Quip that made Atta laugh.

[Lenbrazil]

I recently started rereading parts of Perfect Soldiers: The 9/11 Hijackers: Who They Were, Why They Did It by Terry Mcdermott. Supposedly one of the few times Mohamed Atta’s friends saw him laugh was when they were watching a documentary on TV:

…the program told the story of a Palestinian suicide bomber, who set off his charge prematurely, injuring only himself. He was rushed to an Israeli hospital unconscious. He awoke on the operating table, looked up at all the doctors and nurses in white clothing and masks gathered him and asked: “Is this heaven?”

A doctor replied with a question of his own. He asked the bomber if he thought there would be Jews in heaven.

The bomber replied, “No.”

“Then,” the doctor said, “I guess you’re not there yet.”

This cracked everybody up…​

Pg. 61 - http://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Soldiers-Hijackers-They-Were/dp/0060584696#reader_0060584696

 

[ElMondoHummus]

Perfect Soldiers was an excellent book. Between that and a few other works (I've listed them in previous posts from previous years and can't recall them at the moment, so apologies for not having them on hand), what's known about the hijackers is laid out pretty well.

If nothing else, it's a book like this that gives lie to the strawman myth of the hijackers being uneducated cavemen. Let's all recall that Atta himself was degreed and in fact had written a Masters dissertation on an urban planning topic. It's a dry subject that has zilch to do with his radicalism, but the point is, of course, that details about his life firmly refute that silly "cavemen" charge.