Wouldn’t the issue of taxes be considered political? And even if it isn’t politically motivated, does that make it better somehow? To me that would be more scary.
Yes, a very enlightening post.
I was commenting on how that incident fit in with toadspittle’s post on modern day suicide bombings. Actually, the political scares me more. Random nutjobs will always be with us, and you are a target more or less by accident. Political bombings tend to be bigger, deadlier, and come in swarms.
I suppose I should have made it clear that I only meant a ‘tenuous connection’ to refer to the justification for their crimes. Just trying to counter the belief that Islam is necessarily violent.
Didn’t think to look at the staff report (though I did think the wikipedia article wasn’t too bad after checking it). Probably should have linked to it first, though.
The Tigers weren’t overt Marxists during the two years I spent working on them, reading their newspapers and listening to the radio stations (and, incidentally, being on their target list). Mybe quasi-Marxist in their beliefs, but I think the fanatacism triumphs this. I got to see several suicide vests and meet one of the people who had volunteered for the squad, and believe me, that ideology and mindset was not unique to Islam, this lady was just so convinced that her cause was right that she was willing to strap on 15 pounds of plastic explosive in sheets backed with ball bearings and pull a trigger.
My understanding (and Neurotik hit on this earlier) is that within the Islamic world at the moment, it’s currently more fashionable to refer to “martyr bombers” than suicide bombers. Clearly, it’s a cultural thing - and it’s also determined by which side of the equation you’re sitting on too.
Apparently, “martyr bombers” - particularly those who are influenced by Hezbollah, and by extension Iran, draw their current inspiration from a 13 year old Iranian boy who sacrificed himself by carrying a bomb towards an Iraqi tank in the earliest days of the Iran-Iraq War back in 1981. Considering the Islamic Revolution taking place in Iran at the time, his death as a martyr elevated him to instant cult status.
But as Neurotik noted, in particular, the martyr bomber became an incredibly efficient smart bomber. After the Israeli occupation of Lebanon in 1982, Hezbollah was formed with Iran’s backing (and whilst nominally secular) they quickly implemented martyr bombers as a means of breaking Israel’s will. Other soft targets soon followed - including the infamous 1983 Beirut US Marine Barracks bombing. Apparently the truck which pulled off that maneouvre carried 12,000 pounds of TNT and was the single biggest bomb ever exploded since World War Two.
Interestingly, no one ever claimed responsibility for the US Marine Barracks bombing. But Hezbollah threw literally hundreds of martyr bombers at the Israelis until they finally pulled out of Lebanon in 2000. They used to do stuff like drive past Israeli troop trucks in clapped out old cars and then pull the trigger. Amazingly effective. The Israeli’s simply lost the capacity to function.
My advice to those who would like to end suicide bombers would be to invent an x-ray of some sort which can detect explosive ordnance from a safe distance. Otherwise, they’ll continue to have the upper hand within the parameters of their given field of operations.
Did Pape explain why he chose to use 1980 as a starting date. As others have pointed out, the Kamikazes of WWII are certainly suicide bombers by most reasonable definitions. Were there other groups using suicide bombers between 1945 and 1980?
Indeed I’m not. As bonzer points out, a lot of non-Nizari Muslim sources did regard the Isma’ilis as heretical. There are a number of reasons behind this, not least because the Isma’ilis were (are) a rather secretive sect, who have only recently began to feel comfortable enough to openly discuss their spiritualistic interpretation of Islam. This means that a lot of Isma’ili literature was not available to contemporary commentators, and has again, until rather recently, remained in private hands. Many contemporary accounts therefore, came from those who were actively trying to discredit the Isma’ilis, and calling them heretics was a good way in which to do that.
I can forgive you that…
At a price… 
I think you are right - the yanks did invent it
http://www.robokopp.de/images/dr_strangelove/dr_strangelove_08.jpg - from Dr strangelove
You had them? So you were V.C.?