Explosive laden taxicabs driven by men willing to die for their cause are a damned site cheaper and lower tech than GPS guided smart-bombs or cruise missiles, but they get the same job done.
I also agree with the thoughts shared in the last three posts, and that “desperate people will do desperate things.”
That does not, however, excuse the behavior. I don’t think it is proper to equate the Iraqi suicide/homicide bombers with those of the Palestinians. The Iraqis are targeting coalition troops, an invading force, which can hardly be described as innocents.
On the other hand, if these suicide/homicide bombers are part of a military effort (versus a popular civilian movement), then their actions are war crimes. Soldiers are not allowed to impersonate civilians while waging war.
Not that the threat of war crime trials will likely stop it…
did most of the bombing. Even in the past, I doubt if they were the most dominant user of this strategy.
What’s so hard to understand about suicide bombing? It’s an effective, PROVEN strategy! Ask the people of Beirut- they saw how one attack that killed 242 Marines got the U.S. completely out of Lebanon.
Saddam Hussein’s armies can’t beat the U.S. in any kind of conventional battle, and he knows that. On the other hand, Saddam is smart enough to realize that he doesn’t HAVE to beat the U.S. in battle. He figures that if he just hangs in there long enough and inflicts enough casualties on American forces, the U.S. troops will go home with their tails tucked between their legs, just as they did in Beirut.
If he can get an occasional fanatic to blow himself, and take a few American soldiers with him, that’s a very cost-effective strategy. All he loses is one maniac and a few pounds of plastique. The Americans lose several valuable soldiers, and are severely demoralized.
I can’t understand the mentality of the person who’d blow himself up, but I understand perfectly why Saddam would be happy to use such nut jobs.
—A most disturbing finding is that a large percentage of the Palestinian homicide bombers are well edumacated. —
I can get the anger at these people, but I’ve never gotten then “They’re HOMICIDE bombers, damnit: they kill people and calling them suicide bombers is a dirty euphamism that!!!”
I mean, we didn’t need to call Timothy McVeigh a “homicide” bomber. We already know that a “bomber” is trying to kill people. The element that’s different about the bombers in Palestine is that they are willing to blow themselves up in the process, making them much harder to stop. So what’s wrong with specifying that they are the type of bomber that uses suicide to acheive their murderous aims?
replace suicide bombers with B-52. If you still find the statement true. Congratulations you are not a hypocrite!!!
Suicide bombers target innocent human beings.
Suicide bombers target mothers.
Suicide bombers target children.
Suicide bombers target babies.
American soldiers target soldiers.
American soldiers target command and control facilities.
American soldiers target tanks.
American soldiers target weapons sites.
Also ask the Japanese Kamakazis and Palestinian suicide bombers.
It is a proven strategy against an opponent with weak resolve. Against a force that is either fighting for it’s existance (like the Israelis) or an oponent with firm resolve (like the US in WWII) it is much less effective.
Like it not, since suicide bombing has shown to be the most effective attack to be used against a highly advanced, highly trained armed force, it has attained a ghoulish glamour all all its own. msmith, you will see a lot more of those in the days ahead.
I don’t think suicide bombers necessarily have to be religious extremists. The men joining the various Islamic groups who advocate suicide bombing are probably looking for an answer to the problems of their life. I assume most have already been indoctrinated into Islam since they were children, so it seems natural that they would gravitate towards such an organization. If they do not find the answers they seek they perhaps for them death becomes their only alternative. It seems to me that all groups of people need something to hate and most of the hate is directed at a stereotype, much like the white vs. black thing that goes in the U.S. … that fact combined with unhappiness, a tolerance of violence, and promises of a better existence after death sounds like a perfect formula for a suicide bomber.
now… How can anyone say that suicide bombers aren’t courageous? You may not like what they do, but seriously… think about that statement.
The suicide bomber is able to kill some folks. But more important than that, he is able to have some political opinion enshrined in news reports over the entire world. If you are loosing a military fight, it becomes a way for the leadership to gain allies, and influence.
And, it only expends the stupidest of your rank and file membership. The smart ones are still with you, after the not very smart bombs you are using are expended. They get to speak to the cameras that will descend almost immediately to find out what makes them so dedicated. (No one seems to pay much attention to the fact that the guy speaking after the fact is not the one that was so dedicated.)
It doesn’t take all that many smart enough to be a bomb type of followers either. Five guys out of an average town are almost sure to be slightly mentally retarded, or emotionally dependent. These people are easy to influence, if you can convince them that you are a spokesman of some greater truth, like God, or Country. And they are not smart enough to detect a scam. Since they aren’t smart enough to be real combat soldiers either, it makes sense, to get them to use their death as a weapon. This argument assumes that you have no particular concern for their lives, or their well being.
Tris
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Suicide bombers are not cowards. The act may be cowardly on its’ face, but the one who carries it out, quite brave indeed.
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Kamikaze attacks are proven military tactic and strategy, they’re bloody textbook, this is nothing new.
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Palestinians aren’t using their bombs against highly trained and effective fighting forces, they’re using them against shoppers in malls and against people on buses.
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There is a world of difference between a directed and organized fighting force, with an obvious objective (regardless of the media take) and a group of ne’er-do-wells’ whose only goal is to cleanse the world of their so-called enemies.
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Using the ‘not all dogs are poodles’ rationale, I would say that Islam, of the radical fundamental stripe, is to blame for suicide bombers, and would go out on a limb to say further that this war is a crusade against it and rightly so, i believe.
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Estil, if you believe that those who drop bombs, aimed precisely at military targets, with no INTENT of harming innocent civilians, are in any way, shape, fashion or form similar to a suicide bomber who willfully targets innocent people, including women, children and elderly, then you are as daft as you are grammatically inept.
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If it were left to me (which is why it isn’t) I would border in with as much mite as I could muster, every country that harbors, funds, or condones terror, with a fence and armed guards every 100 or so feet. Box them in, and wait them out, and shoot and kill anyone that runs for the border.
Perhaps because it is an unfortunate fact that many Arab school children are brainwashed into the whole 'Israelis/Americans/The west are the devil and they kill everyone whenever they can type thing. I am not sure if this is still present in Jordan or Egypt but it is still present in Palestinian refugee camps or Saudi Arabia and etc.
Remember Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber”?
Get over the “Arab school children brainwashing” thing.
This attitude, and the reaction to it, is likely to get a lot of western citizens killed.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it so that Islam gives no guarantees of going to heaven despite living a holy life: i.e. live well and hope for the best? If this is true, than suicide bombing (which some promised would lead to heaven) would be the chance of a lifetime…literally.
Nope - Far as I know getting in to heaven is pretty much a given for righteous believers that do good ( defintion of such being variable of course ).
Except that suicide is a sin that sends you straight to hell in Islam ;). Of course whether suicide-bombing counts as suicide depends entirely on who you talk to. Some Muslims say yes, others say no.
- Tamerlane
I am surprised no one has mentioned a large, if not primary, motive behind the suicide/homicide bombers.
They will tend to push occupying troops towards shooting more civilians, and thus create politically convenient ‘atrocities’ that can be used to advantage.
If a Palestinian or Iraqi, dressed as a civilian, blows himself up and takes some of the enemy with him, all those who are aware that it happened are going to be that much more suspicious of those who present themselves as non-combatants. So if one in a hundred of those dressed in civilian clothes walking towards you with their hands up turns out to be chock-full of plastique, and he manages to kill or wound some of your buddies, you are that much more likely to shoot first and ask questions later under similar circumstances later. At which your enemies’ political bosses can have a convenient hissy fit about the murderous bastards who shoot perfectly innocent fourteen-year-old children who are surrendering peacefully.
It’s no different from putting your military targets as close to civilian installations as you can, in the hopes that your own people will be killed or maimed, so you can put them on Western TV for propaganda purposes.
Sure, waging war from behind the skirts of your women is the act of a murderous coward. Like we didn’t know that about the Iraqi military already.
Regards,
Shodan