Yeah, I don’t either. Even if I did I don’t see how one could leap to the conclusion that just because the suicide bombers were women that it was time to hang em up and get out of Dodge. Not SOLELY based on this one fact. Really this thread has become more and more incoherent IMO…not that it started off as a model of clarity.
-XT
I suppose I am the outlier–I figure that whatever options a man panhandler has for street survival, a woman’s are to a greater or lesser degree, more limited. Ergo, if 25 cents will marginally improve HIS prospects, she may need a dollar for equivalent utility.
Which, of course, goes against your own theory if you give it some thought
BTW, have you considered the possibility that the women suicide bombers might have acted without the permission or support of men? Is there information to the contrary?
A: you’re goihg to have towalk me thru it, I’m not sure what you mean.
You’ll have to walk me thru it, I’m not sure what you mean.
All I know about it is that Professor Death interview on NPR–I’ll try and track the cite down. The thrust of it was that there was a fairly high level of technical sophistication involved that seemed to cut against the lone wolf as an efficient model.
A little-known fact is the presence of a sort of feminism among the women of the Islamic fundamentalist movement in Arab countries. In their zeal, they researched early Islamic texts and found authoritative support for equality of women. It got to where some of them weren’t afraid to mouth off to the men (Arab women are feisty, I like that :)) and began running their own parallel fundie movement under the guidance of women leaders. Totally under the radar.
Do female terrorists get their quota of 72 virgins or do they spend eternity wearing a burka? Just curious.
To address the op. The key word in terrorist suicide bombers is “suicide”. It doesn’t matter whose sex organs are splattered against the wall. Cowards like Zarkowi take advantage of the same hopelessness that must prevail in any suicidal person. When you take the hopelessness out you take away the pool of candidates. As each election moves forward and social conditions improve that pool will dry up. It is happening now with Palestine and it will happen with Iraq.
Someone asked this in GQ. It should be somewhere in the first several pages, still, I think.
this is a conforting collection of platitudes, which are unfortunately not supported by the existing body of research.
I myself am profoundly shaken in my heretofore steadfast faith that sex drugs and rock’n roll would sweep all this crap away. Alas, it turns out that the 72 virgins, however much they may have seized the imagination of Jerry Falwell,Pat Robertson, and those other low-rent Elmer Gantrys, it “pool”,as it were, is not primarily fundie, nor uneducated, nor hopeless.
But it is a comforting fairy tale to tell ourselves while we sit here with our collective thumbs up our asses.