I can see a certain, perverted logic in a Palestinan suicide bomber in Israel – decades of occupation/opression by a people that have been made out as the “other”, a separate evil race, etc., which is the cause of all of the poverty and degredation that affects you and your family. Brutal army tactics kill or injure friends and family. All leading to an anxious desperation/desire to strike out. No hope for the future, I might as well kill myself and take some of the infidel with me, leaving me a martyr and delivering me to paradise.
I don’t agree with it, but I can see the thinking behind the decision.
In Iraq, however, I don’t see it. No decades of opression. No “separate evil race” (they seem to mostly be killing Iraqi civilians these days). I can (sort of) understand a guerilla war/insurgency against the occupation forces. I can (sort of) understand IEDs aimed at the same occupation forces.
But suicide? Killing mostly other poor Iraqis? WTF?
Could be that most of the suicide bombers in Iraq aren’t Iraqis, instead they are foreigners who came to Iraq to fight the infidel crusaders. What they think they are doing when they drive explosive-laden cars into marketplaces and mosques I don’t know, but perhaps they feel killing Shia is just as good as killing Americans.
As the OP said, I can also see (sort of) where Hamas is coming from, even though I don’t agree with their methods. But the suicide bombers in Iraq–they seem to want to kill anything that moves.
The main purpose of terrorism is to prove to the populace that their government cannot protect them.
They are succeeding.
I’m wondering how many of these guys there are. What do they do when they run out? The leaders just sit around saying, “Okay, your turn.” “No, your turn.” “No, I insist, you go first.”
I agree Ethilrist that is what the leadership behind the suicide bombings wants. But is that enough to motivate a young shaheed to kill himself and several dozen bystanders? I suppose being told that the targets are all collaborators or Shia might be enough.
Except they’re attacking Iraqi civilians, not just Iraqi govenment facilities. If they were taking the claasic South American revolutionary rout and just attacking the minions of the evil running-dog imperialists, I could see where they were coming from - but why bomb a marketplace?
In that sense, they’re not unlike the Saudis (like Osama bin Laden) and other foreign nationals who headed to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. Since the 1980s, though, suicide bombing has become a much more common tactic and largely urbanized Iraq has far more targets for far more spectacular slaughter than the sparsely populated Afghanistan.
The “where do they get all that stuff” part is not hard to figure out. When the folks who ran the government and the Iraqi army fled, while the coalition forces approached, they took a lot of deadly stuff with them. Naturally, they’re unhappy about no longer being in charge. They don’t welcome their new Shiite overlords.
The old guard is unlikely to regain power any time soon. Still, they are wreaking havoc. The “why” part is a mystery to me, though. It might make some kind of sense to the insurgents, but not to me.
As Ethilrist pointed out, it’s to spread terror – the idea that folks supporting or depending on the US to safeguard them are SOL. And there’s probably some aspect of religious/ethnic rivalry going on, as Lemur866 addressed.
That’s what I suspected but I didn’t want to believe it. Actually, when I was pondering this I thought, “That can’t be right, it would be one hell of a scandal and it would be a huge topic of national debate and criticism.”
Yeah, I’ll show those Americans. I’ll kill myself and a bunch of my countrymen!! Payback shall be mine!!!
I think a better explanation is that the leaders of the insurgency (or -cies) are using these suicide bombers by “brainwashing” them with a false sense of religious and/or patriotic ferver. The leaders know exactly what they’re doing-- trying to instill fear in the populace. Ffear of cooperating in any way with the new government.
Lemur: Is there any actual evidence that most of these guys are not Iraqis? There should be some data on that somewher…
I know I saw a recent story on this. May have been NPR, which would mean I rather heard a story. They were contrasting the way suicide bombers in Palestine were celebrated (posters, keychains, honor to the families etc) with those in Iraq, who were must less honored locally and were mostly foreigners recruited from other Arab states.
I don’t recall a reference to how anyone knew this, however.
Oh, I understand the payback idea. Revenge is a powerful motivator. But if someone wronged me and I wanted to really really hurt them, my first choice would not be to kill myself. (Oooh, that’ll show 'em.)
I guess I tend to agree with the John Mace brainwashing idea; it’s just that “brainwashing” is easier in Israel among the Palestinians, where it seems that an entire culture has grown up to glorify the martyr and reward his (and, these days, her) family. In Iraq, however, I just don’t see the same cultural backdrop.
When you’ve taken everything away from a man, so he has nothing left to lose…
I dunno, the “brainwashing” excuse seems to me to be a bit of denial at work: “There’s no reason for them to hate us! We’re wholesome and right and pure of heart! The only way for them to be turned against us is if they’re brainwashed/deceived/insane!”
I haven’t seen any solid evidence for the “mostly foreign fighters” idea. I believe it is mostly spin from the US that creates this impression - see the quote from the Rand Corporation above. It appears that while there are some foreign fighters, the vast majority of insurgents are in fact Iraqi nationals. See, for example:
Faced with the overwhelming power of the American forces, and an Iraqi government that enjoys the support of the vast majority (the Shias) of Iraqis, what can the Sunni minority do?
Create chaos. Driving the ethnic communities apart and hopefully sparking civil war. By doing so, they will ‘prove’ the government is unable to govern. Chaos will (they hope) make the government/Americans so brutally that they will drive the people into the arms of the Insurgency.
I don’t see how your data necessarily relate to the topic. While it is fairly obvious that the majority of those resisting the occupation violently are Iraqis (mostly Sunnis), the point being made is that most of the suicide bombers are foreign. The two are by no means mutually exclusive.
My take is that you’ve got a bunch of Iraqis who are doing what people do when a foreign power has invaded you, namely armed insurrection, snipers, roadside bombs. Effective stuff. Reasonable loss of life. And you’re looking past the Americans towards your future competition at the same time.
Fortunately, because the invader is someone truly hated in their neck of the woods, the Iraqis get these foreigners, who they really disagree with on many counts (except for what’s important: Who is the enemy?), willing to blow themselves up with a dozen of said enemy. Seems like a good deal.
I’m of the opinion that the average suicide bomber is the result of a mixing together decades long oppression and endemic cultural brainwashing, both of which seem to be in good supply all over the region these days. Neither alone seems suffient very often.