Parental psychopathology

When I was 11 or 12, I so much wanted to understand human mind, and with so little success, that I read through an entire textbook of psychiatry. Later I learned that understanding humans comes naturally with experience. Now I'll try the other way round: to speak like an amateur psychiatrist on a subject which fully deserves the attention of professionals but seems neglected by them.
Highlander had quoted Libyan-American blogger Smokey Spice complaining a year ago about relations' attempts to arrange a marriage. I opened the blog to see what the situation is now, has the girl finally found her man, arranged or otherwise. But, as I have mentioned earlier, Arab blogs regarding Palestine and Israel and the current war resemble minefields and you can enjoy them only if you decide not to care when you'll step on a landmine. Eh well, I landed right onto a mine. You can see it at http://smokeyspice.blogspot.com/2006/04/mothers-voice.html. For readers who have a bad Internet connection and don't want to venture another link, I'll tell shortly what it is about. Nurit Peled-Elhanan, an Israeli woman whose child was killed in 1997 at the age of 13 by a suicide bomber, speaks to the European Parliament on International Women's Day. She says a Palestinian woman must have been invited instead of her. Then she states that "state violence and army violence... are the lot of Muslim women today, not only in Palestine but wherever the enlightened Western world is setting its big imperialistic foot... The so-called free world is afraid of the Muslim womb... This in spite of the fact that the people who are destroying the world today are not Muslim. One of them is a devout Christian, one is Anglican and one is a non-devout Jew... Palestinian, Iraqi, Afghan women are my sisters because we are all at the grip of the same unscrupulous criminals who call themselves leaders of the free enlightened world and in the name of this freedom and enlightment rob us of our children. Furthermore, Israeli, American, Italian and British mothers have been for the most part violently blinded and brainwashed to such a degree that they cannot realize their only sisters, their only allies in the world are the Muslim Palestinian, Iraqi or Afghani mothers, whose children are killed by our children or who blow themselves to pieces with our sons and daughters... My natural and civil rights as a mother have been violated and are violated because I have to fear the day my son would reach his 18th birthday and be taken away from me to be the game tool of criminals such as Sharon, Bush, Blair and their clan of blood-thirsty, oil-thirsty, land thirsty generals..."
Nurit Peled-Elhanan is not the first parent who, after losing a child at the hand of Islamists, champions their cause and spits on the leaders of the free world (not for failure to achieve victory, but for the very attempt to defend freedom). I know of two other such parents, both Americans. The first is Michael Berg whose son Nicholas (Nick), a humanitarian, was kidnapped and beheaded on video in Iraq. The second is Cindy Sheehan whose son Casey was killed as a soldier in Iraq. Upon reading Michael Berg's interview where he was accusing Pres. Bush more than the terrorists for his son's death, my mother said, "You mustn't blame the poor man for what he says, because a parent cannot be expected to remain sane after losing a child." I think she is right and Sandmonkey was too cruel when he called Cindy Sheehan "walking genetic waste" (though I understand him, too; she said e.g. that Sept. 11 was done by Americans themselves).
The above cited text is clearly also a product of a derailed mind. Reading it, I automatically sought some telltale particle, something fit for diagnosis, no matter how small. It is usually present in our opponents' writings. I think I found it here, too. Did you? The last of the cited sentences, where the mother said how afraid she was for her son. I immediately remembered that both Michael Berg and Cindy Sheehan have at least one surviving child.
Imagine you are a parent and lose your only child, or all of your children. The world ends for you. But it also means that you reach immunity. Because they have done everything to you, your enemies can do nothing more. Of course they can kill you as well, but you don't care. You are free and don't need to reckon with them or to appease them in any way.
Now imagine that you have two or three children and one of them is killed. You are hurt beyond healing, but you still have children to care and fear for. The war continues with no end in sight, the free world is in a difficult position, and to you it seems even bleaker than it actually is. The enemy claims victory at the battlefields and many fools in your own community take its side. I guess you'll be in the worst situation if you are religious. You begin to doubt your God who obviously cannot or doesn't want to help His people. Possibly He is powerless and the evil deity worshipped and offered human sacrifices by the enemy is the real God? If so, let's rush to pay respect to Allah, let's appease and praise His hordes, so that He spares your other children...
This is my explanation for the psychopathology shown by these three parents. Of course the truth may be different. What I am sure is that it is cruel and undignified for journalists and others to push microphones in the faces of these unfortunate parents and to expose to the crowd their minds, burned to red by pain.