November12, 2006: A good example, of how self-destructive Islamic radicalism is, can be seen in the continuing campaign to stop polio vaccinations. Several years ago, Islamic conservatives in Nigeria began urging parents to refuse polio vaccinations for their children. Eventually, this thwarted the worldwide effort to wipe out polio, because dozens of new cases appeared in Nigeria. All this comes from paranoid rumors that the medicine was a Western attempt to sterilize Moslem children. The Nigerian government put pressure on conservative Islamic leaders to stop preaching against the vaccination program, with mixed results. Islamic radicals are preaching against other types of vaccinations as well, causing something of an "Islamic Plague" among the growing number of unvaccinated children.

This sort of illogical, self-destructive, paranoia is popular among Islamic radicals and terrorists. It's a form of the popular hysteria that usually just manifests itself in rather harmless hero worship of entertainers or athletes. But since Islam was founded on the use of violence to spread the faith, and enforce discipline among followers, there's no end to this custom of conjuring up imaginary threats, and then getting violent over the issue. But in this case, most of the victims are young children, who are paralyzed for life, or killed, because their parents, caught up in paranoid fervor, refuse the vaccinations. In some cases, the Islamic radicals use force to keep the vaccination teams from an area, thus preventing many parents, who want the vaccinations, from getting them.

To some extent, these irrational and destructive policies should provide some counterterrorist opportunities. But not always, because of the delusional nature of this Islamic paranoia, even the negative outcomes of, say, stopping vaccinations, can be blamed on evil infidels (non-Moslems.) It takes a lot of effort to overcome this mentality, but until that is done, Islamic terrorism will keep coming back, as it has done for centuries.