Dying To Win

[Bikewer]

Diane Rehm had the author of this book, Pape, on the show this morning.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400063175/wamu-20/103-0485602-0443807?dev-t=D39XLW81EN6ZFS

His essential premis is that suicide bombings are not an expression of religious jihad or "they hate us because we're free" notions, but rather a political response, normally of an occupied people.

The goal, according to Pape, is to drive the occupying forces from the homeland of the suicide bomber. He has conducted a rather detailed analysis of such suicide attacks over many years, getting into the demographics of the attackers, their motivations, and so forth.

On the show they give links to websites with the raw data, and also extensive quotation from Al Qaeda documents.

Pretty interesting, squares with some degree with the writings of Michael Scheuer, the ex-CIA analyst who penned Imperial Hubris. He maintained that Al Qaeda was fighting what he termed a "defensive Jihad", launched in response to what they percieved as a wide-scale attack on Islam by "The West".

 

[Ryokan]

There's no doubt that this is true for the Catholic Tamils of Sri Lanka. They're fighting a war for liberation, not pursuing a religious agenda.

Not all suicide bombers are Arab Muslims.

 

[Bikewer]

He pointed to the Tamil Tigers as being involved in more suicide bombings during the period he studied than any other group.
Essentially Marxist, he said, with no religious motivation.

 

[Mycroft]

He pointed to the Tamil Tigers as being involved in more suicide bombings during the period he studied than any other group.
Essentially Marxist, he said, with no religious motivation.

Except the actual bomber in Tamil are groomed from childhood, brainwashed for the task.

The Red Garden

A personality cult might as well be a religion.

 

[Mycroft]

His essential premis is that suicide bombings are not an expression of religious jihad or "they hate us because we're free" notions, but rather a political response, normally of an occupied people.

The problem with that theory is we're seeing suicide bombing where there is no occupation. Morocco, Indonesia and Pakistan to name a few.

 

[Ryokan]

The main difference between Tamil and Muslim suicide bombers, though, is that the Tamils mainly target military targets. And they've been very succesful with that tactic, holding at bay an army more than 10 times their size.