Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

I love it. Right between the eyes. The truth is I don't actually know, since I've never spoken to a terrorist. I'm sceptical of Pape, since he seems to have confined to particular classes of suicide attacks. His assertion that these are from rational, territorial motives is simply difficult for me to believe, in the context of something like the London bombings.

His approach is the right way to get his message across but I'm not sure where to go from here, without being an expert myself. I would like some engagement with the issue from Tweedledick and Tweedledork but they do all of their thinking in private, if they do it at all.

Given that many of the current 'nations' in that region did not exist prior to World War I, but in large part were created by victorious allies after that conflict, can 'nationalism' be really to blame?

"...anger at Western occupation, and its perceived humiliations. Suicide campaigns are not religious, but nationalistic. In other words, the aims of such terrorists are the same as in any war: territorial claims. They don't hate our freedoms; they just want to get us off their land:"

Is it not rather some pan-Arabic sentiment that drives the bombers, and those Islamicists that support them, with money, ammunition, etc, etc?

I also doubt that the current perpetrators of suicide bombings in Iraq have 'strong community support', given that their horrendous actions are deliberately designed to damage and destroy that very 'community'. They may have some 'support' internally from the various vicious factions caught up in the current struggle to control that poor benighted country, but it is surely more likely that the 'average' citizen just wants to get on with their own life?

Dear Webdiarists. Tariq Ali is ever helpful with such explanations, spoken in the plainest of plain English.

Here is a
lecture available for download.

I am wondering how bin Laden's announcements that Australia was a target for suicide attacks because of its liberation of East Timor fits into this sort of analysis?

Australia did not occupy Muslim land in liberating East Timor. The local populace is not predominately Muslim.

Any ideas?

I am not sure I entirely agree with Pape. I think he makes some good points about occupation however I feel the problem is not just occupation but economic theft. The Middle East community sees its natural resources being exploited for the benifit of others. I don't think they only want the soldiers out but they want to control their own oil. By this I mean not large Western multinationals and not a few wealthy locals but the benifits of the local resources benifiting the whole community.

IMHO it is not occupation but economic theft that is the root cause of community upset and the emergence of resistance.

Dylan Kissane, ever heard of a place called Indonesia?

Homocide bombers want two things: 1) 72 virgins; 2) $25,000 cash prize for their families. I say, give it to them. All of them. At the moment they are blowing each other to smithereens. GOOD! While they are busy doing that, WE can all get on with our lives. I just wish that our media would move on from broadcasting the never-ending tawdry tale until the final score.

I think there is a complex set of reasons for this type of terrorism. Pape is right to point out that poverty and ignorance do not do much to explain terrorism. The September 11 attackers, for example, were almost all well-educated, middle-class Saudis.

But the 'foreign occupation' explanation is not a very good predictor either. Saudi Arabia is hardly under foreign occupation, despite American bases there from the 1991 Gulf War. The US 6th Fleet is based in Bahrain; where are the Bahraini suicide bombers? The Tibetans and the the Saharawis are under decades-long brutal foreign occupations - where are the Tibetans and Saharawis blowing themselves up? For that matter, why weren't East Timorese blowing themselves up in Jakarta? Or Irian Jayans? Or Northern Irish Catholics?

Pape also has an important point that many suicide bombers do not fit the usual psychological profiles of suicidal or psychotic individuals, as an Israeli study recently concluded. And spiritually Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, certainly does not condone suicide.

There are cases of young impressionable adolescents being used as suicide bombers, but these cases speak more to the depravity and utter disconnection from anything we might recognise as humanity of the planners rather than the bomb-carriers themselves.

I think the answer to this question is very simple. Suicide bombing is simply a response to a military invasion. There is a common trait in these bombings, and that is they always seem to go 'boom' in response to some military occupation of a foreign country.

Palestinians blow themselves up in response to 35 years of Israeli occupation, Hezbollah did the same. Al-Queda is distressed by the continual occupation of American forces in the Middle East, and their support of Israel. The list goes on and on, but I think it is incorrect to say that 'Muslim Fundamentalists' are striking the values of Western Society. If this is the case, then why did they not strike 50 years ago? Or, even more intriguing, why don’t they strike the polytheistic societies such as China or the African States? And what about Brazil; why haven’t we heard a “boom” during their 'carnavali'?

The reason is simple; Brazil has not blown to pieces any Muslim countries… yet.

One thing that greatly upsets me as Muslim is how people could identify terrorists as 'Muslim Fundamentalists' and say 'Muslim Fundamentalists seek to overthrow Western systems and replace it with Islamic Law, or a Caliphate'. That is completely being ignorant to the Islamic faith and the people, and our faith in Islamic Law. For starters, what is the definition of a 'Muslim Fundamentalist'? Where in blazes did that word come from? Does that suggest that a Muslim who follows the Koran word for word, letter for letter, has a license from God to blow himself up in a cafeteria? I’ll tell you one thing, I follow the Koran word for word and it does not suggest in the slightest to strap yourself with C4 bombs. It is these assumptions that greatly distress me as a Muslim person, and shows the ignorance inherit in many, if not most, of the Westerners in society.

I think that the reason suicide bombers blow-up themselves is because it is the only effective military option on their card. All these groups do no have the technology nor the income to purchase or make state-of-the-art tanks, planes or other machinery to at least stand a chance against the invading army. Just think about it... if the Palestinians, Hezbollah or Al-Queda challenged America or Israel in an open battlefield, what would be the conclusion? The trio would all be decimated in battle. So, in their eyes, the only logical option to inflict casualties on the enemy is to use suicide bombers in civilian areas.

This leads me to another question. Why don’t the Americans, Israelis or Russians use suicide bombers? Quite simple, it would be the worst military option. These countries have missiles, warplanes and tanks that do a 100 times the damage that suicide bombers do. They don’t need to send men to their doom. I guarantee that if the above groups had the same military capabilities of the west, you wouldn’t see any suicide bombers.

As a final note, I would like to say what is the difference between a terrorist and a American, British or Russian missile flying into a city? On a body count level, the West do a 100 times more damage than suicide bombings. Just look at the ratio of Israel-Palestinian conflict, the death toll is 30 Palestinians for every Israeli dead. Ironically, we don’t criticize these people. From an Islamic perspective, terrorists and Western military are exactly the same. They may differ in degree, whereby Western military do more damage than terrorists, but their principles are exactly the same.

Dylan, very simple.

Indonesia is Muslim country; East Timor a province of Indonesia, and thus also Muslim. By occupying East Timor, Australia was occupying a Muslim country, namely Indonesia.

Chris, Tariq Ali is very good: I've got his Clash of Fundamentalisms, and you're right, he speaks very plainly. Pape is very dry and academic, and from what I've read so far (I'm halfway through his book) could have trimmed the book by about a third. Too verbose. There's a very similar one by Mia Bloom, called Dying To Kill (which I'm also half-way through. There's a pile of 8 or 10 on my bedside table bristling with bookmarks) which is also dry and academic, and also solely deals with suicide terrorism. I actually think that's limiting the viewpoint too much, although it's good to read credible scholarly views on this topic.

Another quite good one that I read about a year ago was Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill by Jessica Stern. She takes an entirely different approach: she interviews a number of convicted or as-yet-unconvicted terrorists. It's quite a fascinating read, especially since she's determined to allow the terrorists to speak their piece, so we get an idea of what they are thinking.

And she knows that, among other things, they're not necessarily being honest, but their speeches still tell us something about them if we listen carefully and think. The extensive intro mentions all these considerations.

Another thing that's good about her book is that she covers terrorists from all three big monotheisms (Islam, Judaism, Christianity). All three have produced terrorists, it's just that some get far more air time than others.

Something that is agreed by the authors of all these books, at least as far as I've read, is that the current US strategy is counter-productive. That is, indiscriminate killing of civilians only produces more converts to the extremist ideology. Dedicated police work at least defuses that threat of escalation.

Dylan Kissane, you must remember that East Timor was part of Indonesia, and Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim country.

Bin Laden will therefore see Australia's involvement in 'liberating' East Timor as an attack/invasion to a Muslim country, even though East Timor is predominantly Christian (at that time, the world 'recognised' East Timor as part of Indonesia).

Hmmm ...

I don't need to understand the motives of suicide bombers.

They are a self correcting problem.

BOOM.

Ed Hamish: Welcome to Webdiary Steel. Next time, no full name; no post. See the guidelines.

So it was our lack of resolve in Lebanon that caused all of these attacks to happen? It makes sense. After doing so again in Somalia, what could these terrorist organisations do but think that the West could be pushed away through suicide bombings? Adverse media coverage of the attacks in Iraq, Israel and elsewhere would only embolden the terrorists and get them to think that their strategy was working. Though meddling from afar seems to do little to help either, if you look at the case of East Timor and the Bali bombings, and the planned attacks on Spain even after they withdrew from Iraq. So we can either fight, or go into an isolationist policy, not interacting at all beyond trade and cultural/information transactions with those areas which produce suicide bombers.

Oh wait, they decry our economic and cultural imperialism as well. We better cut off trade and social/cultural links. Divest of all investment in those countries/regions, close down all trade and information exchanges. That might appease them. We wouldn't have any problems then, right?

Would that satisfy them? Or us?

Alison Jobling I said pet, I said love! An olive-branch opportunity! I have also read Ali's Clash of Fundamentalisms. I agree that is an excellent example of clear and effective writing. He is an extremely well travelled and educated man. I like him a lot. I think he is much more ethical than Chomsky.

Why do suicide bombers want to kill Iraqi workers?

Noelene Konstandinitis, these homicide bombers that you refer to, would they be the US terrorists that fly the F-16 and Navy F/A-18 bombers that blow up innocent civilians in various towns and villages throughout Iraq, the ones that have killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians? If so, I think their families get a little more than $25,000 if and when they make the ‘ultimate sacrifice’.

Now, don’t get me wrong here. I don’t condone anyone blowing up anyone but one does need to maintain a proper perspective here. Your callous stance is very much one-sided.

All war is terrorism. Go to one and find out how terrifying it is.

Ahh, Stuart Lord, the same Western rhetoric I have heard over and over in radio interviews, newspapers and other media outlets. I suggest that you learn about the people of East before you start engaging with repetitive rhetoric. My response is rather simple, and it’s a quote me and my colleagues often say “You Westerners, you sit on God’s throne globalizing the world’s morality, sending armies of death into capital cities and telling them of the inferiority of their beliefs, yet, these armies fuel is the voidance of morality and gallons of arrogance”.

And you wonder why you do not receive claps from the Eastern side of the fence.

Will Howard Pape’s work is just one element of the geo-political situation in the ME both past and present. Regarding Saudi Arabia there is two points to consider. The first is the spiritual importance Muslims place on the whole land of Saudi Arabia, secondly OBL-as do many Muslim moderates- also objects to the US support of the authoritarian regime, not only in Saudi Arabia but other Arab nations.

Why some people will, and some won’t, I’ve no idea maybe someone could send him an email to ask, but then again I know many academics hate being bugged by students let alone those outside academia.

Will will why not get the support troops out of Saudi Arabia, make the air power carrier based and have the US make both sides abide by the Road Map for peace? I’m not advocating an immediate withdrawal from Iraq but a definite timetable in line with the new Iraqi army coming online. Don’t do it for the militants but in consideration of what the majority of the Muslims in the region want.

Mahmoud Tlais no price for freedom is too high as long as someone else is paying for it, nor any oppression ever worth blowing yourself up for, that is, when it is happening someplace else to someone else.

It wasn’t so long ago that the civilized West was blatantly attacking cities and civilians or soldiers going on what were virtual suicide missions. Now we do it and call it collateral damage, that is when it leaks out of an embedded-compromised- media.

Solomon, what does " .. he seems to have confined to particular classes of suicide attacks." mean? Pape 'confined' his study to all suicide bombers and they all died. What's left to classify?

This really is a very poor book. It's so called quantitative analyse defies reason and logic and its conclusions are bunk. It isn't even well written.

Pape claims to have closely examined all terrorist-suicide attacks between 1980 and 2003 ( 315 ). From his research he has claimed that nearly all the attacks were nationalist in motivation carried out to free land from "occupation" by democracies (that are susceptible to such attacks because of the power of public opinion). AQ and OBL are actually nationalist in motivation and at most use religion as a tool to demonise the "occupiers". Moreover only about half the attacks were in any way remotely connected to Islam.

Pape has identified nine conflicts that have generated 13 separate campaigns by well organised groups to lift occupations, seven of which were successful. Five were ongoing at the end of the study according to Pape.

To completely expose this book for what it is would take another book, and no doubt that's being written as we speak. Pape is an easy target. To focus briefly on just some of the book's basic flaws:

He has not included all suicide attacks despite his claim. In Nov 1997 a group of AQ trained terrorists from Al-Gama's al Islamiya butchered 58 mainly Swiss and Japanese tourists and four Egyptians mainly using knives. They made no attempt to escape and were quickly killed when the Egyptian military arrived. He omits this. Why? Could it be that it defeats his proposition that only democracies were the targets of these attacks? He omits another 14 attacks claiming they were isolated bringing his study down to 301. But nearly all of these were carried out by Islamist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. He omits even the Bali attack by JI from the Islamist list. He also excludes all attacks in Iraq claiming the groups behind the attacks are "unknown".

Pape categorises as Islam/Secular and therefore not associated with Islamist terrorism 92 attacks on Israel and counts 38 as Islamist But only a small minority of these attacks were carried out by Fatah group Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, the only non-Islamist group and that was in competition with the Islamist groups.. Pape also does not count as Islamist 14 PKK attacks on Turkey and 19 Chechen attacks on Russia.

Excluded from Pape's data are hundreds of foiled or intercepted attacks. Why? This is after all a study intended to throw light on motivation.

But perhaps the biggest distortion flows from Pape's self imposed limitation of analysing only terrorist-suicide attacks. Again why? If Islamic Jihad sends gunmen to murder in cold blood a 34 year old eight months pregnant woman in front of her four daughters and then murder the four young girls and a week earlier sends a bomber to explode in a restaurant full of kids, why would you look at the latter and disregard the former when considering the motives of Islamic Jihad?

There have been thousands of such attacks.

This is a deeply flawed book that draws conclusions from looking at a major issue through a pin-hole. It is no wonder its conclusions are utterly spurious.

C Parsons "Why do suicide bombers want to kill Iraqi workers?" You make it sound as if unemployed Iraqis are the only people being killed.

A less loaded question might have been "Why have Iraq's 'liberators' gone out of their way to hijack Iraq's economy and create massive unemployment (beginning with disbanding the army as part of Mish-mash Accomplished)?"

To anyone with their wits about them, the answer to this question is: To starve them until they get desperate enough to join the Mock Militia or the Mock Police to bring fake law and order to the Green Zone. Bush, Blair, Howard, FoxNews and Murdoch's spin is supposed to dissuade people from thinking outside the square. How come it works so wekk on you?

It's better to chew diversionary propaganda over before deciding to swallow it, CP.

Bai Ren, Australia didn’t occupy East Timor — Indonesia did. East Timor was never legitimately part of Indonesia, just as Jakarta was never part of The Netherlands. By your strange reasoning, America’s occupation of Iraq would make that a Christian country.

Geoff Pahoff, you're kidding, aren't you?
This will probably sound like rocket science, Geoff, but the most likely reason Pape omitted your 1997 mass stabbing/slashing incident from his study of suicide bombing is that it wasn't a suicide bombing.

Henky Mantophani, from the outset I will try to reassure you that I'm not pro-hegomist. I understand perfectly well why many people of the abused Middle-Eastern and West Asian world would be fed up with Western interference as outlined for example in the article referred to above. As for Indonesia, I am aware it was a country damaged during the Western induced financial 'meltdown' of 1997. So with that preamble offered, I hope you will not then be offended if I query elements of your post . Here goes.

I consider Dylane Kissane's post a good one. It would hardly do for Indonesia to see as its 'right' the colonising of a separate culture, given its own experiences over the last few centuries at the hands of foreign colonisers.

The Catholic East Timorese are surely as different from the Muslim Javanese as the majority of Indonesians have ever been from Europeans.
So surely, as Indonesia justifiably sought self determination from an alien culture, so the aspirations and rights of the East Timorese and West New Guineans should be equally respected. Don't forget, these territories were handed over to the new Indonesia of the 'fifties, at the instigation of the US, as a sop to prevent General Sukarno from siding with Russia and China.

This is hardly the substance of a moral claim to these places, if the same criteria applying to Indonesia also applies to other peoples. If East Timor had wanted to remain with Indonesia, surely the East Timorese would have voted to that effect in their referendum?

Hi Paul, the point is not the legal or moral case of Indonesia's right to sovereignty over East Timor, but Indonesian's perceptions of the matter.

Henky is wrong to say the world recognised Indonesian sovereignty over East Timor - some did, some did not. Australia was notable among Western countries in extending de jure recognition, which was done to preserve the relationship with Indonesia and to get a good deal on sea boundaries.

It is a stain on all Australian governments from Whitlam on that they supported Indonesia's takeover of East Timor.

Simon Moffitt: good points all. I too would like to see US forces out of Saudi Arabia (our support for those corrupt despots has long passed its use-by date), and both sides adhere to the Road Map. The Israelis have taken a step in the right direction in pulling out of Gaza and some West Bank settlements, and see also Sharon's speech at the UN. Good stuff, and very welcome. Now let's see how the other side responds with the ball in their court. Whether you think the Israeli withdrawal goes far enough or not (or perhaps goes too far) it certainly puts the lie to the notion that Palestinians have 'no other choice' but to commit suicide bombings.

My concern about jumping on Pape's conclusions indiscriminately is that we fall into the trap of replacing one set of simplistic formulations for another. We all need to keep thinking.

Will Howard, I regularly caution against raising the Israel/Palestine debate. It gets heated as many people refuse to see any but their own view and some resort to slurs instead of argument.

I also raised with you elsewhere the question of whether you were being naive or disingenuous over an issue. Now you post:

"... both sides adhere to the Road Map. The Israelis have taken a step in the right direction in pulling out of Gaza and some West Bank settlements ..."

You do not mention increased Israeli settlement in areas of the West Bank and other breaches of the Road Map. See above caution.

This is not the place to reignite the debate and especially if it is done in the usual selective manner.

Neil Maydom: "You make it sound as if unemployed Iraqis are the only people being killed."

Actually, the question was: "Why do suicide bombers want to kill Iraqi workers?" - so, clearly you failed to read it correctly.

But if you insist, I'll ask it a different way: "Why do suicide bombers want to kill Iraqis - whether they're employed, unemployed or otherwise? Like, you know, the 137 blokes they murdered the other day while they were standing on a line waiting for work."

That better?

Back to the original question: "Why do suicide bombers want to kill Iraqi workers?"

Marilyn Shepherd, you're close. The split started in 660 AD. The Shia/Sunni conflict began with the murder of Ali, Mohammed's cousin. Followers of Ali believed that the Caliphate should be ruled by the Prophet's closest relative; they called themselves 'Shia' (the Party). On the other hand the 'Sunni' take a more temporal, indeed secular, path and insist that the Caliphate should be chosen by the people.

C Parsons: “Why do suicide bombers want to kill Iraqi workers?"

Easy. Because they’re working to support the American occupation of their country.

CP, they want to kill potential Iraqi workers because they are Shia muslims.

That's all - only a battle since the 14th century.

The suiciders are Sunnis who Bush didn't figure on.

He didn't figure that sacking the entire Sunni army was really dumb for one good reason - they had all the bloody weapons which they are now employing on the hated Shia who dare to get ahead of themselves and think they deserve a life free of torture and persecution.

All of this was predicted by the entire world.

Yes you're right Marilyn, a couple of seminars I went to prior to Iraq or listened to predicted exactly this.

Dr Amin Sakal predicted this in a forum in Canberra with Phillip Adams.

Sometimes C Parsons, you ask the dumbest questions: "Why do suicide bombers want to kill Iraqi workers?"

Could it be, perhaps, for the same reason that US bombers want to kill Iraqi workers, or US bombers wanted to kill German workers, or US bombers wanted to kill Japanese workers, or Japanese bombers wanted to kill Australian workers, or German bombers wanted to kill British workers? Could it be that there is a war on? In this case it’s both a civil war (usually the very messiest kind of war) and, at the same time, a war of resistance against a terrorist invader. None of it can be condoned but why ask dumb questions about it?

You haven’t yet justified the murder of tens of thousands of innocent civilians by the US terrorists.

Chris S, the fundamental, and scary, reason underlying all suicide attacks is their military effectiveness. Various studies have shown that suicide bombers inflict far more damage - kill more of their targets - than other types of attackers.

This was true of the Kamikaze attacks in 1945 - and has remained true to this day.

Sometime in the 90s, the fundamentalists seized hold of this essential fact - dormant in religious tradition for some time - and you can be damn sure they are not going to let go of it anytime soon.

Unfortunately we haven't found a way of neutering this terrifying and effective terrorist tool - as yet.

There will always be enough volunteers. At any time a certain proportion of the population is considering suicide, and this is particularly true of young, poorly educated and testosterone-fuelled males.

These weak, vulnerable and emotionally confused types are easily manipulated and controlled by the ideologues, who ruthlessly, and without any form of human pity, use them for their own ends.

How can we stop it? We can't really. But we can make damn sure we stamp on the head of the snake - whenever and whereever we can.

Johan Galtung, the Dean of International Peace Research founded the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo in 1959. He worked on his first book, Gandhi's Political Ethics, while in jail as a draft resister; he has since published over fifty books and taught in universities all over the world. The present essay was given at a 1994 UNESCO conference in Barcelona on the contribution of religion to world peace and is reprinted with the kind permission of the Barcelona branch of UNESCO.

See here.

Johan says, “Every religion contains, in varying degrees, elements of the soft and the hard. For the sake of world peace, dialogue within religions and among them must strengthen the softer aspects.”

“To start with direct violence: there seem to be two factors that would predispose for aggressive violence when built into the very nucleus of the system of religious faith. First, the idea of being a Chosen People, which could instill in believers a high level of self-righteousness which, in turn, may lead to concepts of Holy War or at least Just War. But chosen people-ism, when enacted, will not necessarily take the form of direct violence. It could also take the form of withdrawal from the rest of the world simply because the Chosen People is too good for this world, the rest of the world being too barbarian to be even worthy of being attacked, penetrated, and/or dominated. Moreover, how about a possible reinterpretation of chosenness as being chosen for peace, by peaceful means? Imagine 1.25 billion Christians and/or 1 billion Muslims interpreting their special relation to the Almighty that way!”

The Collation of the willing fighting in Iraq uses it's bombs and cruise missiles to kill; the less affluent, but equally self righteous Muslims use the only weapons they have - terrorism and suicide bombers.

It is because all sides believe that they are the 'Chosen People' that the killing keeps going.

The rich use the technology; the poor use whatever they can.

We must all come to the conclusion that none of us are 'Chosen People'. All religions have potential for violence and we should be very careful of the danger they can cause.

Is there a difference between a man who flies a jet bomber to kill en masse, and does it for money - I haven't heard of any fighter pilots who do it for free - and a man who blows himself up and whose family may be paid when he does so? Very little but one is more committed to his cause than the other.

Unless we identify why people felt strongly enough to kill themsleves and others we insult everyone's intelligence by constantly proclaiming, as George Bush and John Howard do, that terrorists strike because, "they hate our values and want to destroy our style of life". What flawed and egotistical claptrap.

I lived in London through the IRA campaigns and heard three major bomb blasts that killed dozens of people including a close friend in the Harrods' bomb who died when I was on my way to meet him. The reaction then by Londoners was far more realistic than the lies and deceit trotted out by Tony Blair. They went about their lives as they did after the recent outrages but knew that the IRA was on about - British control in Northern Ireland, not 'values'.

What an insult to the entire peoples of the Middle East for Westerners to constantly infer that generations of their heritage has resulted in people who wish to destroy the values of the West. It's pretty simple to understand why dispossessed people will go out and kill themselves and others to attempt change and regain control over their destiny and homeland.

This 'values' claim has only happened in the past 20 years as Western governments, particularly the US and UK, have moved to cover the reasons they meddle in other's lives. What we should be looking at is why people in Western countries have fallen for the lies their leaders tell them and why they imagine that those in the Middle East would actually go on a suicide mission because they supposedly hate the vacuous existence in Aussie's suburbs or mid-west America.

I dont believe that suicide bombers want to kill us personally! Many just want to be taken seriously and they want to be heard and they have run out of ideas and exhausted all avenues and they have no other means of redress or having their grievances address so they resort to violence. Their reputation has been ruined, their lives have been destroyed and so they have nothing to lose.

It shouldn't surprise anybody! If you look at it from their perspective, nobody cared enough to do anything about it when their houses were bombed and their children were killed and their lifestyle destroyed, so why should they care!

I don't agree with it, but I fully understand how easy it is to get to the stage where many of our suicide bombers are at.

Michael Ekin Smyth, the reason I found this book so interesting is its very unusualness. So much of what Pape says is pretty unorthodox. Like, saying that Muslim countries are more likely to lower the rate of suicide terrorism. And to call suicide terrorists ‘altruistic’ is completely unheard of.

As I said at the beginning, Robert Pape supports risking the lives of American soldiers in order to preserve its oil interests, but not for regime change (ie the removal, on moral grounds, of odious dictators). So he’s right behind military power, and using it for sheer power. That’s one of the reasons I think he’s worth taking note of. When an explanation for a phenomenon comes along that hasn’t been published before, and that presents so many oddities, so completely different to the meaningless script Howard etc give us, I think its worth looking at.

Like you, Pape advocates stamping out the head of the snake, killing as many plotting terrorists as possible. But after that, he says some sort of withdrawal is necessary.

Chalmers Johnson (a former cold war warrior) wrote a book with similar themes about the extent of American Military bases over the world, called The Sorrows of Empire. For example, he says there are some 725 military bases the world over, and more that remain secret. Soldiers serving on these bases are exempted from the laws of the host country, under agreements made with the United States. Thus, many crimes committed by these soldiers on foreign army bases - murder, rape, criminal negligence resulting in civilian deaths - pretty much go unpunished. An example from Johnson’s book: two soldiers raped a twelve year old girl on the Japanese island of Okinawa - a US military base since the Second World War - thousands turned out to protest. Johnson himself thought 9/11 might have been committed by Japanese malcontents!

From The Sorrows of Empire:

There is one development that could conceivably stop this process of overreaching: the people could retake control of Congress, reform it along with the corrupted elections laws that have made it into a forum for special interests, turn it into a genuine assembly of democratic representatives, and cut off the supply of money to the Pentagon and the secret intelligence agencies. We have a strong civil society that could, in theory, overcome the entrenched interests of the armed forces and the military-industrial complex. At this late date, however, it is difficult to imagine how Congress, much like the Roman senate in the last days of the republic, could be brought back to life and cleansed of its endemic corruption. Failing such a reform, Nemesis, the goddess of retribution and vengeance, the punisher of pride and hubris, waits impatiently for her meeting with us.

Bob Wall posts: "I regularly caution against raising the Israel/Palestine debate. It gets heated as many people refuse to see any but their own view and some resort to slurs instead of argument."

I couldn't agree more. But it has been raised, by Mr Tlais, so here we are again.

"I also raised with you elsewhere the question of whether you were being naive or disingenuous over an issue."

Neither.

Now you post: "'... both sides adhere to the Road Map. The Israelis have taken a step in the right direction in pulling out of Gaza and some West Bank settlements ...'

"You do not mention increased Israeli settlement in areas of the West Bank and other breaches of the Road Map. See above caution.

"This is not the place to reignite the debate and especially if it is done in the usual selective manner."

I said the Israeli pullout, and Sharon's UN speech, are steps in the right direction. Are they or are they not? Yes or no. No, "yeah but..."

The efforts of the PA to assure the pullouts went without incident are also steps in the right direction. Even Hamas' cease-fire helps. Continued attempts at arms smuggling through Gaza are not (in my view) steps in the right direction, nor is the Sharon Government's announcement it would "withhold Israeli cooperation from Palestinian legislative elections in January if candidates from the militant group Hamas take part." Nor is the continued anti-Semitic and anti-Israel incitement in the Arab media and education systems.

Israeli Vice Premeir Ehud Olmert announced a freeze on settlement activity between Jerusalem and the Ma'ale Adumim bloc. Step in the 'right' direction.

Just this small sample of recent developments says both sides have made some conciliatory moves, and some antagonistic moves recently. But there is a process in place which, if it continues, will rightfully give the Palestinians their own state for the first time in history. I say again: they have options besides self-detonation.

Jolanda: "It shouldn't surprise anybody! If you look at it from their perspective, nobody cared enough to do anything about it when their houses were bombed and their children were killed and their lifestyle destroyed, so why should they care!

I don't agree with it, but I fully understand how easy it is to get to the stage where many of our suicide bombers are at."

I agree with you, but I'm afraid that so many ignorant people will take our empathy and attempt to understand as "supporting the terrorists". It's funny, or rather tragic, but when you listen to or read opinions from many pro-war people, they sound just like the people they're demonising: rabid, hate-filled, determined to lash out without care for innocent casualties. We need to somehow swamp the mindless hate message with a more nuanced, sensible, practical message - that hate begets hate and violence begets violence. No "Just War", no "do unto them what they've done unto us, only longer and harder", just to stop the cycle. How? I don't know.

Michael de Angelos: yes, the English response to the IRA bombings seems to be forgotten. But they knew well what was going on, and when negotiations led to a political solution (or beginning thereof), lo, the bombings stopped. Pity about bloody Paisley and his Orangemen, stirring it all up again.

Michael Ekin Smyth: did you know this is only the second time I've seen the name Ekin? The other one, in case you don't know, is a Hong Kong actor and singer. He chose it because it sounded like his Chinese name.

Anyway, your assumption that most suicide bombers are suicidal types to begin with is not right, at least from all that I've read. And they're generally not weak-willed or easily led. Many, possibly most, are well-educated intelligent people, who are doing it for their people, not out of a wish to die.

Will Howard: the foreign occupation predictor, alone, is not good. But Pape explicitly connects this will three other factors, and together those four cover every suicide attack he documents. The other three are, from memory: religous difference between occupiers and occupied; occupiers being a democratic state; and I think previous methods having been tried without success. If it was just based on US occupation, then there'd be around 120 countries suffering suicide attacks (the US has bases in around 120 countries).

One thing that's been missed so far in this discussion is that Pape claims that the most prolific suicide bombers are not Islamic: they are the nominally Hindu Tamil Tigers (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE). Basically secular, but from a Hindu background fighting the Buddhist government.

Mahmoud Tlais: exactly. Aerial bombing is responsible for far more deaths than any number of suicide bombings. The US, UK, and other Western powers have been bombing the bejeesus out of various countries in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and South and Central America, for decades. Millions have died. At least hundreds of thousands died under the harsh sanctions regime in Iraq.

And when Madelaine Albright, then Secretary of State in the US, was asked whether the deaths of half a million Iraqi children were too high a price to pay to discomfit Saddam, she said "I think the price is worth it". She paid no price, it was innocent children who died, and yet she didn't care. This is the country that claims they represent good, and suicide bombers represent evil. I can't see a difference, except as you point out, the US kills many more.

Surjit Wadhwa: yes, the economic occupation is as important as the military one. Notice that almost the first thing that Bremer did as Viceroy of Baghdad was to sack the army and government and to announce that all the Iraqi assets were now up for sale. 100% of profits could be taken out of the country, from companies bought at fire sale prices. In Gaza, too, the Palestinians may now be able to move freely in their tiny state, but they can't leave it without Israeli permission, they can't trade anything without Israeli permission, and their airport was destroyed by the Israeli government. Gaza, the world's largest prison. It's still an occupation, even if there are fewer soldiers.

Adam Rope: "They may have some 'support' internally from the various vicious factions caught up in the current struggle to control that poor benighted country, but it is surely more likely that the 'average' citizen just wants to get on with their own life?"

In Iraq, as in Palestine, the average citizen dearly wants to get on with their own life. Sadly, that's increasingly difficult: in Iraq, because of the civil war and lawlessness, which means that all sorts of lowlives are prowling around killing and kidnapping, and in Palestine because they are still being killed and tormented by the IDF. Notice that you get few suicide bombers setting up shop in countries that provide people with reasonable lives. Denmark, for example, hasn't produced too many. But the Middle East has been shat on, pardon my profanity, by the West, for decades (not counting previous centuries), exploited, repressed, and humiliated, so people there are more desperate, frightened, and angry.

Noelene: how could I be so churlish as to refuse such an offer? Just don't knock Chomsky: the man serves a very useful purpose in speaking truth to power, and ferrets out a great many things from declassified documents. My head goes all swimmy even just thinking of reading that stuff, much less referencing it properly. I hope never to do another literature survey in my life.

It seems strange that suicide bombers are derided as cowards and evil and monsters, while air force pilots are heroes. How is this? Pilots drop bombs on innocent people and escape without a scratch, while the suicide bombers at least have the courage of their convictions, to die with their victims. Don't get me wrong: I don't support any sort of killing of innocents, no matter who's doing it. But how can some people criticise one set of killers while praising another? Especially since the state-sanctioned killers are generating more of the home-grown sort, with each innocent civilian who dies.

The idiots are in charge of the asylum.

The 'suicide bomber' theme deserves far deeper examination than it has received here at Webdiary.

Most of the 'suicide' events are instantly dished up by the media without scrutiny of the reality and facts.

How many of these events have been examined in a judicial environment? How many of these events have been independently investigated.

One thing is certainly obvious in Israel, whenever a negative Palestinian atmosphere is convenient for Israel authorities you can always count on a 'suicide' attack.

The people killed in these events are almost always poor foreigners instead of the real cause of the Palestinian problems.

The occasional 'video' suicide confessions certainly give the appearance of a real 'suicide' activity but when highly educated young Palestinians with great prospects confound their families with a bewildering 'sacrifice' of their life my rational mind questions that we are not getting the real picture.

We know drugs can induce submissive behaviour.

The 'suicide' theme is certainly useful if you want an excuse to repress your enemies.

Perhaps the previous commentators on this topic are the victims of a very clever propaganda strategy?

In Iraq the 'suicide' claims are equally obscure with growing numbers of reports suggesting that civil strife and division is being encouraged by manipulation and staged 'suicide' killings.

Our writers here at Webdiary would serve us all better if they investigated and shed light on these urgent issues instead of the personality naval gazing induced by the Latham trivia.

Jolanda, trust me with this even if you trust me with nothing else ever again. The suicide-terrorists do want to kill you personally. And your kids.

Neil Maydom, I don't know why I bother but let's take this a small step at a time. Pape's study is limited. So limited, and it's resultant data so interpreted and categorised, that its findings have no value. But it's not so limited that it includes only suicide-terrorists who use bombs. I wasn't there thank God, but it is generally accepted by analysts of all stripes that the attack at Luxor in 1997 was suicidal.

Not rocket science at all.

Geoff Pahoff: "Jolanda, trust me with this even if you trust me with nothing else ever again. The suicide-terrorists do want to kill you personally. And your kids."

In that case, Geoff, are the Western powers that have been bombing people and homes and killing innocent civilians, are they also out to kill innocent people like us, personally - or is that different?

I have far more fear of our own Governments in relation to the wellbeing and life of my children and family, than of terrorists individually.

It doesn't matter the hand that does it, it's what pushes the hand to that point that is the key.

We are being governed by a culture of bulling, violence, aggression and a blame the victim attitude. We are on a road to destruction!

Will Howard: "I couldn't agree more. But it has been raised, by Mr Tlais, so here we are again."

And what did Mahmoud Tlais say:

"Palestinians blow themselves up in response to 35 years of Israeli occupation, Hezbollah did the same."

"On a body count level, the West do a 100 times more damage than suicide bombings. Just look at the ratio of Israel-Palestinian conflict, the death toll is 30 Palestinians for every Israeli dead."

You might argue over the ratios in the second quote but otherwise his comments were fundamentally factual and I suggest relevant to the subject of this thread.

However, you introduced:

"... and both sides adhere to the Road Map. The Israelis have taken a step in the right direction in pulling out of Gaza and some West Bank settlements, and see also Sharon's speech at the UN. Good stuff, and very welcome. Now let's see how the other side responds with the ball in their court. Whether you think the Israeli withdrawal goes far enough or not (or perhaps goes too far) it certainly puts the lie to the notion that Palestinians have 'no other choice' but to commit suicide bombings."

You infer that Israel is doing the right thing and put the onus back on the Palestinians. Many analysts would, and do, question this approach. There are questions as to whether the Sharon government is complying with the Road Map now, or even whether it has ever seriously done so.

As to Sharon himself - well quite a career he has had. 1953, 1970s in northern Sinai, "father of the settlement movement", Lebanon and West Beirut 1982, etc etc etc. Personally, I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him.

We could throw quotes back and forth ad infinitum and get nowhere.

IN another debate with Damian, you raised your 'Four Points'. At the time I felt the criteria you used were extremely narrow. As I have other matters that require my detailed attention I left it to Damian to debate you. I just gave you a hint about questions over your method. You didn't seem to notice.

Suicide bombing such as the type we are now witnessing is crime against humanity. It seeks nothing more than to kill friend and foe alike. We are seeing this happen to many innocent Iraqis day in and day out by those that claim to be their friends.

The organisiers of suicide bombings prey on the weak and simple minded for their own selfish reasons. People that undertake such tasks should feel the worlds wrath without mercy.

The world should never ever give ground to such people. Thinking people never will.

Alison Jobling, I believe that the only way to stop the cycle is with Education! Our Education system is creating this type of, "If you cant beat them join them and the me, me, me", attitude and environment.

Schools are a place where bullying is the norm and if you complain or retaliate you get the blame and are branded the problem. School is a place where children are not asked to think, only to memorise what the system wants them to believe. Where children are not respected, valued or treated as individuals and in essence a place where not to many people really care about the children as they have their own problems to deal with and they justify the neglect with the excuses of lack of funding and/or resources.

The school environment is in essence a picture of our social environment and the problems. Our children are told to “Get used to it, as it is life”. The school environment is used to desensitise children and get them used to being treated unfairly. Not every child can cope.

I have two children at home at the moment. They are to scared to attend school and the system will not put them on Distance Education, they just ignore them because they don’t want to acknowledge the situation or problem. My youngest one told the psychologist that school makes him so sad that he cries and that his bones start hurting and that he has “problems at school because he is sensitive”. My daughter said she didn’t like school because she saw the teachers as mean. She said that it was unfair that a whole class is punished because of the misbehavior of a few. She said that this annoyed her and that she took such disciplinary action personally. My daughter explained that she is bothered by loud noises at school. That the teachers screamed a lot, sometimes for no apparent reason. That boys screaming and playing loudly and roughly bothered her. She found these situations overwhelming.

They find the environment hostile, the teachers mean and aggressive, the curriculum boring and repetitive. The children noisy, boisterous and out of control. They hate it. What does the school say. They say that it's not the school, its my children's perspective and therefore it’s not the schools problem. It’s my children’s problem and my problem because we expect too much!

All over the newspapers they go on about how bullying is at epidemic proportions in schools, how the curriculum is failing the children and how children are turning to alcohol, drugs and even crime and when people complain they deny it and defame and discredit the mother and children by saying that it’s the children’s perspective and the mother just wants too much and is pushing the children.

These children then turn into adults and the cycle continues.

Society is also a place where bullying is the norm and nobody really cares about the Victim. The school scenario is what is being played out in our society, just have a look at Parliament for a while, can't you see the resemblance? There isn’t too much growing up happening.

Of course not all schools are like this but my children have tried five each, and the similarities are a worry.

Mahmoud Tlais, if we wanted to send an army of death to capital cities, Mahmoud, you would know about it. Because the place would be a graveyard. No elections, turn the place back into a police state, take all the oil revenue. And for those who truly believe what you said, then fine. If they can afford to be marginalised in the long run, good for them.

Jolanda, of course, I doubt you have at all been taken in by Geoff Pahoff’s scaremongering and ludicrous rhetoric. However, it does seem that he, himself, has been sucked in by the scaremongering tactics of the Lying Tyrant Howard. (We should all tremble with fear of the terrorist bomber and hate all those that are remotely like them!)

For the suicide bomber to want to kill you personally he would, logically, need to know you personally. Since this is clearly not the case – not to mention the fact that we are on the other side of the World – such an event is not at all likely. In fact you have a far greater chance of winning cross lotto with the next ticket you buy.

Geoff Pahoff’s illogical thinking and inability to clearly understand basic arguments is demonstrated with this nonsense: “...it is generally accepted by analysts of all stripes that the attack at Luxor in 1997 was suicidal.” This is in support of his assertion that Pape has somehow got it wrong despite the fact that Pape’s study only included deliberate suicide operations while the Luxor attack was clearly not a deliberate suicide operation – just an extremely high risk one.

High-risk attacks are not uncommon. Classic examples can be found particularly during both World Wars when all sides frequently made attacks on each other where the men involved knew they were extremely unlikely to survive. According to Pahoff’s illogic, Pape should have extended his study to include every such attack made.

C Parsons: “Why do suicide bombers want to kill Iraqi workers?"

Damian Lataan: "Could it be, perhaps, for the same reason that US bombers want to kill Iraqi workers, or US bombers wanted to kill German workers, or US bombers wanted to kill Japanese workers, or Japanese bombers wanted to kill Australian workers, or German bombers wanted to kill British workers?"

Bill Avent: "Easy. Because they’re working to support the American occupation of their country."

Marilyn Shepherd: "CP, they want to kill potential Iraqi workers because they are Shia muslims."

You will notice, this time, however reluctantly, Damian, Bill and Marilyn, begin to hint at the answer to the question “Why do suicide bombers want to kill Iraqi workers?"

And I point out that suicide bombers kill Iraqi workers far more regularly, and in much greater numbers than they ever kill the citizens of London, New York, Madrid or even the citizens of the hated 'Zionist Entity'.

It is because the suicide bombers have identifed Iraqi workers, and as Marilyn points out, the entire Shia majority population of Iraq, as the enemy.

That's why they kill them.

So why do so many Lefties in this country continue to support the Iraq 'resistance'?