What Makes Suicide Bombers Tick?

[NMMNG]

I was listening to NPR this morning and an interesting comment was made--one that mirrored ideas I've been mulling over in my head for some time. Paraphrased, the comment was "suicide bombers tend to come from nations occupied by foreign troops".

I found myself saying to the radio, "Thank you, finally somebody gets it!". Foreign nations do not want our troops occupying them, pushing them around, imposing our forms of government upon them. They do not like us telling them how to run their nations and they don't think PNAC is a benificent organization. But unfortunately our "great leaders" have the wrong response to attacks such as suicide bombers. They send in more troops, thereby only adding fuel to the fire.

I found this article online, which illuminates the issue very well:

What Makes Suicide Bombers Tick

Exerpts:

PREVAILING MISCONCEPTIONS. The implications: There's a connection between September 11 and the war in Iraq, radical Islamic fundamentalists are behind all of the suicide bombings in Iraq, and they're spurring insurgencies throughout the Islamic Crescent. Yet government studies of intelligence failures and Pape's analysis indicate there's no evidence that any of this is true...."The presumed connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism is misleading and may be encouraging domestic and foreign policies likely to worsen America's situation and to harm many Muslims needlessly," he writes.

.....

FEEDING THE ENEMY. The mere presence of foreign troops is the instigation for the attacks, so lengthy stays to secure democracy actually make attacks more probable and help boost recruitment. Substituting Iraqi security forces for U.S. troops is the only thing that will likely make a difference. Pape notes that arrests of al Qaeda and other insurgent leaders are rising, but the metric that counts is the number of attacks, and they're rising, too. That suggests al Qaeda is growing stronger, not weaker.

Equally troubling is that even as the total number of terrorist attacks globally is declining, the number of suicide attacks is rising. The first five months of this year saw as many suicide attacks as all of last year.

(More at above link)

[expatriot]

1. Well I suppose if the timing device is digital, they don't tick.

bad joke, sorry.

[NMMNG]

2. LOL

Smartarse!

[McKenzie]

3. a very good article there

particularly so given its provenance; namely not the usual suspects at work (not that the usual suspects I read are wrong!)

What the article shows, in sharp focus, is the effect of media management on public perception. Perhaps that's an obvious statement but when the tenor of the article you posted is compared with MSM sources it becomes clear that the media is controlled very carefully. Propaganda and manipulation of how news is presented are crucial to diverting attention away from the truth. We all know that; I just wanted to amplify the point in the context of the article.

I bookmarked your vegan link BTW. I'm a light eater of meat and I tend to be very choosy about where I get it from. I refuse to touch anything that might have been factory farmed and battery chickens and eggs are an absolute no-no. If we survive as a species for the next few decades it is likely that homo sapiens will stop eating meat. I'm not against the practice - I live in a farming community and I grew up in the sticks - it's just unsustainable, ethical issues notwithstanding.

regards

edit: spelling

[expatriot]

4. Actually, the psychological state of a suicide bomber is not that

much different than any other impassioned individual who's chosen to lay down their life for their country or cause.

1. Zealotry: They believe wholly in the cause for which they fight to the point where the value of their own life and those of "innocents" is dwarfed by that of their cause.

2. Desperation: The strength and power of their enemy is perceived as so pervasive and superior that in order to score "a hit" against the enemy, total sacrifice is needed.

[Gardeaux08]

5. Very true.

However, don't forget that for some suicide bombers it comes down to financial, social, and/or political desperation. In Sri Lanka, those who are killing themselves in the name of the cause are very often simply poor people who do it because their families will benefit financially after the fact. It is a lack of any real power over their lives that lead them to it. Hopelessness is a very powerful thing.

[madeline_con]

6. "Substituting Iraqi security forces ..."

I've read that the ones the US has trained are thugs with guns.