El_Phil writes:
"If those Al Qaeda leaders actually believed they were going to paradise for killing infidels death would hold no fear => no levarage => No talking."
Well, if you define "fanatic" as "one who won't talk under any circumstances", then by definition one who talks...isn't one.
However, I submit that, given the diversity of human behavior, it's possible for a "fanatic" to lose his conviction under a severe enough "reality check", e.g. when the strain of imprisonment is NOW, and "Paradise" of some sort is maybe 50 years away.
So if Starhawk's Prophet is the "talking" variety of "fanatic", his capitulation is understandable. When suddenly whacked upside the head by his own mortality, his human instincts might certainly overwhelm his conscious mind, no matter how disciplined.
Starhawk writes:
"As far as the "death threat" it wasn't quite a threat as she blew a guys head off right in front of the "Prophet" just for the hell of it by as far as any of those men could tell..."
With the Icarans' willingness to slaughter women and children in self-defense, I think the threat of his own death was quite obvious to the Prophet, although it was still an abstract concept. So as I see it, Yu Lin wasn't emphasizing the threat, she was just trying to get his attention.
