The Logic of Suicide Terrorism

[diamond geezer]

Bush said after 911 that it was an attack on freedom and had nothing to do with any US actions.

Blair said this week that the London bombings were an attack on freedom.

Saying it's anything to do with Iraq is a no-no.

As usual the last thing either of these bull-****ters will ever say, is the truth.

link (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9453.htm)

Associate Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago, whose book on suicide terrorism, Dying to Win, is beginning to receive wide notice. Pape has found that the most common American perceptions about who the terrorists are and what motivates them are off by a wide margin. In his office is the world’s largest database of information about suicide terrorists, rows and rows of manila folders containing articles and biographical snippets in dozens of languages compiled by Pape and teams of graduate students, a trove of data that has been sorted and analyzed and which underscores the great need for reappraising the Bush administration’s current strategy. Below are excerpts from a conversation with the man who knows more about suicide terrorists than any other American.

Over the past two years, I have collected the first complete database of every suicide-terrorist attack around the world from 1980 to early 2004. This research is conducted not only in English but also in native-language sources—Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, and Tamil, and others—so that we can gather information not only from newspapers but also from products from the terrorist community. The terrorists are often quite proud of what they do in their local communities, and they produce albums and all kinds of other information that can be very helpful to understand suicide-terrorist attacks.

This wealth of information creates a new picture about what is motivating suicide terrorism. Islamic fundamentalism is not as closely associated with suicide terrorism as many people think. The world leader in suicide terrorism is a group that you may not be familiar with: the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.

This is a Marxist group, a completely secular group that draws from the Hindu families of the Tamil regions of the country. They invented the famous suicide vest for their suicide assassination of Rajiv Ghandi in May 1991. The Palestinians got the idea of the suicide vest from the Tamil Tigers

The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide-terrorist campaign—over 95 percent of all the incidents—has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw.

The evidence shows that the presence of American troops is clearly the pivotal factor driving suicide terrorism.

If Islamic fundamentalism were the pivotal factor, then we should see some of the largest Islamic fundamentalist countries in the world, like Iran, which has 70 million people—three times the population of Iraq and three times the population of Saudi Arabia—with some of the most active groups in suicide terrorism against the United States. However, there has never been an al-Qaeda suicide terrorist from Iran, and we have no evidence that there are any suicide terrorists in Iraq from Iran.

Sudan is a country of 21 million people. Its government is extremely Islamic fundamentalist. The ideology of Sudan was so congenial to Osama bin Laden that he spent three years in Sudan in the 1990s. Yet there has never been an al-Qaeda suicide terrorist from Sudan.

I have the first complete set of data on every al-Qaeda suicide terrorist from 1995 to early 2004, and they are not from some of the largest Islamic fundamentalist countries in the world. Two thirds are from the countries where the United States has stationed heavy combat troops since 1990.

Another point in this regard is Iraq itself. Before our invasion, Iraq never had a suicide-terrorist attack in its history. Never. Since our invasion, suicide terrorism has been escalating rapidly with 20 attacks in 2003, 48 in 2004, and over 50 in just the first five months of 2005. Every year that the United States has stationed 150,000 combat troops in Iraq, suicide terrorism has doubled.

I have collected demographic data from around the world on the 462 suicide terrorists since 1980 who completed the mission, actually killed themselves. This information tells us that most are walk-in volunteers. Very few are criminals. Few are actually longtime members of a terrorist group. For most suicide terrorists, their first experience with violence is their very own suicide-terrorist attack.

There is no evidence there were any suicide-terrorist organizations lying in wait in Iraq before our invasion. What is happening is that the suicide terrorists have been produced by the invasion.

Al-Qaeda appears to have made a deliberate decision not to attack the United States in the short term. We know this not only from the pattern of their attacks but because we have an actual al-Qaeda planning document found by Norwegian intelligence. The document says that al-Qaeda should not try to attack the continent of the United States in the short term but instead should focus its energies on hitting America’s allies in order to try to split the coalition.

What the document then goes on to do is analyze whether they should hit Britain, Poland, or Spain. It concludes that they should hit Spain just before the March 2004 elections because, and I am quoting almost verbatim: Spain could not withstand two, maximum three, blows before withdrawing from the coalition, and then others would fall like dominoes.

That is exactly what happened. Six months after the document was produced, al-Qaeda attacked Spain in Madrid. That caused Spain to withdraw from the coalition. Others have followed. So al-Qaeda certainly has demonstrated the capacity to attack and in fact they have done over 15 suicide-terrorist attacks since 2002, more than all the years before 9/11 combined. Al-Qaeda is not weaker now. Al-Qaeda is stronger. I not only study the patterns of where suicide terrorism has occurred but also where it hasn’t occurred. Not every foreign occupation has produced suicide terrorism. Why do some and not others? Here is where religion matters, but not quite in the way most people think. In virtually every instance where an occupation has produced a suicide-terrorist campaign, there has been a religious difference between the occupier and the occupied community. That is true not only in places such as Lebanon and in Iraq today but also in Sri Lanka, where it is the Sinhala Buddhists who are having a dispute with the Hindu Tamils.

When there is a religious difference between the occupier and the occupied, that enables terrorist leaders to demonize the occupier in especially vicious ways. Now, that still requires the occupier to be there. Absent the presence of foreign troops, Osama bin Laden could make his arguments but there wouldn’t be much reality behind them. The reason that it is so difficult for us to dispute those arguments is because we really do have tens of thousands of combat soldiers sitting on the Arabian Peninsula. Many people worry that once a large number of suicide terrorists have acted that it is impossible to wind it down. The history of the last 20 years, however, shows the opposite. Once the occupying forces withdraw from the homeland territory of the terrorists, they often stop—and often on a dime.

In Lebanon, for instance, there were 41 suicide-terrorist attacks from 1982 to 1986, and after the U.S. withdrew its forces, France withdrew its forces, and then Israel withdrew to just that six-mile buffer zone of Lebanon, they virtually ceased. They didn’t completely stop, but there was no campaign of suicide terrorism. Once Israel withdrew from the vast bulk of Lebanese territory, the suicide terrorists did not follow Israel to Tel Aviv.
TAC: What do you think the chances are of a weapon of mass destruction being used in an American city?

RP: I think it depends not exclusively, but heavily, on how long our combat forces remain in the Persian Gulf. The central motive for anti-American terrorism, suicide terrorism, and catastrophic terrorism is response to foreign occupation, the presence of our troops. The longer our forces stay on the ground in the Arabian Peninsula, the greater the risk of the next 9/11, whether that is a suicide attack, a nuclear attack, or a biological attack.

[Diatribe]

Wow, interesting read. Thanks.

[Peterkro]

Japanese kamikaze pilots are an early example of suicide bombers.Supported by a state but the same thing.

[JW8725]

Well im from Leeds about 5 mins from the area where those bombers came from. I do firmly think they were pawns for someone else. The area is a chav area and the people that live there are commoners who dont really have the intellect to do something of this magnatude. Its council estate territory. Something isnt right here

[Applespider]

Reading the part that suggests they are not long-term members of a group or particularly religiously motivated, I wonder if suicide bombers actually intend to take their own lives regardless. But because of the stigma still associated with suicide (or their religion's guidance against it), decide that they might as well be part of a larger 'cause' when they do it...

[toontra]

I agree - for Blair to say that these bombings were nothing to do with the Iraq invasion is more of the same BS and self-justification. Unfortunately in the current political climate no-one is going to call him on this for fear of being branded anti-patriotic and a terrorist sympathizer (or worse).

Does anyone really suggest that these kids (and God knows how many more like them) were not radicalized by Britain's involvement with Bush in the war?

If that's how our some of our own citizens have reacted, just imagine the hatred that has been stirred up across the middle-east.

[Peterkro]

Well im from Leeds about 5 mins from the area where those bombers came from. I do firmly think they were pawns for someone else. The area is a chav area and the people that live there are commoners who dont really have the intellect to do something of this magnatude. Its council estate territory. Something isnt right here
Its that kind of intolerance and hatred of the other that causes people to believe they have no other option than to use deadly force to change things.Because people are poor doesn't make them less intelligent,in fact it appears the reverse is true,most of the middle classes wouldn't last 5 minutes in their environment.

[Sayhey]

It shows how the sloppy use of words like "terrorism" for ideological reasons only serves to muddle the strategy needed to defeat al-Qaida and its allied organizations of militant religious fundamentalists. Not all suicide bombers should be condemned - or do we now think the conspiracy to kill Hitler in WWII was wrong because the plotters were willing to give their lives in the planting of a covert bomb? Not all uses of terror are confined to Iraqi or Palestinian insurgents. Or do we not understand what "shock and awe" was all about in the start of the US invasion. And it is not just the "bad guys" who target innocent civilians. Perhaps it would do for US citizens to reflect on how the "good guys" used incendiary bombs and the world's first and only wartime use of nuclear weapons against primarily civilian populations at Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.

Does all this mean we are the same as the horrible, despicable people who crashed planes into the World Trade Center or blew up commuters in Madrid or London? NO! But what it does mean is that our own propaganda can blind us to who the real enemy is and how we can go about defeating them. The enemy is a religious based movement that seeks to end the largely worldwide consensus that the Enlightenment was right and the separation of religion from government is a vital principle of the modern age. It would do us well to remember we are fighting against religious extremists who are not the only ones to sink to the use of terror.

[Applespider]

The area is a chav area and the people that live there are commoners who dont really have the intellect to do something of this magnatude. Its council estate territory. Something isnt right here

And who knows whether that attitude of superiority was one of the reasons that they felt justified in attacking? I know many people who live on council estates and work in manual jobs who have a lot more common sense, respect for others and manners than most of the upper-class toffs that I see around me in the streets at work each day.

They may be working class - that doesn't make them commoners and it certainly doesn't give you the right to question their intellect.

[skunk]

Something isnt right hereIt's your attitude.

[JW8725]

It's your attitude.
interesting

[skunk]

It shows how the sloppy use of words like "terrorism" for ideological reasons only serves to muddle the strategy needed to defeat al-Qaida and its allied organizations of militant religious fundamentalists.Evidently, if this guy's information is right, the strategy requires total withdrawal from Muslim lands. Not just Iraq, but Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, etc. Why are we there anyway? Nobody else who buys their oil seems to feel the need to be there.

Not all suicide bombers should be condemned - or do we now think the conspiracy to kill Hitler in WWII was wrong because the plotters were willing to give their lives in the planting of a covert bomb?Von Stauffenberg was not a suicide bomber.

Not all uses of terror are confined to Iraqi or Palestinian insurgents. Or do we not understand what "shock and awe" was all about in the start of the US invasion. And it is not just the "bad guys" who target innocent civilians. Perhaps it would do for US citizens to reflect on how the "good guys" used incendiary bombs and the world's first and only wartime use of nuclear weapons against primarily civilian populations at Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.Very true.

Does all this mean we are the same as the horrible, despicable people who crashed planes into the World Trade Center or blew up commuters in Madrid or London? NO!I question this. In what way is it "better" to kill 10,000 people from the air with bombs than 3,000 with jetliners?

But what it does mean is that our own propaganda can blind us to who the real enemy is and how we can go about defeating them. The enemy is a religious based movement that seeks to end the largely worldwide consensus that the Enlightenment was right and the separation of religion from government is a vital principle of the modern age. It would do us well to remember we are fighting against religious extremists who are not the only ones to sink to the use of terror.The point of the report is that "we" cannot defeat them.

[Ugg]

That was an eye opener for me. My biggest question has always been what is the motivation for the attacks? It has been answered now and perfectly understandable. Israel is therefore doomed until they totally withdraw and allow self rule, as is the US in Iraq and Russia in Chechnya.

I question your idea, Applespider, that the men were already suicidal. I think they were young, idealistic men who were manipulated by the true terrorists into supporting their cause. Let's face it, those in their 20s are often fatalistic and with enough support can be convinced of almost anything.

[jefhatfield]

i hope we can learn from the lesson of the messy occupation we have had in iraq

i think the us military learned a lot from vietnam and to the beginning of the second gulf war, we knew not to go in unprepared...but this last time, with w, we have repeated many of the same mistakes of the vietnam war (no exit strategy and no mandate)

our current presence in iraq will go down in history as one of our major military blunders and i can see the history channel writers working on this one...black hawk down was a movie spawned from our poor planning in africa which resulted in 19 deaths of us military personnel

when this mess in iraq is over and bush and his supporters are out of office, even republicans will be able to look back on this war and criticize it the same way they can now criticize nixon and watergate

[IJ Reilly]

I question your idea, Applespider, that the men were already suicidal. I think they were young, idealistic men who were manipulated by the true terrorists into supporting their cause. Let's face it, those in their 20s are often fatalistic and with enough support can be convinced of almost anything.

You've brought up an interesting point, and the one that will be debated a great deal over the next few months. If it turns out the London bombings were essentially acts of domestic violence, as it now appears, the questions and therefore the answers about who and how must be different. This act won't fit so easily under the convenient rubric of "international terrorism." It will look a lot more like Timothy McVeigh or Columbine High School than Osama bin Laden.

[mactastic]

I question this. In what way is it "better" to kill 10,000 people from the air with bombs than 3,000 with jetliners?

Theoretically we are targeting legitimate military targets. I realize that there is significant debate surrounding this, but for the most part soldiers are taking care to target those who target them. Yes the line gets blurred and crossed, but there is a differrence between collateral damage, as it's known, and looking for the biggest crowd of people to blow up.

[Peterkro]

Theoretically we are targeting legitimate military targets. I realize that there is significant debate surrounding this, but for the most part soldiers are taking care to target those who target them. Yes the line gets blurred and crossed, but there is a differrence between collateral damage, as it's known, and looking for the biggest crowd of people to blow up.
So in what way were Hiroshima,Nagasaki,Dresden etc not looking for the biggest crowd of people to blow up.

[mactastic]

Yeah those are shameful episodes in our past, I agree. And likely our forces have engaged in some indiscriminate killing in Iraq and Afghanistan. But our forces can be punished for doing what al-Qaeda does routinely. Whether or not they are punished is another matter.

As I've said before, its not a question of whether or not we're the same as them. The question is why aren't we different enough from them.

[zimv20]

So in what way were Hiroshima,Nagasaki,Dresden etc not looking for the biggest crowd of people to blow up.
regarding the japanese cities, there were a number of factors that went into site selection. i believe the largest factor was targeting military-industrial areas. iirc, hiroshima was host to ship-building yards.

afaik, targeting civilians was not a positive factor, but i suspect it also wasn't a large negative factor.

i visited the peace museum in hiroshima last year and they had a very informative display about site selection and how the american military narrowed down its list of targets. one of the final factors ended up being how many allied POWs were believed to be held in the respective areas. though it was known that some POWs were being held in the two final target cities, there were apparently fewer than in other targets.

btw, i'm not defending the decision to use nukes, just clearing up the misconception that the purpose was to target civilians.

[Peterkro]

In my opinion(of course )all three examples were out and out terror bombings and the same strategic targets excuse was dragged out for all three.In the case of Japan the need to assume control before the Soviets got a chance to arrive was (opinion) at the heart of US thought.What gets me is all these power crazed MF's are all on the same side of the coin(Bush,Blair,Bin Laden,Saud etc)and the vast majority of human kind is on the other.

[skunk]

btw, i'm not defending the decision to use nukes, just clearing up the misconception that the purpose was to target civilians.A dead civilian is a dead civilian.

[zimv20]

i'm really not disagreeing with you guys, just shedding some light on target selection. if the goal _was_ to kill as many japanese civilians as possible, they would have nuked tokyo, for starters.

and to dispirit the country, probably kyoto, too.

as long as we're on about tokyo, it did get the crap bombed out of it with conventional bombs. i believe that more people were killed in a single night of bombing of tokyo than died in hiroshima from the atomic bomb. but i'll have to check that.

[skunk]

In my opinion(of course )all three examples were out and out terror bombings and the same strategic targets excuse was dragged out for all three.In the case of Japan the need to assume control before the Soviets got a chance to arrive was (opinion) at the heart of US thought.What gets me is all these power crazed MF's are all on the same side of the coin(Bush,Blair,Bin Laden,Saud etc)and the vast majority of human kind is on the other.Right. But it's not going to change until the "vast majority" stops allowing these lunatics to tell them what to do.

[skunk]

i'm really not disagreeing with you guys, just shedding some light on target selection. if the goal _was_ to kill as many japanese civilians as possible, they would have nuked tokyo, for starters.

and to dispirit the country, probably kyoto, too.

as long as we're on about tokyo, it did get the crap bombed out of it with conventional bombs. i believe that more people were killed in a single night of bombing of tokyo than died in hiroshima from the atomic bomb. but i'll have to check that.So they didn't really need to nuke Tokyo, did they? Not sure what point you're making here. :confused:

[Peterkro]

regarding the japanese cities, there were a number of factors that went into site selection. i believe the largest factor was targeting military-industrial areas. iirc, hiroshima was host to ship-building yards.

afaik, targeting civilians was not a positive factor, but i suspect it also wasn't a large negative factor.

i visited the peace museum in hiroshima last year and they had a very informative display about site selection and how the american military narrowed down its list of targets. one of the final factors ended up being how many allied POWs were believed to be held in the respective areas. though it was known that some POWs were being held in the two final target cities, there were apparently fewer than in other targets.

btw, i'm not defending the decision to use nukes, just clearing up the misconception that the purpose was to target civilians.
The problem here is Bin Landen and his cohorts can just as easily point out that the Twin Towers and the London undergroud(and many others) are strategic targets in their war against Western occupation of their homelands.

[zimv20]

334 B-29s raided on the night of March 9–10, dropping around 1,700 tons of bombs. Around 16 square miles (41 km²) of the city was destroyed and over 100,000 people are estimated to have died in the fire storm.
link on bombing tokyo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_in_World_War_II)

and from the same page:
Unlike the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which were at least partially intended to force Japan to capitulate immediately, fire-bombing, which killed more civilians in total, was carried out as a long-term strategy to destroy Japan's ability to produce war materials as well as undermine the Japanese Government's will to continue the war. In the context of total war, the large number of Japanese civilians killed by strategic bombing was seen as acceptable by the American administration. When reflecting on the campaign after the war, some expressed doubts about the morality of the firebombing. Curtis LeMay later said: "I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal."

[...]

Tokyo was not considered as a target for a nuclear attack, although Tokyo Bay was apparently examined as a target for a non-lethal demonstration.

and from here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Boy):
Approximately 70,000 people were killed as a direct result of the blast, and a similar number were injured. A great number more would later die as a result of nuclear fallout and cancer.

[zimv20]

So they didn't really need to nuke Tokyo, did they? Not sure what point you're making here. :confused:
simply that the nuke target selection considered factors other than civilians. nothing more.

[zimv20]

The problem here is Bin Landen and his cohorts can just as easily point out that the Twin Towers and the London undergroud(and many others) are strategic targets in their war against Western occupation of their homelands.
they are strategic targets. the goal is to create fear, cripple the economies and sway public support away from (i believe) keeping troops in the middle east.

this is the nature of asymmetrical warfare, and it's what bush, blair and others just don't see. so long as we understand it only as "evil," we will never understand the true cause and effect and never be free of it.

we're doing ourselves a great disservice by claiming the moral high ground.

[IJ Reilly]

we're doing ourselves a great disservice by claiming the moral high ground.

We do ourselves a disservice when we claim the moral high ground while not occupying it.

[mactastic]

We do ourselves a disservice when we claim the moral high ground while not occupying it.

Hey, we put a flag in it so it's ours! (Apologies to Eddie Izzard) ;)

[dejo]

Hey, we put a flag in it so it's ours! (Apologies to Eddie Izzard) ;)

"That's right. No flag. No country."

[Sayhey]

skunk, thanks for the correction about Von Stauffenberg. Indeed he did not plan to die in the assassination attempt (he was killed later,) so the description of "suicide" bomber does not fit. This is what happens when I post too late at night and grasp at the first example that comes to mind. The example was to show that not all bombers, suicide or otherwise, are evil.

My point in naming such examples as the dropping of the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the fire bombing of Dresden, was to show that the "West" is not exempt from the use of terror bombing involving innocent civilians. I don't think it matters to the people who are killed if it is done from 30,000 feet up in the air or through bombs carried by backpack into their midst. In that regard, I agree with you. I do think there is a fundamental difference between groups like al Qaida, who look to inflict the most terror possible through the indiscriminate targeting of civilians, and even the most jaded look at US and Allied military tactics. While I reject the moral equivalency argument, I do think, and I've been pretty clear about this in past threads, that the US conduct through this invasion has eliminated our ability to claim any moral high ground. zim and mac are right, we aren't different enough.

The general point of my original post was that the use of language such as "terrorists" or "suicide bombers" to describe al Qaida serves to weaken the understanding needed to defeat them. And, yes, I think we can defeat them. What we cannot do is, what we are doing now, making the fight against a splinter sect of islamic fundamentalist guerrillas into a fight by the US and its allies to determine the direction of the entire middle east through military force. It is through this mistaken invasion that we have amplified al Qaida's reach to the point it can recruit young British men to strap bombs on their backs and kill their fellow citizens. This could have been a worldwide manhunt for a group of crazy, isolated fundamentalists, but we have instead turned it into a battle of Islam vs. the West.

[Ugg]

You've brought up an interesting point, and the one that will be debated a great deal over the next few months. If it turns out the London bombings were essentially acts of domestic violence, as it now appears, the questions and therefore the answers about who and how must be different. This act won't fit so easily under the convenient rubric of "international terrorism." It will look a lot more like Timothy McVeigh or Columbine High School than Osama bin Laden.

I think the term "domestic" needs to be clarified. McVeigh was definitely domestic in that he was born and raised and not the product of recent immigrants. He was also domestic in that his agenda was homegrown although part of it was anti UN so there might be considered to be a small international aspect in his agenda. Columbine, definitely domestic. The Interstate snipers, mostly domestic although the younger guy was a poor kid from the Caribbean.

I'm not so sure that the London bombers could be considered domestic. They were evidently children of immigrants or immigrants themselves, all Pakistanis and if I can go so far, under the influence of fundamentalist Islamists, not a religion endemic to England.

Maybe I'm trying to draw too fine of a line here, but I think perspective is important. If nothing else, it underlines the difficulties that the children of immigrants face. Two movies I've recently rewatched, Lola & Billy the Kid, and My Beautiful Laundrette illuminate how difficult assimilation is and the moral issues that arise.



I think there are some parallels here between Irish immigrants to the US during The Famine. Treated like dirt in the US,a sizeable minority turned to crime as a result. Products of an unsustainable system of tenant farming, a hidebound church and ineffectual politicians more interested in lining their own pockets than representing their people and maybe just as important a birthrate that was going through the roof. I think the parallels are quite striking and strengthen the idea that marginalization encourages crime .

I just wonder if the differences between most muslim countries and the mostly christian west are too great to overcome.

One thing that has been lacking since the towers fell is a total lack of any unified, meaningful message from Muslim leaders. Why aren't they speaking up, why aren't muslims providing a united front? Sure there's some intimidation, some racism but surely they must realize that they're going to be unfairly targeted until they stand up and proclaim to the world that just like Timothy McVeigh doesn't represent Christianity, neither do the suicide bombers represent Islam. Where is that message?

[mactastic]

Where is that message?

I've often wondered that myself.

[skunk]

I've often wondered that myself.Isn't part of the problem that there is no central overriding authority in Islam - like the Pope - to give an official, binding opinion which can be taken to represent the mass of Muslims? It's really up to each imam to interpret as he sees fit. As with the OT, there are plenty of bloodthirsty passages to pick out if you're up for a fight.

There again, you don't hear ETA or the IRA described as "Christian terrorists", do you? I wonder why.

[Ugg]

There again, you don't hear ETA or the IRA described as "Christian terrorists", do you? I wonder why.

A few months back, I had a good conversation with a friend who lacks perspective on international events. She's not stupid and has traveled and has a great deal of compassion for the downtrodden. She spent a year in Mumbai as a nurse at a clinic for the poor. She lost her first husband in Vietnam and became a very radical activist. When I told her that Europe had been dealing with terrorists for the last 30+ years, she was sort of surprised as ETA and the IRA simply didn't register in her mind as being terrorist organizations.

Terrorist seems to be a label solely for Muslims. It's pretty scary when you think of it as some factions of the anti-abortion brigade in the US definitely have used terror in pursuing their goals. Yet few people in this day and age would agree with that.

We're all prejudiced towards some group or another, that's not surprising nor necessarily bad. What's important is how we confront those feelings and deal with them. While I'm willing to apply the new label of terrorism to all who terrorize, there's a part of me that's more willing to apply it to Muslims who hate much of what the west stands for.

I keep looking for information that will help me understand what is really going on over there. Most books seem to be written by extremist hacks (of both the right and left) and websites seem to avoid the issue or are merely fronts for politics. In the end it's what we understand the least that we end up fearing the most and the Muslim world seems to be doing a piss poor job in helping us understand. Hiding under a rock, central leader or not, has never done any religion any good.

[skunk]

I keep looking for information that will help me understand what is really going on over there. Most books seem to be written by extremist hacks (of both the right and left) and websites seem to avoid the issue or are merely fronts for politics. In the end it's what we understand the least that we end up fearing the most and the Muslim world seems to be doing a piss poor job in helping us understand. Hiding under a rock, central leader or not, has never done any religion any good.A different angle, but an Interesting Read here:
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1120083012204&DPL=IvsNDS%2f7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes
Losing faith in religion
Author pleads for an age of reason that will render religious faith as archaic as the worship of Odin Sam Harris says religious myths must die if we are to survive as a species, Ron Csillag reports

Compared to Sam Harris, Karl Marx was a piker. The 19th-century political philosopher derided religion as the "opium of the people." To Harris, organized faith is more like crack cocaine, and its fruits every bit as ruinous. And we must quit the pipe, cold turkey, before it's too late.
A Stanford University philosophy graduate and now a doctoral student in neuroscience, Harris has delivered a 323-page jeremiad against religion entitled The End of Faith (W.W. Norton), a bracing, unsubtle yet eloquent plea — more like a clarion call — for a stop to dogmatic religion as we know it, and the start of an age of reason that will render religious faith as archaic as the worship of Odin.
Winner of the 2005 PEN Award for Non-Fiction, Harris's explosive book, as more than one reviewer has noted, articulates fiercely and fearlessly what more and more people are thinking but few are willing to say in polite company: religious faith is not only blind, but deaf, mute, absurd, irrational, and threatens our very existence.
Like other intellectuals traumatized by the 9/11 attacks, Harris began writing on Sept. 12, 2001 — "the moment it became obvious we were meandering into a religious war and not articulating the truth to ourselves," he told the Star in an interview prior to addressing Toronto's three-day ideaCity conference.
The first draft of the first chapter was "an unpublishable screed," the author concedes. He took a breath, cooled off as much as possible, and produced a prolonged nuclear assault on religious extremists and moderates alike, and the theology ("ignorance with wings") that propels Muslim suicide bombers, Christian anti-abortion zealots and Jewish settlers in Israel.
Harris lists about two dozen violent conflicts around the world which pit one religion against another. On the Indian subcontinent, for example, more than 1 million Muslims and Hindus have died in three official wars and continuous bloodletting between India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers.
While religious pluralists — in these cases as in other hot spots — may cite failed diplomacy, "in truth," writes Harris, "the entire conflict is born of an irrational embrace of myth." These are just two countries poised to exterminate each other "because they disagree about the `facts' that are every bit as fanciful as the names of Santa's reindeer."
Myths die hard, Harris realizes, but die they must if we are to survive as a species. For now that millions embrace the metaphysics of martyrdom or the truth of the book of Revelation — and are armed to the teeth — "words like `God' and `Allah' must go the way of `Apollo' and `Baal' or they will unmake our world," he warns. Faith-based religion "must suffer the same slide into obsolescence" as alchemy.
If not, and as long as it is acceptable for someone to believe that he knows how God wants everyone on Earth to live, "we will continue to murder one another on account of our myths."
Other example of Harris's carpet-bombing:
"There is no more evidence to justify a belief in the literal existence of Yahweh or Satan than there was to keep Zeus perched upon his mountain throne or Poseidon churning the sea ... we as a species have grown perfectly intoxicated by our myths."
"How can any person presume to know that this is the way the universe works? Because it says so in our holy books. How do we know that our holy books are free from error? Because the books themselves say so. Epistemological black holes of this sort are fast draining the light from our world."
"Given the link between belief and action, it is clear that we can no more tolerate a diversity of religious beliefs than a diversity of beliefs about epidemiology and basic hygiene."
"It is time we recognized that all reasonable men and women have a common enemy. It is an enemy so near to us and so deceptive, that we keep its counsel even as it threatens to destroy the very possibility of human happiness. Our enemy is nothing other than faith itself."
Harris, a genial 38-year-old raised by a Jewish mother and Quaker father in a secular environment, insists his goal was not be inflammatory. "I was at pains to modulate the drastic terms in which I see our situation," he explains. He calls his book "an argument for intellectual honesty. It's only on matters of religion that we allow people to pretend to be certain of things they are not certain about."
The book delivers a hammer blow to fundamentalists of all stripes, but also to moderates. Religious moderation, Harris argues, betrays both faith and reason equally. Moderates are, in large part, responsible for religious strife "because their beliefs provide the context in which scriptural literalism and religious violence can never be adequately opposed" — all thanks to the sacredness in which we hold tolerance.
Put even more bluntly, Harris's view is that we can no longer afford the political correctness that guards us from violating the taboo of knocking someone's religion. He leads the way in the brave new front by flatly declaring that the Bible and the Qur'an "both contain mountains of life-destroying gibberish."
Harris argues that the kind of intolerance he advances is merely a "conversational" one.
"We need to be more intolerant across the board," he offers. "One of the taboos I'm breaking in my book — and it's more of a taboo among moderates than fundamentalists — is noticing the differences among religions. I'm not willing to say Islam and Christianity are alike. There's much to be said against Christianity and Judaism, but at this moment, Islam presents some unique problems to a global civilization forming. It's really taboo to point that out. We have this multicultural, politically correct notion that there's no place to stand where you can rigorously criticize another person's faith. But if you can't go to the mat on something like honour killing, it seems to me that the rudiments of civilization have been lost."
While Harris is tough on Christianity (a story of "mankind's misery and ignorance rather than of its requited love of God") and Judaism, which prescribes death for a disturbingly long list of infractions, none of which, Harris feels are meant as metaphors, he reserves his harshest appraisal for Islam.
"We are at war with Islam," he writes unflinchingly. "We are at war with precisely the vision of life that is prescribed to all Muslims in the Qur'an." He follows that up with five solid pages of citations from the Islamic holy text which purport to call for violence against the non-believer. Anyone who reads those "and can still not see a link between Muslim faith and Muslim violence should probably consult a neurologist."
Calling Islam a religion of peace, as U.S. President George Bush has done repeatedly, "is really playing hide the ball with core dogmas of the faith: martyrdom and jihad," he continued in the interview. "You just have to look at the example of Muhammad. He was not a hippy who was crucified. He was the Julius Caesar of the Muslim world. Clearly, many Muslims expect that kind of victory in this world by Islam."
As for the Bible, it's "really a deplorable document. There is no reason whatsoever to abolish slavery if you consult the Bible. Clearly, the creator of the universe expects us to keep slaves."
While Harris doesn't deny that religions carry a large moral component, he believes one does not have to be religious in order to be moral. "I don't think everyday morality requires any irrationality. The morality of societies that are far more atheistic than my own attest to this."
And while he does dwell on all that is wrong with the major monotheistic faiths, he does have some good to say about so-called eastern religions and various mystical strains for their de-emphasis of the self.
But there is hope, evidenced by the fact that "nobody's dying for Poseidon." An utter revolution in our thinking can be accomplished in a single generation if parents and teachers simply gave honest answers to children. And there's little time to waste, Harris warns, for there's no reason to think that we can survive our religious differences indefinitely.

[Don't panic]

A different angle, but an Interesting Read here:
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1120083012204&DPL=IvsNDS%2f7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes
[/indent]

if only more people would 'see the light' (and acknowledge it just comes from physics and chemistry)

[IJ Reilly]

I think the term "domestic" needs to be clarified. McVeigh was definitely domestic in that he was born and raised and not the product of recent immigrants.

I think you might be making too fine a distinction, the issues associated with assimilation notwithstanding. If you grow up and are educated in a country, no matter what other influences your culture and family may exert, you will be culturally assimilated for the most part by the time you reach adulthood. This is almost a universal experience and is often the source of much tension between first and second generation immigrants.

I haven't been following the news today, but I suspect as details about these bombers emerge, a great deal of serious discussion will ensue about how native-born individuals could have been attracted to this form of extreme political violence against their countrymen. If you don't care for the McVeigh or Columbine analogies, try thinking Mason family.

Whatever it is, something is going on here that escapes the currently operative definitions of terrorism and terrorists.

[blackfox]

...SNIP...

Terrorist seems to be a label solely for Muslims. It's pretty scary when you think of it as some factions of the anti-abortion brigade in the US definitely have used terror in pursuing their goals. Yet few people in this day and age would agree with that.

We're all prejudiced towards some group or another, that's not surprising nor necessarily bad. What's important is how we confront those feelings and deal with them. While I'm willing to apply the new label of terrorism to all who terrorize, there's a part of me that's more willing to apply it to Muslims who hate much of what the west stands for.

...SNIP...In the end it's what we understand the least that we end up fearing the most and the Muslim world seems to be doing a piss poor job in helping us understand. Hiding under a rock, central leader or not, has never done any religion any good.

I found this post most thoughtful (even though I truncated it).

To give a stab at answering some of the questions you've raised, I would guess that much of the use of the "terrorism" label stems form cultural elitism and/or competition. I am sure there is a marketing component as well.

As to the point of culture, it may very well be easier to understand and/or less threatening to reflect on terrorism localised to a specific group/action (like anti-abortion zealots) or the IRA, whose membership is otherwise in line with the cultural norms - pay their taxes, buy their groceries, go to their kids sporting events etc.

In the case of Muslim fundamentalism, the culture is so alien to many in the West (especially comparatively insulated Americans) that points of comparison between the two as basis for opinion is often skewed. Coupled with this is the competion between a resurgent Muslim cultural expansion, as our own cultures influence has passed it's zenith and is in relative decline. Demographically we are outnumbered. East Asian and Latin culture is also gaining ground in terms of influence economically and socially.

Then, in terms of marketing, there is the vested interest of solidifying opinion against something you fing potentially corrosive to your way-of-life. We labeled the Soviets as "evil" because to some they represented the biggest threat to our society and culture, while Sudan or Ethiopia or even Cambodia were not labeled as such as their influence (and threat) was marginal.

The IRA or domestic zealots do not gain the same traction, as they do not threaten/motivate a sufficent amount of people's interests.

Or something like that...

[Xtremehkr]

Which, unfortunately, may lead other terrorist organizations to adapt to a strategy where their desire for attention will not be denied. Instead of acting locally, they may choose to make their issues international ones.

[Rod Rod]

when this mess in iraq is over and bush and his supporters are out of office, even republicans will be able to look back on this war and criticize it the same way they can now criticize nixon and watergateI also hope so but in the past month I've heard a couple of Republicans on talk shows blame the Vietnam loss on the press coverage. The Iraq war will likely become another ideological shibboleth.One thing that has been lacking since the towers fell is a total lack of any unified, meaningful message from Muslim leaders. Why aren't they speaking up, why aren't muslims providing a united front? Sure there's some intimidation, some racism but surely they must realize that they're going to be unfairly targeted until they stand up and proclaim to the world that just like Timothy McVeigh doesn't represent Christianity, neither do the suicide bombers represent Islam. Where is that message?Muslim leaders HAVE been speaking up. Every Muslim organization I associate with condemned the 9/11 attacks right away.

Unfortunately, such positive messages don't make good television or newspaper stories.

Also, the claim that Muslims haven't done enough to condemn terrorism has been repeated enough that many people believe it. The truth is that Muslims have been condemning it since the beginning, and it's the freaks like Omar Bakri and his kind that tend to get the airtime.

The claim that Muslims haven't done enough to condemn terrorism is so cynical - I feel that the people who formulated this false claim have an agenda that is anti-Muslim. Those people fear that if Muslims are accepted (and not marginalized), the latter will threaten the former's interests. I don't blame you for repeating the claim, but I blame those who formulated it as well as the mainstream media which doesn't cover the mainstream Muslims nearly as much as it covers the freaks.

[pubwvj]

Bush said after 911 that it was an attack on freedom and had nothing to do with any US actions.
Blair said this week that the London bombings were an attack on freedom.
Saying it's anything to do with Iraq is a no-no.

Get real. There was terrorism before Iraq. There would have been terrorism with or without Iraq. Iraq is just a convient excuse used by terrorists and liberals alike. Get a grip.

The terrorists use their religious missinterpetations to justify killing or enslaving all non-believers. They are not compatible with anyone else. They will destroy you unless you ketow to them. The only solution is to kill them first. Their own logic dictates this.

[zimv20]

the relatives of the bombers said they were upset about the situation in iraq. should we all simply discount this because it doesn't fit in with our disconnect from reality?

conclusions should follow evidence. adhering to the opposite is called idealogy.

[skunk]

Get real. There was terrorism before Iraq. There would have been terrorism with or without Iraq. Iraq is just a convient excuse used by terrorists and liberals alike. Get a grip.At least they have an excuse, which is more than can be said for Bush and Blair and all the generations of "crusaders" before them.

The terrorists use their religious missinterpetations to justify killing or enslaving all non-believers. They are not compatible with anyone else. They will destroy you unless you ketow to them. The only solution is to kill them first. Their own logic dictates this.Strange how this could apply equally to either side. Can you not see this? But I must have missed the bit about "slavery". Could you give us a link?

[skunk]

conclusions should follow evidence. adhering to the opposite is called idealogy.Actually, it's called ideology... :rolleyes: