# What Is The Mindset Of Suicide Bombers? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 13, 2010, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-mindset-of-suicide-bombers/546557 "2010-07-13T17:28:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-mindset-of-suicide-bombers/546557/21 "2010-07-13T21:55:06Z")
> [@](#): > > What Is The Mindset Of Suicide Bombers? God will love me for this. God will love me for this. God will love me for this. God will love me for this! GOD WILL LOV… BOOM! ---
**Author:** ![mutantmoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a87d85/32.png) [@mutantmoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mutantmoose)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-mindset-of-suicide-bombers/546557/22 "2010-07-13T23:02:25Z")
The Tamil Tigers used to hold the record although I think the Palestinians overtook them in the last intifada. Interestingly the first suicide bomber in Palestine was [Japanese](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lod_Airport_massacre). Muslims didn’t go in for it prior to that. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-mindset-of-suicide-bombers/546557/23 "2010-07-13T23:15:27Z")
Even though polygamy is legal in many muslim countries, it certainly isn’t common. So while high-status men might be able to legally marry 4 women, it almost never actually happens. High status men who want more than one woman just keep mistresses, same as in the rest of the world. While this does take eligible women out of the dating pool, legal polygamy is a non-issue. And suicide bombers aren’t the poorest of the poor, or threatened. They’re average guys. Pyschologically I believe they are the same sort as the Columbine killers–guys with a sense of grievance. If there were camps that took in potential school shooters and trained them and gave them suicide vests, we’d have a lot more of this kind of thing. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-mindset-of-suicide-bombers/546557/24 "2010-07-13T23:19:08Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Even though polygamy is legal in many muslim countries, it certainly isn’t common. So while high-status men might be able to legally marry 4 women, it almost never actually happens. Do we know this? Meaning are there any reliable statistics? (I’m not that familiar with Muslim countries so I’m genuinely curious) ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-mindset-of-suicide-bombers/546557/25 "2010-07-13T23:20:31Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > I read something that said it all has to do with Muslim culture tolerating polygamy. When some men get more than one wife, others are inevitably left with none. The suicide bombers are almost always single men who have lost in the competition over women so to them the promise of 40 (or however many it is) virgins in heaven seems like a pretty sweet deal. Plus it’s a way to redeem themselves for their perceived reproductive failure. I’m a little leery of that theory in general only because my understanding is that polygamy, while legal, is relatively uncommon in the Muslim world taken as a whole. Where it is supposedly more common, usually in more tribal societies like in Mali, you don’t see a plethora of suicide bombers being produced. Afghanistan may fit the mold with its still very tribal society, but I’d like to see hard numbers on the incidence of polygamy first. ---
**Author:** ![Yarster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/7c8e57/32.png) [@Yarster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yarster)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-mindset-of-suicide-bombers/546557/26 "2010-07-13T23:22:32Z")
O.k., I’ll buy in to the theory that your religion, combined with a skewed upbringing can make you become a suicide bomber. Perhaps they keep you sheltered from the society as a whole you plan to attack for fear you might witness something “nice” happen among your enemies that would change your mind. So what about the 9/11 guys? Even if many of the attackers had no idea they were on a one way trip when they hijacked the airlines, the guys running the show were obviously educated enough to understand and take flying lessons. I would think at some point, someone else in the classes would have said, “hey, let’s grab a fallafal and hang out” or they would have had a party of some sort when they graduated that might have changed their mind. I might ask what motivates a “sleeper cell” suicide bomber, as that has to be really tough. Even the most “impossible to get laid” Muslim suicide bomber could probably find someone on an Internet dating site if they were flexible in who they would date that would change their opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-mindset-of-suicide-bombers/546557/27 "2010-07-14T01:44:28Z")
> [@](#): > > “Hey! Want your shitty, pointless, pathetic life to mean something?” This is what I think. Terrorist organizations approach people on the fringes and convinces them that this will give their life meaning. Their death will newsworthy. They’ll be a hero. The enemy will be afraid of them. Their friends will all remember them. They’ll be somebody important even if it’s posthumously. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-mindset-of-suicide-bombers/546557/28 "2010-07-14T02:43:56Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > This is what I think. Terrorist organizations approach people on the fringes and convinces them that this will give their life meaning. Their death will newsworthy. They’ll be a hero. The enemy will be afraid of them. Their friends will all remember them. They’ll be somebody important even if it’s posthumously. If he had more of the communist true belief thing going on, and less of a need to gloat in the newscameras after the fact, I imagine Lee Harvey Oswald would have gone for that deal. ---
**Author:** ![Perciful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-mindset-of-suicide-bombers/546557/29 "2010-07-14T03:04:01Z")
This pretty much sums it up: By APARISIM GHOSH / BAGHDAD 06/28/05 “Time” - - One day soon, this somber young man plans to offer up a final prayer and then blow himself up along with as many U.S. or Iraqi soldiers as he can reach. Marwan Abu Ubeida says he has been training for months to carry out a suicide mission. He doesn’t know when or where he will be ordered to climb into a bomb-laden vehicle or strap on an explosives-filled vest but says he is eager for the moment to come. While he waits, he spends much of his time rehearsing that last prayer. “First I will ask Allah to bless my mission with a high rate of casualties among the Americans,” he says, speaking softly in a matter-of-fact monotone, as if dictating a shopping list. “Then I will ask him to purify my soul so I am fit to see him, and I will ask to see my mujahedin brothers who are already with him.” He pauses to run the list through his mind again, then resumes: “The most important thing is that he should let me kill many Americans.” ---
**Author:** ![B.Serum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/b.serum/32/14266_2.png) [@B.Serum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/B.Serum)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-mindset-of-suicide-bombers/546557/30 "2010-07-14T03:26:17Z")
There is a documentary for that: [Suicide Killers](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSwObamSagM) by Pierre Rehov. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-mindset-of-suicide-bombers/546557.md?page=1)