and none of them have that dull eye look of a predator Ive seen on wanted posters. You know, that “bored with bureaucracy” stare. LOL!
These guys in the Sun photos look sullen, yes, but not unlike anyone else in a mugshot, and not unlike a lot of peoples’ driver’s license photos, as someone has already said.
And the “predator look” can be found in many places, in many societies not dominated by Islam.
I see nothing in these photos that suggests the generalizations about Muslims made in some of the comments here.
On the other hand, go to any large science, engineering, or business graduate/professional school, and you will find plenty of friendly Middle Easterners with positive attitudes.
While I don’t call myself an experienced traveler, I have traveled in Turkey and Morocco and seen plenty of Muslims with friendly eyes, and all other kinds of eyes, and no more sullen or “dead” eyes than one finds in the United States.
Elrond,
Please point to where it was suggested that the “dead eyed, predator look” was a feature found solely in Muslims. Tell us where you got that.
I’ve experienced these eyes during my many travels…most recently from a mid-aged Frenchman when he realized I was an American. Does that mean the French are terrorists or that this man was anti American? I’d say likely the latter. However, while the dead stare is surely not a pure indication of potential violence, like Neo and her references I have to say it seems a preponderance of these types of folks seem to have it. And no where I don’t think has it been proposed that it is a strictly Muslim look! Heavens…you all read much into nothing! I do agree that I have seen this ‘look’….and was chilled by it. It’s a “turn around and go the other way right now” sort of look that one simply must get away from. But sometimes, we can’t. And sometimes we have to be somewhat un-PC and admit that blue-eyed, white blonds from Sweden were not the hijackers……young Arab men were.
The one I liked if you remeber is Atta’s father saying that his son didn’t commit the crime and he had received a phone call from him after 911. If so probably from Hell complaining about the haggard virgins and he is in a place he belongs. ………….steve
Hi, Neo,
Striking. Everyone reacted to Atta’s shark eyes.
I saw Michael Moore at the RNC in NYC in 2004. He was leaving the arena after sitting in the press box for just 20 minutes (he’d file a story that night claiming he’d mingled on the convention floor with hoi polloi and quoting several fabricated conversations he never, in fact, had).
Moore was surrounded by an entourage of some twenty security men with those little white earpieces. He was bloated, unkempt, wearing worn, sagging jeans. But what struck me most was his eyes: they were dead-dark, sick: he looked like a man who’d sold his soul. Not sad, just … empty.
I was shocked. Can’t stand him, but that glimpse of him (he passed within four feet of me) made my hair rise up on the back of my neck.
Parapsychology. Call Mulder and Scully. Better yet, call the Ghostbusters.
Exactly, Kungfu. These wing-nuts are getting really weird.
Hey, have you heard the latest about how Bushco was responsible for blowing up the WTC and hurricane Katrina?
Wait, there’s more….
We’re all capable of killing. How many cows have died so that omnivores might live, how many mice and bugs have died so that vegetarians can enjoy whole-wheat bread? We’re at the top of the food chain, we’ve all got blood on our hands.
Most killing is done for food or self defense, It’s part of what makes us human. Classifying this as a qualilty that belongs to ‘others’, a tendency that belongs only to a subset of people doesn’t really help us understand it in murderers or in ordinary people.
In the name of self-defense, we’re all capable of inflicting mortal violence – something we should remember when we come in contact with the dead-eyed Attas of the world.
Yikes! Neo…the trolls are back in full strength!
Actually, only a few people are capable of killing. Whether in the heat or through the far harder pre-planned path. This is due to certain societal or tribal behavioral conditionings. Depending on the culture and the strength of the conditioning, a person can indeed be made incapable of murder or killing.
It just tends to never be 100%. Yet the exception does not prove the rule. I am of course limiting killing to killing humans only. Hunting animals is not the same, just as eating animal flesh is not the same as eating human flesh.
As for the photo issue. Photographs never really capture the true soul of a person, for that you must see them in person.
Actually, only a few people are capable of killing. Whether in the heat or through the far harder pre-planned path. This is due to certain societal or tribal behavioral conditionings.
Only a few people are capable of committing a murder (unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought), but, at least in the past, many people were capable of killing in self defense or warfare. If they weren’t, we could never have found enough soldiers to man the armies that fought in the massive battles of WWII.
Bill Whittle did a better job than I did of describing our attitudes towards violence and the people who are capable of dealing with it in his ‘Tribes’ essay, where he distinguishes between the people who can deal with violence in a protective way (calling them sheepdogs) and the people who can deal with violence, but who use it in a destructive way (calling them wolves).
According to Whittle’s quote from a soldier, most people are “kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme provocation.”
Societal conditioning is part of our attitude towards violence or killing. I think most western societies have changed a lot since WWII. I don’t know if it’s the influence of the political left, our fears of our own God-like power of destruction in the nuclear age or what, but it’s not clear that some western socieites are capable of producing a large number of people who are capable of dealing with violence in a protective way, even under extreme provocation. America is in better shape than most, but the greatest generation may have been the last of its kind.