Quote:Original post by mattnewportQuote:Original post by LessBread
What Makes Suicide Bombers Tick?
Interesting article, but it doesn't answer the question posed by the title. The motivation of Islamic suicide bombers is well known, suicide bombing is viewed as a form of martyrdom and a ticket to paradise. What drives suicide bombers from these supposedly secular groups like the PPK? I'm genuinely curious because I've never seen an answer to that, are you aware of any sources? There's a long tradition throughout human history of religion being used to encourage people to face death in combat with promises of rewards in the after life. For the non-religious facing possible or even likely death in combat there are other possible motivations: the desire to defend your family or your country, the desire to be rewarded and recognised for bravery and heroism in this life (assuming you survive), the risk of certain death if you don't fight (execution being a common punishment for desertion in the military through much of history). Facing certain death in combat is a lot harder to motivate without recourse to religion though. What drives a suicide bomber if not the promise of an afterlife?
Blame the editors for not crafting a title that fit the content of the article. The motivation isn't martyrdom, the motivation is to expell the invaders. The martyrdom angle is merely the sugar that helps the medicine go down. US media loves to play up the Islamic angle, it fits easily into the "clash of civilizations" script as well as tweaking latent feelings of racism. Here's an example of that kind of reporting: Inside the Mind of an Iraqi Suicide Bomber. Take note, however, that for all of the time it spends describing the Islamic preparations the suicide bomber goes through, his primary goal is inflicting damage:
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... While he waits, he spends much of his time rehearsing that last prayer. "First I will ask Allah to bless my mission with a high rate of casualties among the Americans," he says, speaking softly in a matter-of-fact monotone, as if dictating a shopping list. "Then I will ask him to purify my soul so I am fit to see him, and I will ask to see my mujahedin brothers who are already with him." He pauses to run the list through his mind again, then resumes: "The most important thing is that he should let me kill many Americans."
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What motivates suicide bombers from secular groups? It seems to me the same thing that motivates American soldiers to take on missions they won't likely return from. They believe they are fighting for something worth dying for.
Here's some more from Prof. Pape from a week ago: Ground to a Halt
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Evidence of the broad nature of Hezbollah’s resistance to Israeli occupation can be seen in the identity of its suicide attackers. Hezbollah conducted a broad campaign of suicide bombings against American, French and Israeli targets from 1982 to 1986. Altogether, these attacks — which included the infamous bombing of the Marine barracks in 1983 — involved 41 suicide terrorists.
In writing my book on suicide attackers, I had researchers scour Lebanese sources to collect martyr videos, pictures and testimonials and the biographies of the Hezbollah bombers. Of the 41, we identified the names, birth places and other personal data for 38. Shockingly, only eight were Islamic fundamentalists. Twenty-seven were from leftist political groups like the Lebanese Communist Party and the Arab Socialist Union. Three were Christians, including a female high-school teacher with a college degree. All were born in Lebanon.
What these suicide attackers — and their heirs today — shared was not a religious or political ideology but simply a commitment to resisting a foreign occupation. Nearly two decades of Israeli military presence did not root out Hezbollah. The only thing that has proven to end suicide attacks, in Lebanon and elsewhere, is withdrawal by the occupying force.
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And here is an interview with Pape from earlier this year: The Problem of Suicide Terrorism.
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Now there's an important point, before we go on, which should be made. It wasn't the case that there was no evidence for the answer to this question about the logic behind suicide terrorism, but [that] everybody thought we knew the answer.
Many people thought they knew the answer. It's also fair to say many people realized there's more to the puzzle than meets the eye, because of course religion has been around for centuries, and of course there are many religious people who don't commit suicide, even when stretched in these conditions. So the project, as I began to unpack it -- it was clear to me that many people assumed Islamic fundamentalism was the central cause, but it was also clear to me, as I looked especially at the research underneath that, that many people realized that might be a hollow presumption. They were presuming it given the absence of data that showed anything else. So, as I began to collect the data and as I put the data set together, that's when it also jumped out at me what was driving suicide terrorism, because what over 95 percent of all suicide terrorist attacks, around the world since 1980, have in common is not religion but a specific strategic goal: to compel a modern democracy to withdraw combat forces -- I don't mean advisors with side-arms; I mean tanks, fighter aircraft, or APCs -- from territory the terrorists view is their homeland, or prize greatly. From Lebanon, to Chechnya, to Sri Lanka, to Kashmir, to the West Bank, every suicide terrorism campaign since 1980 has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw combat forces from territory that the terrorists prize.
This is very important. Let's take apart all that you've just said. You're saying that nationalism, or a national liberation movement, is a driving force in all of these cases.
Suicide terrorism is an extreme form of a national liberation strategy. Nationalism, that is nationalist commitment to the territory that's at issue, is the core driving force, and of course, some nationalists are also religious. It doesn't mean that nationalism is always fundamentally opposed to religion, but it's terribly important to see that the key concept underneath suicide terrorism, the key driving factor, is a deep anger over the presence of foreign combat forces on territory that the terrorists prize greatly. Absent that core condition, we rarely see suicide terrorism.
An important characteristic that you identify in these groups that you're looking at is their weakness vis-à-vis the occupier. So, this is an alternative that develops in a context where there isn't much that can be done militarily in a normal set of interactions.
Well said. The key purpose of suicide terrorism is not to die but to use the person's body as a weapon to kill, to try to put pressure on the opposing society so that society will put pressure on its government to change its military policies. What's interesting about this tactic is that we see it as a weapon of last resort. We don't see suicide terrorism often as the first choice of a terrorist group. Instead, we see it as the choice after many other things have failed. In fact, suicide terrorist groups are often large guerilla organizations with thousands and thousands of members who have tried ordinary guerilla tactics, or even ordinary terrorism, before resorting to suicide terrorism. And they're evolving from a very large group.
The PKK in Turkey, for instance, has 10,000 cadres who are armed fighters; the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, 5000 to 10,000 armed cadres. What's occurring here is that these groups are evolving to suicide terrorism when other means have not gained the concessions, the independence of the territory. They don't look like what we might think, which is a cult -- thirty people sitting in a room at the feet of a leader. Before I did this research, I was expecting to see suicide terrorist groups looking a bit like the Branch Davidians -- that's David Koresh out in Waco, where David Koresh has forty-some followers who stayed at his feet for hours every single day, and he essentially brainwashed them. That's not what suicide terrorist organizations look like. They're very large, and in fact, the suicide terrorists themselves are typically walk-in volunteers and not long-time members of the group.
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What drives a suicide bomber if not the promise of an afterlife? What drove the men on the beaches of Normandy? I don't suppose you've ever read Pericles' Funeral Oration?
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I have dwelt upon the greatness of Athens because I want to show you that we are contending for a higher prize than those who enjoy none of these privileges, and to establish by manifest proof the merit of these men whom I am now commemorating. Their loftiest praise has been already spoken. For in magnifying the city I have magnified them, and men like them whose virtues made her glorious. And of how few Hellenes 1 can it be said as of them, that their deeds when weighed in the balance have been found equal to their fame! I believe that a death such as theirs has been the true measure of a man's worth; it may be the first revelation of his virtues, but is at any rate their final seal. For even those who come short in other ways may justly plead the valor with which they have fought for their country; they have blotted out the evil with the good, and have benefited the state more by their public services than they have injured her by their private actions. None of these men were enervated by wealth or hesitated to resign the pleasures of life; none of them put off the evil day in the hope, natural to poverty, that a man, though poor, may one day become rich. But, deeming that the punishment of their enemies was sweeter than any of these things, and that they could fall in no nobler cause, they determined at the hazard of their lives to be honorably avenged, and to leave the rest. They resigned to hope their unknown chance of happiness; but in the face of death they resolved to rely upon themselves alone. And when the moment came they were minded to resist and suffer, rather than to fly and save their lives; they ran away from the word of dishonor, but on the battlefield their feet stood fast, and in an instant, at the height of their fortune, they passed away from the scene, not of their fear, but of their glory.
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