# Their WOMEN are blowing themselves up. They are too hard core. Give up.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-women-are-blowing-themselves-up-they-are-too-hard-core-give-up/334339
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [December 6, 2005, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-women-are-blowing-themselves-up-they-are-too-hard-core-give-up/334339 "2005-12-06T12:07:02Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2005, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-women-are-blowing-themselves-up-they-are-too-hard-core-give-up/334339/41 "2005-12-07T02:26:03Z")
So… The Japanese Kamikaze attacks were then a sign of strength, right?
Suicide bombing is a desperation move. And you could make the case that using women is actually a sign of weakness, not strength. It could mean that the terrorists are having recruiting trouble, and are having to widen their pool of candidates. Similarly, the bombing of the hotel in Jordan wasn’t done by your typical no-name bombers recruited from the ranks of the disaffected, but by people of considerable weight and prestige from Zarqawi’s group. Another possible indication that it’s getting harder to scrounge up people who want to blow themselves up for the cause.
In any event, suicide bombing is the tactic of the weak. They use suicide attacks because they cannot hope to match the U.S. or even Iraqi military in a typical conflict. The U.S. military has not lost a single engagement in the middle east at anything above platoon level since the first Gulf war. But it’s the enemy who is scary and terrifying, huh?
Democrats wonder why they are perceived as weak on defense. This board is a perfect example why. Thread after thread calling for surrender, retreat, giving up. Howard Dean says it’s impossible to win.
Democrats are in a real box now. Because as Americans they should be hoping that the Iraq war is a success. But I’ll tell you, if it is, then people are going to remember that Democrats wanted to cut and run as soon as the going got tough, and it’s going to make them unelectable to national office as long as the U.S. faces security threats.
---
### Author:  [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2005, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-women-are-blowing-themselves-up-they-are-too-hard-core-give-up/334339/42 "2005-12-07T02:28:34Z")
> [@dwalin](#):
>
> I’m betting that originally **spifflog** typed ‘alaricthegoth’ and later decided to have ‘alaric’ instead, but deleted the wrong characters.
Well, if that’s so, then “never mind.”
---
### Author:  [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2005, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-women-are-blowing-themselves-up-they-are-too-hard-core-give-up/334339/43 "2005-12-07T02:30:10Z")
So, now they send women. Why should we be more scared now? All this will do will make them seem more and more foreign to the citizen on the street. It may be true that they are hurting, if they are sending women, now.
---
### Author:  [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2005, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-women-are-blowing-themselves-up-they-are-too-hard-core-give-up/334339/44 "2005-12-07T03:22:47Z")
> [@Rune](#):
>
> I wonder if this is a new Iraqi technical innovation. Auto-blow-up-dolls. Will save you all the hassle of having to blow it up yourself.
>
> **alaricthegoth** don’t you think your handle is a bit misnamed? I don’t think Alaric would appreciate being used by a pussy.
I was reaching, (apprently with indifferent success,) fo iony.
I did in fact, judge the war catsgtrophe compromised by the looting in late april and said so at the time.
I point of fact I am pretender to the throne of Alaric I (a key word being “pretender”), by right of family consianguinity.
(which, along with $2.00 will get me on the subway)
---
### Author:  [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2005, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-women-are-blowing-themselves-up-they-are-too-hard-core-give-up/334339/45 "2005-12-07T04:29:23Z")
Where they drop-dead bombshell blondes?
---
### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2005, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-women-are-blowing-themselves-up-they-are-too-hard-core-give-up/334339/46 "2005-12-07T05:51:41Z")
> [@Johanna](#):
>
> **Alessan** , there are people here who understand Arabic. You said a very rude thing. Modesty forbids me to translate it. Don’t you think it shows a disrespect for women’s bodies? If it weren’t for that part of a woman, you wouldn’t exist in the first place.
::shrug:: It’s a common Israeli obscenity. No worse than “son-of-a-bitch”, really, and arguably kinder than “motherfucker.”
---
### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2005, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-women-are-blowing-themselves-up-they-are-too-hard-core-give-up/334339/47 "2005-12-07T06:10:13Z")
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> ::shrug:: It’s a common Israeli obscenity. No worse than “son-of-a-bitch”, really, and arguably kinder than “motherfucker.”
I got tired of people talking about this obscenity without telling me what it means. If anybody else was wondering, the Internet tells me it means something like “your sister’s pussy.”
---
### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2005, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-women-are-blowing-themselves-up-they-are-too-hard-core-give-up/334339/48 "2005-12-07T06:53:11Z")
> [@dwalin](#):
>
> I’m betting that originally **spifflog** typed ‘alaricthegoth’ and later decided to have ‘alaric’ instead, but deleted the wrong characters.
Yeah. Besides, where’s the lisp supposed to be? There is no “s” in the OP’s username.
---
### Author:  [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2005, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-women-are-blowing-themselves-up-they-are-too-hard-core-give-up/334339/49 "2005-12-07T06:55:11Z")
> [@spifflog](#):
>
> Well, alarith, I have been there, so I guess I have proven to be one of the men for the job.
EXCELLENT!!
I will watch with intererest and respect as you strap on your vest and go looking for an highly placed al-Q functionary to embrace while you blow yourself and him to hell.
---
### Author:  [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2005, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-women-are-blowing-themselves-up-they-are-too-hard-core-give-up/334339/50 "2005-12-07T07:07:30Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#):
>
> So… The Japanese Kamikaze attacks were then a sign of strength, right?
>
> Suicide bombing is a desperation move. And you could make the case that using women is actually a sign of weakness, not strength. It could mean that the terrorists are having recruiting trouble, and are having to widen their pool of candidates. Similarly, the bombing of the hotel in Jordan wasn’t done by your typical no-name bombers recruited from the ranks of the disaffected, but by people of considerable weight and prestige from Zarqawi’s group. Another possible indication that it’s getting harder to scrounge up people who want to blow themselves up for the cause.
>
> In any event, suicide bombing is the tactic of the weak. They use suicide attacks because they cannot hope to match the U.S. or even Iraqi military in a typical conflict. The U.S. military has not lost a single engagement in the middle east at anything above platoon level since the first Gulf war. But it’s the enemy who is scary and terrifying, huh?
>
> Democrats wonder why they are perceived as weak on defense. This board is a perfect example why. Thread after thread calling for surrender, retreat, giving up. Howard Dean says it’s impossible to win.
>
> Democrats are in a real box now. Because as Americans they should be hoping that the Iraq war is a success. But I’ll tell you, if it is, then people are going to remember that Democrats wanted to cut and run as soon as the going got tough, and it’s going to make them unelectable to national office as long as the U.S. faces security threats.
’
what it TRULY scary and terrifying is that in a war (v. al Q, not Iraq…) that we need badly to win, we have strategic geniuses like you applying WWII metrics to 21st century assymetrical conflicts.
You won’t even know when it’s time to “duck and cover”, but you WILL kiss your ass goodbye.
Victory is safely out of your reach, General.
May I recommend a brief bit of reading that is required for your fellow staff level officers, Martin Van Creveld’s recent analysls:
> **[Hayworth Gala Pays Respects to Alzheimer’s Victims](https://forward.com/articles/6936/hayworth-gala-pays-respects-to-alzheimer-s-victi/)**
>
> The décolletages were jaw-dropping and the masks astonishing at the October 7 “Magic of Mardi Gras” Alzheimer’s Association Rita Hayworth gala. Chaired by Muffie Potter Aston, the gala was established 18 years ago by Princess Yasmin Aga Khan in...
Instead of thumping your ignorant republican chest, try inflating the spherical chamber just above and look therein for a scrap of functioning illumination.
---
### Author:  [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2005, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-women-are-blowing-themselves-up-they-are-too-hard-core-give-up/334339/51 "2005-12-07T08:15:45Z")
> [@Revenant Threshold](#):
>
> I’m confused as to what we’re supposed to be debating, here. Could someone fill me in?
The significance, if any, of the new practice (see newsweek for further anaysis) of women suicide bombers in the Iraq conflict.
I say that sacrificing your breeding stock is fundamentally counterintuitive from an evolutionary biology standpoint, and that it therefore demonstrates an aggravated level of alienation that ought to give us pause–If we are making enemies so fierce that they will fuck off their own pussy, they are REALLY PISSED
---
### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2005, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-women-are-blowing-themselves-up-they-are-too-hard-core-give-up/334339/52 "2005-12-07T08:29:53Z")
> [@alaricthegoth](#):
>
> The significance, if any, of the new practice (see newsweek for further anaysis) of women suicide bombers in the Iraq conflict.
>
> I say that sacrificing your breeding stock is fundamentally counterintuitive from an evolutionary biology standpoint, and that it therefore demonstrates an aggravated level of alienation that ought to give us pause–If we are making enemies so fierce that they will fuck off their own pussy, they are REALLY PISSED
Blowing yourself up can’t be any less counterintuitive from that standpoint. There is no stronger impulse than self-preservation. But it’s THIS that convinces you they’re really pissed off?
---
### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2005, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-women-are-blowing-themselves-up-they-are-too-hard-core-give-up/334339/53 "2005-12-07T09:11:18Z")
> [@Ghanima](#):
>
> I disagree with you on several points here. First of all, there are no “people who send them.” They send themselves. Maybe you mean the people who help them?.
As several other posters noted, suicide bombers are mere grunts, the very bottom of the terrorist food chain. The _actual_ terrorists are the ones who recruit them, motivate them, arm them and select their targets. The bombers themselves are nothing more than guided munitions.
Let me just add that as a former and occasional soldiers, nothing is more contemptable to me than a commander who’ll send his troops out to certain death, while he sits safely at home.
> [@Ghanima](#):
>
> Second of all, I think you’ve got it totally wrong about the will to live or die. Everyone has a will to live. That’s why people climb up on their roof during a flood, or cling to a tree for the duration of a storm, or cut off their hand when it’s trapped under a rock, for example. The will to go out there and die is much harder and much more rare. That’s what makes suicide bombers so scary. These are people strong enough to negate their will to live. I don’t think they are pathetic (although I wouldn’t say I admire them, either.)
What YOU don’t understand is that by doing away with their survival instincts these people are mutilating, even crippling themselves. They’re making themselves _weaker_. It’s like you’re saying that you have the willpower to poke out both your eyes with a sharp stick. Well, great. Now you’re both strong willed AND blind. Big whoop.
How am I supposed to respect human beings who decide to make themselves less than human?
---
### Author:  [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2005, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-women-are-blowing-themselves-up-they-are-too-hard-core-give-up/334339/54 "2005-12-07T10:41:31Z")
> [@Johanna](#):
>
> **Alessan** , there are people here who understand Arabic. You said a very rude thing. Modesty forbids me to translate it. Don’t you think it shows a disrespect for women’s bodies? If it weren’t for that part of a woman, you wouldn’t exist in the first place.
>
> Kudos to you that you’re a dad helping out with childcare. I bet Israeli society is more advanced than American in this respect.
>
> Are you deliberately lisping **alaric** ’s name to imply anything? If so, I call foul. Lisping is a stereotype used to put down gays.
I thought this thread was about suicide bombing, not hijacking? 😕
---
### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2005, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-women-are-blowing-themselves-up-they-are-too-hard-core-give-up/334339/55 "2005-12-07T14:35:35Z")
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> What YOU don’t understand is that by doing away with their survival instincts these people are mutilating, even crippling themselves. They’re making themselves _weaker_. It’s like you’re saying that you have the willpower to poke out both your eyes with a sharp stick. Well, great. Now you’re both strong willed AND blind. Big whoop.
>
> How am I supposed to respect human beings who decide to make themselves less than human?
Now, it’s saying that you have the willpower to poke out YOUR ENEMIES eye with a stick at the cost of your own eyes. Yeah everyone’s blind, but how bad do you want to win?
The basic mindset I seem to hear from a lot of ex-military types is “We’re bigger, stronger and better trained!! We kick their ass in every fight!” That kind of misses the point. Terrorists and insurgents won’t stand and fight you in the way you want to fight. You may consider it cowardly and unAmerican but it works. Every car bomb or suicide attack frustrates the enemy.
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### Author:  [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2005, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-women-are-blowing-themselves-up-they-are-too-hard-core-give-up/334339/56 "2005-12-07T15:09:31Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#):
>
> …
> Democrats wonder why they are perceived as weak on defense. This board is a perfect example why.
> …
Who has mentioned ‘defense’ at all? The entire thread has concerned Iraq.
---
### Author:  [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2005, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-women-are-blowing-themselves-up-they-are-too-hard-core-give-up/334339/57 "2005-12-07T16:33:12Z")
> [@alaricthegoth](#):
>
> The significance, if any, of the new practice (see newsweek for further anaysis) of women suicide bombers in the Iraq conflict.
>
> I say that sacrificing your breeding stock is fundamentally counterintuitive from an evolutionary biology standpoint, and that it therefore demonstrates an aggravated level of alienation that ought to give us pause–If we are making enemies so fierce that they will fuck off their own pussy, they are REALLY PISSED
What the hell? Two problems here:
- When you’re as committed as these people are, do you really think they’re going to stop and think “Hmm. Actually, if we use women suicide bombers, we won’t be able to reproduce. Let’s not, eh?” That’s just…well, stupid.
- “Sacrificing your breeding stock”? Because, _of course_, the women themselves don’t want to blow themselves up, but are being _forced_ to. Yes, I agree that it’s probable that some people are forced or brainwashed into doing this kind of thing - but why can’t women as well as men be as committed to the cause? Men who blow themselves up are all evil, disgusting terrorists, but the women are just confused and forced, and don’t really want to do it? I think not. Both are likely to be as committed and certain about doing what they do.
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### Author:  [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2005, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-women-are-blowing-themselves-up-they-are-too-hard-core-give-up/334339/58 "2005-12-07T16:38:51Z")
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> What YOU don’t understand is that by doing away with their survival instincts these people are mutilating, even crippling themselves. They’re making themselves _weaker_. It’s like you’re saying that you have the willpower to poke out both your eyes with a sharp stick. Well, great. Now you’re both strong willed AND blind. Big whoop.
No, it’s like poking out both your eyes with a sharp stick and then doing the same to dozens of your enemy. They’re sacrificing themselves so that their comrades will succeed - it’s like leaping on a hand grenade to save your friends, only offensive - having the hand grenade strapped to you as you run towards the enemy, to save your friends. That’s the mentality here - I must do this, to help my ideals, my allies, my culture from the despicable West.
_fix code --g_
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### Author:  [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2005, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-women-are-blowing-themselves-up-they-are-too-hard-core-give-up/334339/59 "2005-12-07T16:39:43Z")
> [@alaricthegoth](#):
>
> I say that sacrificing your breeding stock is fundamentally counterintuitive from an evolutionary biology standpoint, and that it therefore demonstrates an aggravated level of alienation that ought to give us pause–If we are making enemies so fierce that they will fuck off their own pussy, they are REALLY PISSED
Ok…this is just silly (of course, its alaric so… 😉 ). You would have a point here (perhaps) if they were using so many women that it was seriously cutting into their birth/death statistics. But how many women do you think have been suicide bombers here? How many do you expect in the future? It would take 100’s of thousand, perhaps millions to seriously be ‘sacrificing your breeding stock’ man. To put it harshly: I doubt even if you factor in all the civilian women both we AND the insurgent kill PLUS the female suicide bombers that we are even making a dent in their population growth statistics.
-XT
---
### Author:  [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2005, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/their-women-are-blowing-themselves-up-they-are-too-hard-core-give-up/334339/60 "2005-12-07T16:39:56Z")
Whoops. Could a mod fix my coding, please?
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