Reply #98: 1980 through 2003 - 315

[sled]

Not to defend "suicide bombers", but why "1980"? If it's completely arbitrary, it's one thing, but if it's to make a possibly fallacious point, then it's a different animal, indeed. If one were to select "1940", as a not so arbitrary date, a whole different picture arises...& the defintion of "is", changes completely...the difference being 25 years of history, versus 65 years, & that doesn't include the Viet Cong, who also used "suicide bombers"...sounds like it basically, goes with the territory...you get in a war, & somebody gets bombed, by any means available...mess with the bull, you get the horn...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze

"By the end of World War II, the Japanese naval air service had sacrificed 2,525 kamikaze pilots and the army air force had given 1,387. According to an official Japanese announcement, the missions sank 81 ships and damaged 195, and according to a Japanese tally, suicide attacks accounted for up to 80 percent of US losses in the final phase of the war in the Pacific. However, according to a U.S. Air Force webpage:

Approximately 2,800 Kamikaze attackers sunk 34 Navy ships, damaged 368 others, killed 4,900 sailors, and wounded over 4,800. Despite radar detection and cuing, airborne interception and attrition, and massive antiaircraft barrages, a distressing 14 percent of Kamikazes survived to score a hit on a ship; nearly 8.5 percent of all ships hit by Kamikazes sank."