Suicide Attacks - Why They Do It

September 13th, 2005 at 20:21 Björn Hallberg

Believe it or not but there are people dealing with the science of the matter. Hidden far behind the headlines and propaganda pieces of the corporate media and governments. Here is a particularly apt summary of some of the work by the New York Book Review.

Suicide bombing is increasingly becoming the weapon of choice for a new kind of global insurgency. The terrorized grope for explanations. It is hardly a surprise that many of us assume that suicide terrorists are religious zealots whose irrational fanaticism makes them seek death. Or perhaps, we think, they are depressed people who have nothing to live for, refugees from the ranks of the impoverished or ignorant. Yet the reality is far more complex, and, it should be said, far less comforting.

Noteworthy conclusions .. about real motives such as … revenge:

A review of the records and accounts of over 180 Palestinian suicide bombers confirmed that close to half of them — and a larger number during the years of the Al-Aqsa Intifada — embarked on their suicide missions shortly after they had lost a very close person. This person could have been a friend, family member or lover.

About the myth of Islam being uniquely suited for this type of tactic:

Like many of the other scholars on the subject, Pape is deeply skeptical about the notion that suicide bombers are the warriors in a “clash of civilizations” between Islam and the West. Pape’s survey reveals that there is nothing intrinsically “Islamic” about the suicide bomber. By his estimate, Islamist groups account for no more than 34.6 percent of the suicide terrorist attacks staged in the past twenty years. The real common denominator of suicide terrorism campaigns, he argues, is that they are all, in one form or another, responses to occupation or foreign control of a national homeland. Religion, in his view, functions merely as an aggravating factor. The leaders who run the terror organizations are trying, above all, to drive out invaders. And terrorist leaders use the strategy because it is so often successful. Once they have attained their goals, the campaigns cease. It’s that simple.

So very true. It’s ironic. Even I, being on the so called “left” by most accounts, have a tendency, like my antagonists on the “right”, to draw on the “clash of civilizations” theme. Not so much in religious culture as Pape is referring to but as in some sort of idealistic revolution against globalization. For different reasons and from different ideological standpoints, we perhaps give them too much credit. And complicate something that is really so very simple. I do so because I want to believe. They, the empire builders and apologists do so because they cover up the truth for the good of the state, don’t know their history or can’t cognitively deal with it.

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