Getting Tough With Suicide Bombers

[BPSCG]

UNITED NATIONS, March 19 -- Secretary General Kofi Annan on Monday will propose establishing new rules for the use of military force, adopting a tough anti-terrorism treaty that would punish suicide bombers, and overhauling the United Nation's discredited human rights commission, according to a confidential draft of a report on U.N. reform.

Annan Drafts Changes For UN

Emphasis mine.

What are they going to do, send the remaining pieces of the bombers' bodies to the International Criminal Court to stand trial for crimes against humanity...?

I looked in vain to see what tough anti-terrorism measures Annan was proposing. Here are all the mentions of "terror" I was able to find in the article:

Annan cast his report as an attempt to reconcile the security interests of wealthy countries, which want the world body to focus on combating terrorism and stemming weapons proliferation, and poor nations, which are more concerned with the consequences of poverty and disease. He noted that a catastrophic terrorist act in a major Western city could cripple the economies of poor nations on the other side of the world while an outbreak of disease in a poor region could spread to the developed world.

The United States is also amenable to Annan's call for an anti-terrorism convention that would define terrorism as any act that is "intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or noncombatants" to intimidate a community, government or international organization.

Efforts to adopt an anti-terrorism convention have been stymied by Arab governments, which have resisted labeling anti-Israeli militants, including Islamic Jihad and the al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade, that have targeted civilians as terrorists.

So it appears the tough anti-terrorist measure Annan is proposing amounts to trying to call another convention that will again attempt to define terrorism. Osama is doubtless quaking at the prospect...

 

[toddjh]

How do you punish suicide bombers, anyway? Aren't they, like, dead?

Jeremy

 

[Badger]

Re: Re: Getting Tough With Suicide Bombers

How do you punish suicide bombers, anyway? Aren't they, like, dead?

Jeremy

Hmmm, how about training pigs to sniff out human remains? Maybe have female pig wranglers. Then, the bombers parts could be identified by a pig, controlled by a female.

I'm sure that would be right up there on the ole "final insult" scale for the muslim suicide bombers anyway.

 

[Ladewig]

Re: Re: Re: Getting Tough With Suicide Bombers

Hmmm, how about training pigs to sniff out human remains? Maybe have female pig wranglers. Then, the bombers parts could be identified by a pig, controlled by a female.

I'm sure that would be right up there on the ole "final insult" scale for the muslim suicide bombers anyway.

Wouldn't the Jewish and Muslim relatives of the suicide bomber's victims be a bit upset over that kind of treatment?

 

[Skeptic]

Efforts to adopt an anti-terrorism convention have been stymied by Arab governments, which have resisted labeling anti-Israeli militants, including Islamic Jihad and the al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade, that have targeted civilians as terrorists.

Yes, it's so unfair--they're only killing jews, after all. All of a sudden that's terrorism? What is the world coming to?

 

[Skeptic]

Double Post, sorry

 

[Badger]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Getting Tough With Suicide Bombers

Wouldn't the Jewish and Muslim relatives of the suicide bomber's victims be a bit upset over that kind of treatment?

Yes, probably.

My statement (attempted joke) was in very poor taste.

I apologize.

 

[webfusion]

A belief system is powerful

I probably will regret even making this post, but here goes:

Back in the times of the British Empire, when there was a bit of Jewish-Muslim animosity brewing and bombs were going off all over the place in Palestine,
some British Officers suggested that the mortal remains of those caught and hanged (or in the case of a suicide explosion, collected from around the ground) would be interred wrapped in pigskin, rather than the traditional sackcloth.

This method had been previously tried by the British with some success in Sudan during the revolt fomented by the Mahdi movement in the 1870's, when suicide bombing by fanatic Muslims first appeared.

The premise was to ruin their ascent to heaven as they would be unclean (I think this applied to Jews and Moslems, but the threat was more palpable for religious Allah-fearing Moslems engaged in terror, since the Jews doing the bombings were by and large non-religious Zionists who had no such belief system in their minds).

Anyway, even to this day, some in Israel and elsewhere still bring this up as a way to discourage suicide attacks, since a young man who went ahead with that (based on the vision of the 73 virgins in heaven) would find himself collected up in pieces, and wrapped in a pigskin for a detour into eternal hell.

Like I said, I probably should have kept this quiet and never brought it to the JREF forum. but there you have it.

http://www.sullivan-county.com/id4/peck2c.htm
Arlene Peck has offered this exact advice to Israel
(from the comfort of her Marina Del Ray, CA. home)

 

[RussDill]

Tough sentances eh, I don't think the UN can give death sentances though.

 

[Ladewig]

Re: A belief system is powerful

I probably will regret even making this post, but here goes:

Back in the times of the British Empire, when there was a bit of Jewish-Muslim animosity brewing and bombs were going off all over the place in Palestine,
some British Officers suggested that the mortal remains of those caught and hanged (or in the case of a suicide explosion, collected from around the ground) would be interred wrapped in pigskin, rather than the traditional sackcloth.

This method had been previously tried by the British with some success in Sudan during the revolt fomented by the Mahdi movement in the 1870's, when suicide bombing by fanatic Muslims first appeared.

The premise was to ruin their ascent to heaven as they would be unclean (I think this applied to Jews and Moslems, but the threat was more palpable for religious Allah-fearing Moslems engaged in terror, since the Jews doing the bombings were by and large non-religious Zionists who had no such belief system in their minds).

Anyway, even to this day, some in Israel and elsewhere still bring this up as a way to discourage suicide attacks, since a young man who went ahead with that (based on the vision of the 73 virgins in heaven) would find himself collected up in pieces, and wrapped in a pigskin for a detour into eternal hell.

Like I said, I probably should have kept this quiet and never brought it to the JREF forum. but there you have it.

http://www.sullivan-county.com/id4/peck2c.htm
Arlene Peck has offered this exact advice to Israel
(from the comfort of her Marina Del Ray, CA. home)

Did you bother to read the rest of the thread before posting? Particularly the the part about "Wouldn't the Jewish and Muslim relatives of the suicide bomber's victims be a bit upset over that kind of treatment?"

I have nothing against out of the box thinking, but there should be a modicum of practicality about it.

 

[webfusion]

I saw what you said

Yes, I read the entire post, including the one by Badger and your reply and his subsequent apology. I follow the threads. However, I thought that for the sake of accuracy, this bit of information about the pigskin-burial was appropriate for inclusion into this topic. The idea has been mentioned often enough in Israel by various people.

As for the victims' families, I have no evidence that they would or would not be upset.
I do have evidence that many relatives of victims are totally frustrated in the face of the inability of conventional tactics and their nation's armed forces to prevent such atttacks.

In any case, the effectiveness of the pigskin treatment is highly controversial and there is near zero probability of any Israeli Parliament considering the idea (especially one that has an influential component of Moslem members as does the Knesset).

For the record. I certainly don't subscribe to the theory that suicide attacks can be eliminated by such a method.
It was not my intention to bring up the subject as a practical solution, rather as an intellectual exercise.

 

[CBL4]

Perhaps the best way to discourage suicide bombers is to stop giving riches to their families, naming squares after them and celebrating their barbarism.

CBL

 

[BPSCG]

While the obvious part of my OP was the nonsense about punishing suicide bombers, the more troubling thing is that in reaction to all the criticism the UN has been getting lately, Annan's response seems to be - more of the same.

 

[CBL4]

the more troubling thing is that in reaction to all the criticism the UN has been getting lately, Annan's response seems to be - more of the same.

Yes, as long as a large percentage of the countries in the UN are led by tyrants, the UN is of limited value. Annan needs to pay lip service to reform but if he actually tried to do much for freedom, the UN would revolt.

CBL

 

[rikzilla]

Re: A belief system is powerful

I probably will regret even making this post, but here goes:

Back in the times of the British Empire, when there was a bit of Jewish-Muslim animosity brewing and bombs were going off all over the place in Palestine,
some British Officers suggested that the mortal remains of those caught and hanged (or in the case of a suicide explosion, collected from around the ground) would be interred wrapped in pigskin, rather than the traditional sackcloth.

This method had been previously tried by the British with some success in Sudan during the revolt fomented by the Mahdi movement in the 1870's, when suicide bombing by fanatic Muslims first appeared.

The premise was to ruin their ascent to heaven as they would be unclean (I think this applied to Jews and Moslems, but the threat was more palpable for religious Allah-fearing Moslems engaged in terror, since the Jews doing the bombings were by and large non-religious Zionists who had no such belief system in their minds).

Anyway, even to this day, some in Israel and elsewhere still bring this up as a way to discourage suicide attacks, since a young man who went ahead with that (based on the vision of the 73 virgins in heaven) would find himself collected up in pieces, and wrapped in a pigskin for a detour into eternal hell.

Like I said, I probably should have kept this quiet and never brought it to the JREF forum. but there you have it.

http://www.sullivan-county.com/id4/peck2c.htm
Arlene Peck has offered this exact advice to Israel
(from the comfort of her Marina Del Ray, CA. home)

Jeez that Arlene Peck is a friggin' idiot!
Someone should send her a copy of Sharansky's book! Can you imagine the "rock-vs-hard place" scenario she sets up for the Palestinian majority?

Topple the dictator and his henchmen who are oppressing you or Israel will bomb you into oblivion and wrap your bits of steaming flesh in bacon!

The woman is insane. Palestine is not Iraq or Afghanistan. They are already largely under the control of the IDF. With Arafat's death real democratic reforms are suddenly possible. International pressure to tie economic aid to the PA to the human rights and freedoms of the Palestinian people should be enough to make it happen.

Arlene Peck's advice would plunge the entire region into further barbarism. That,...and she looks more like a drag-queen than Dustin Hoffman did as "Tootsie"

-z