Reply #86: "dealing logically with people who strap on bombs and die for 41 virgins" [View All]

[endarkenment]

You've bought the whole line.

Do some research on the motivation of suicide bombers. While some are religious fanatics, in general the suicide bomber is not a religious fanatic. Instead it seems that suicide attacks are most likely used by people living under a military occupation where they have no other means available to strike effectively against the occupying nation. Rather than irrational fanaticism the suicide bomber is acting out of a rational desperation in the only way that he or she sees as effective.

"The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism
ROBERT A. PAPE The University of Chicago
Suicide terrorism is rising around the world, but the most common explanations do not help us
understand why. Religious fanaticism does not explain why the world leader in suicide terrorism is
the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, a group that adheres to a Marxist/Leninist ideology, while existing
psychological explanations have been contradicted by the widening range of socio-economic backgrounds
of suicide terrorists. To advance our understanding of this growing phenomenon, this study collects the
universe of suicide terrorist attacks worldwide from 1980 to 2001, 187 in all. In contrast to the existing
explanations, this study shows that suicide terrorism follows a strategic logic, one specifically designed
to coerce modern liberal democracies to make significant territorial concessions. Moreover, over the past
two decades, suicide terrorism has been rising largely because terrorists have learned that it pays. Suicide
terrorists sought to compel American and French military forces to abandon Lebanon in 1983, Israeli
forces to leave Lebanon in 1985, Israeli forces to quit the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in 1994 and
1995, the Sri Lankan government to create an independent Tamil state from 1990 on, and the Turkish
government to grant autonomy to the Kurds in the late 1990s. In all but the case of Turkey, the terrorist
political cause made more gains after the resort to suicide operations than it had before. Thus, Western
democracies should pursue policies that teach terrorists that the lesson of the 1980s and 1990s no longer
holds, policies which in practice may have more to do with improving homeland security than with
offensive military action."


http://www.danieldrezner.com/research/guest/Pape1.pdf