Okay, Dan, I read it. Here's what's wrong with it.

1) Are democracies uniquely subject to suicide bombing, or do we just hear more about it when it occurs in one? Saudi Arabia (democracy?) has been plagued by them for DECADES. I daresay there are/have been more in other totalitarian regimes, but the tracks are covered (assassination plotters have long used suicide tactics, for example--you could in fact, make the argument that the only NEW aspect to suicide bombing is the willingness of people to die in order than commoners might die too--a cheapening, mass marketing of a formerly niche strategy).

2) I question the logic of the "occupation" model of suicide/murder, especially when applied to Sri Lanka. It's ridiculous to honor Tamil Tiger claims of "occupation" by the Sri Lankan Govt. in such a way, especially when you consider that the most famous victim of the Tigers was an Indian Prime Minister whose troops never occupied the Tamil "homeland" in the first place. This is all really a stretch.

3) I have to say, it's almost pathetic to have academics try so hard to shift "blame" for suicide/murder from its current (I say nothing of historical) base in a specific brand of jihadi Islamic nihilism to a more generic "occupation" by outsiders which, gee what a surprise, makes the US into a prime instigator of the practice here on out. Bollocks.

I don't really understand either why Pape underlines that "democracies" are uniquely vulnerable to suicide attack. That's the kind of generalization that often runs beneath the surface of rhetoric about how suicide terrorists want to "destroy our way of life," when in fact, what Pape is saying (persuasively) is that terrorists have specific, strategic objectives. According to him, they aren't attacking democracies because they are democracies, but because they are, for instance, occupying powers. So the point about democracies' unique vulnerability seems to me like a distraction in the piece, unless I'm reading it wrong.

I get it.

All the suicide bombers in the world will stop
once the Zionist Entity ceases to exist.

Why the entire world should form an organization
dedicated to the destruction of the Zionist
entity so that it will no longer be the
cause of such horrors. ... oh ... wait ...
that is EXACTLY the purpose of the UN.

Dan, do you really wonder why no one in the
Real World pays the slightest attention to
what these academics bozos write? There
is nothing that is NEWS in this analyis.
Juan Cole has been positing the same thing
for a number of years.

Read from one source that it was NorKor that introduced the it to Arafat or some other Arab/Islamicist, not sure.

It's ridiculous to honor Tamil Tiger claims of "occupation" by the Sri Lankan Govt. in such a way, especially when you consider that the most famous victim of the Tigers was an Indian Prime Minister whose troops never occupied the Tamil "homeland" in the first place

Wrong. The Indian Prime Minister involved (Rajiv Gandhi) had sent Indian troops to Sri Lanka to enforce a peace accord between the LTTE and the Sri Lanka Government. This led to a battle between the Indian Army and the Tamil Rebels, which did end up occupying many Tamil areas (such as Jaffna) and fighting the LTTE.

The LTTE (a secular organization) used suicide bombers extensively as part of their campaign long before Islamic terror groups. Most of their activities were confined to Sri Lanka and occasionally India, so they got less coverage in the world press. There was a chilling Frontline story 2 years back on a rebel base that specialized in indoctrinating young men and women for suicide bombing. Although one difference from the likes of Hamas, was that the LTTE would generally fight a conventional guerilla battle, using sucide bombers largely for 'high value targets' rather than random civilians.

The notion that democracies are uniquely vulnerable to suicide bombers, though, is as nonsensical as the notion that democracy will stop terrorists.

Incidentally, as far as justification for Tamil Tiger tactics goes, the most hypocritical justification I can recall is that of Dave Kopel in the National Review. He (rightly) opposes suicide bombing in Israel. He supported the war in iraq. Yet he had the temerity to write a piece defending the Tamil Tigers as fighters against a oppressive government.

Is it common to make the title of one's book a reference to one's previous book?

Nonetheless, Pape's article article on the subject was fascinating. For those of you suggesting there's something inherently dihonest about Pape's findings, I'd suggest you challenge the data (and there's a lot of it). Whether or not your disagree with his analysis, they seem to flow pretty clearly from his findings.

I'd like to see more of Pape's paper/book on this before questioning his methodology (and thus his conclusions), but I'm with you srg, the op-ed would have been more effective if he had fleshed out why democracies in particular are more vulnerable.

The one thought I had is that more closed and authoritarian societies--e.g., Saudi Arabia--could impose restrictions that limit (albeit imperfectly) the recruitment and operations of suicide bombing outfits.

Also, can we get beyond citing a single counterexample to disprove an argument? Pape rightly hedges his language quite a bit ('mainly', 'far less of a connection'), and it seems as if he's just saying that, in general rather than in every instance, suicide bombings have their origins in anti-occupation struggles.

Get with the program Dan - suicide bombing is a symbol of nihilistic Islamic culture, thats it. All this searching for "root cause" is wishy-washy liberalism.

Am I the only one that finds the "even among Muslims, secular groups..." part confusing?

What we end up with is that from the partial statistics he gives in the Op-Ed, at least 60% of the suicide attacks studied were carried out by Muslims. Take out the 25% commited by the one group, Tamil Tigers, and that leaves only 15% unaccounted for (of which still more may or may not be tied to Islam). That certainly doesn't weaken my opinion of the role of Islam in provoking suicide terrorism (let alone terrorism in general). I'm also curious if he distinguishes between suicide as part of the plan, or just plan b in case the terrorist is unable to escape.

I must admit, though, if you're actually trying to excuse Islam, I can see how manipulating the data like this would seem favorable to your cause.

Let me refine my earlier comments in light of the thread. What academics DO is question the received wisdom of a particular problem, offer evidence to support the new take, try to steer discussion in new directions. The problem I see with this particular paradigm shift is that it shifts attention away from a relatively new (for Americans, at any rate), quite well-defined problem--viz., jihadi suicide murder--and redirects it toward "occupation" in such a way that the US is left, once again, holding the check. Sorry, if jihadi nihilism is not the core of the problem, how to explain 9/11? Were the twin towers "occupying" Arab lands?

Erg, you make a fair point re. the Tigers' justification for murdering Gandhi, but in the process slip up and acknowledge that Indian troops were in Sri Lanka to oversee a peace accord, not as an occupying force. In casting Indian and Sri Lankan troops both in the vague roll of "occupiers", Pape thereby becomes an apologist for the LTTE, which accepted the Indian troops but later blew up the PM (among others) for surpassing their mandate.

But of course, Pape has to shift the paradigm from "Islam's" (or Islamofascism's) relation to terrorism to the more amorphous anti-occupation/secular/religious sentiment that lets him fold completely unrelated movements into a whole. Why? He needs the Tamil Tigers to dilute the pool which would otherwise be dominated by self-confessedly religiously inspired murderers.

I wonder how the PR people for the terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere will respond to this argument? Will they tell Pape he's got it all wrong, they have nothing in common with the LTTE? Or will they proclaim him a genius for getting their motivations spot on? After all, fanatical murderers are still not quite welcome back on college campuses these days, but if you're just trying to end a territorial occupation, well...

Erg, you make a fair point re. the Tigers' justification for murdering Gandhi, but in the process slip up and acknowledge that Indian troops were in Sri Lanka to oversee a peace accord, not as an occupying force. In casting Indian and Sri Lankan troops both in the vague roll of "occupiers", Pape thereby becomes an apologist for the LTTE, which accepted the Indian troops but later blew up the PM (among others) for surpassing their mandate.

I haven't slipped up Kelli, you're the one slipping up. Whatever the original function of the Indian troops was (to oversee a peace accord), they went beyond that to (in the LTTE's eyes) becoming an occupier, and they did fight the LTTE (in a largely conventional guerilla war). They were also involved in shelling and occupying Jaffna and parts of Tamil Sri Lanka. I have no hesitation describing them as an occupying force at that point (even if the original goals were generally good).

I don't see Pape as an apologist for the LTTE, he doesn't even really mention India except once as a general recepient of terror attacks (which have been almost entirely Islamic in recent years). Furthermore, the vast majority if the LTTE's attacks were in Sri Lanka -- only a very few were in India.

I do think his thesis is wrong in one way and incomplete in another. Military occupation can lead to suicide bombers, but military occupation b y democracies are no different from others. 2ndly, there are other sources of suicide bombers as well.

He also neglects the importance of peer pressure if you will, in fostering suicide bombers. Once suicide bombing becomes seen as acceptable in a society, whether is kamikaze suicide bombers in Japan, Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka or Islamic extremists in Palestine, there is strong peer pressure to go along and join other martyrs. However, I think he does point out to that this sort of nihilism development is not unique to religious groups or Islamic groups.

I seem to recall reading about a sustained military campaign employing suicide tactics, that not only was not motivated by resistance to foreign occupation in indifference to religion but was in fact justified in the name of religion and the right to occupy foreigners' lands.

Not that much has changed between the summer of 1945 and today. "Resistance to foreign occupation" and "the desire for self-determination" are respectable motivations from the standpoint of gullible Western academics, but a sturdier foundation in needed to persuade people in large numbers to deliberately end their lives. Religion (let's be specific and say Islam. It may be theoretically possible for other religions to motivate suicide bombers, but as a practical matter Islam is what is motivating the ones we have to deal with now) or ideology (Marxism) can provide the material for such a foundation.

So can the simple tribal or ethnic hatreds that provide the fuel for so much violence of all kinds in certain parts of the world. When some Saudi Sunni tries to kill a group of Shiite Iraqi children with a car bomb, he's not just doing it because Saudis are upset that Americans are on Arab land; he's doing it because he and his people think Shiites are less than animals and deserve to be killed. Neither are Hamas bombers really interested in the details of a two-state solution for the West Bank and Gaza. What they are interested in is killing Jews. They like it. I'm sorry if this is inconvenient to Dr. Pape's efforts to humanize terrorists, but humans can after all can be pretty ugly sometimes.

Get with the program Dan - suicide bombing is a symbol of nihilistic Islamic culture, thats it. All this searching for "root cause" is wishy-washy liberalism.

If the data and history of the tactic cleary shows that secular/non-muslim groups have used it how can you sustain your claim? Additionally, understanding how suicide bombing is strategic does not mean you are trying to justify it or downplay its horror--just like understanding the blitzkrieg doesn't mean you are soft on Nazis--if you want to win (or survive) you need to know (not 'think') how your adversary is going to use their resources and deploy their tactics. If some want to take the study as an attempt to apologize for these actions that is there problem--there is useful information here, regardless of your political leaning...

bp32, your failure to recognize sarcasm is surprising.

bp32, your failure to recognize sarcasm is surprising

Yes, because with all of the ignorant nutjobs posting these days one can easily discern when someone is kidding and when someone is dead serious. Alas, I have yet to master this skill in the online world...please forgive me...

The real issue here is suicide attacks perpetrated by Muslims against (mainly) Israelis and Americans. So why are the Tamil Tigers brought into this argument at all, if not to skew the argument toward a particular conclusion? Suicide attacks in Israel and Iraq are either perpetrated, and justified, on the basis of religion, or they are not. The evidence is not to be found in some worldwide "database," but in the minds of the attackers, those who convinced them to make the attack, and those who justify it afterwards.

Anecdotally, I can't see how you can conclude that religion isn't the cause. Everyone involved with suicide attacks cites religion as a motivation. They want their God-given land back, and God wants them to kill (for the sake of killing) Israelis and Americans along the way.

Maybe all involved believe there is a strategic and political goal being furthered, but if that's the case, it's being furthered in the interest of religion.

The real issue here is suicide attacks perpetrated by Muslims against (mainly) Israelis and Americans.

Why is that the 'real issue' ? Are lives lost in Sri Lanka and India at the hands of Tamil Tigers irrelevant ?

If you're examining the aberrant psychology that leads to suicide bomings, the Tigers are relevant. The fact that this secular group used suicide bombings extensively (and indeed before ME groups_) indicates that religion is not necessarily the only motivator of suicide bombings. I do not believe this validates the larger thesis, but it is a significant data point.

Kelli, your reference to the 9/11 bombers actions may not fit Pepe's assessment. He didn't say all suicide terrorism was about occupation, just that the numbers trended that way.

And some might make the case that the 9/11 attack WAS driven by occupation. BinLaden's main beef was about the presence of westerners in the sacred lands.

I consider no lives to be "irrelevant."

My take on Pape's column was that he intended his findings to be a guide to U.S. policy in the Islamic world. He concludes by writing:

"THE Bush administration rightly intends to start turning over the responsibility for Iraq's security to the new government and systematically withdrawing American troops. But large numbers of these soldiers should not simply be sent to Iraq's neighbors, where they will continue to enrage many in the Arab world. Keeping the peace from a discreet distance seems a better way to secure our interests in the world's key oil-producing region without provoking more terrorism."

In a way, it's hard to disagree with Pape: If we weren't there, never had been there, and had no intention of going there, they wouldn't be attacking us. But since we are there, the only way to get them to stop (or lessen) attacking us is to maintain a "discreet distance."

That's fine, but the question is, why suicide attacks? I just don't see how you separate this from religion, in that part of the world. Okay, in Sri Lanka suicide attackers are motivated by Marxist-Leninist ideology. That is just as bad as being motivated by religion. But to get someone to kill him- (or her-) self requires some extremist basis, whether religious or political, and in the Middle East, it seems to me it's religion.

This strikes me as simplistic. Foreign occupation only makes sense as the primary reason when all other strategies of removing that occupation are ruled out.

The way the article reads suggests that we should expect suicide bombings to be the strategy of choice for subject populations for the past 30 or so years, and I don't think the evidence bears that out.

A better treatment of the logic of suicide bombings can be found in Barry Cooper's New Political Religions, which focuses more on the so-called "logic" of the suicide bomber, which can hardly be described as strategic.

Okay, in Sri Lanka suicide attackers are motivated by Marxist-Leninist ideology.

Minor quibble -- I believe Marxist ideology is very peripheral to the Tigers. A couple of their leaders had vague links to Marxism. The primary motivator is an aggressive Tamil nationalism. Ranks of children are trained and motivated to be suicide bombers.

I had a friend in the Indian army units that fought the Tigers in Sri Lanka in the late 1980s. He told me that it was almost impossible to take a Tiger alive, they would fight to the death or commit suicide rather than be taken prisoner. Even the so-called regular soldiers.

At least Pape provides a modern analysis, if an overly leveraged one, rather than a post-modern narrative, apologia and/or deflection. That's good for a change of pace, if little else.

All of which is not to say his statistics and more descriptive content, within the restricted time frame covered (1980 to 2003), is without value. It's the attempt to leverage his study far beyond what is merited that reflects the bluster, like one who first successfully pulls a rabbit out of his hat - yet then, to the dismay of his audience, oddly claims the rabbit is actually an elephant. "Only an intellectual ..."

Why, if the purported purpose is to explore suicide/homicide tactics as a whole (which is what his conclusions signify), would one begin with an analysis and set of statistics commencing in 1980? And why would state motivated actors (e.g., North Korea, Japan) be excluded, especially when one of his conclusions is that the tactic is used against occupation forces, i.e., those occupying one's own nation/state?

To take Japan and North Korea into account, to reflect upon two examples only, would of course deny one of his primary conclusions, since in both of those cases an occupying force is not involved, to the contrary, they represent imperialist or aggressive revanchist claims, not claims against occupying forces per se.

(Have read, without having yet been able to verify, that virtually all of the suicide/homicide attacks in Iraq, to this point, have been initiated by foreigners, not Iraqi's per se.)

A great deal more could be elaborated, contra Pape's explanatory claims, but what is striking is the obvious quality of all this. Pity poor Pape and his overly leveraged claims, it could have been a much more worthy study if he would have been more the attentive and conscientious social scientist than the Barnum and Bailey barker and salesman. Selling - a book - is seemingly but one of his interests.

Pape's article does seem surprisingly obtuse, for the reasons mentioned by others previously. In addition, his policy implications do not follow from his premises. The jihadis consider the whole world to be occupied territory--that's the whole thrust of, e.g., Qut'b's ideology. bin Laden talks openly about reestablishing the caliphate and reconquering Spain. Thus we have few places to run, absent space colonization.

In addition, Pape neglects his own "argument" about the strategic logic of suicide bombing. A strategic logic implies that people use it because it works. If, in fact, we run away from the threat of suicide bombers, then we encourage more of it. If, instead, suicide bombings lead us to up the ante and eradicate the bombers and their supporters, then the strategic logic will shift. From Reagan in 1983 through the USS Cole attack, we demonstrated weakness and fecklessness and encouraged jihadi attacks of all types. We are just beginning to reverse that twenty-year-long error.

erg:

Thanks for the comment. I don't know enough about the Sri Lankan situation to comment on it with any authority.

My point was just that a generalized conclusion regarding the motivation of suicide bombers isn't necessarily useful when considering more localized examples of it. So if the Tamil motivation is non-religious (Marxist, nationalist, whatever), that tilts the worldwide "database" away from the religious explanation and toward the "anti-occupation" one. This does not necessarily say anything, though, about the Middle Eastern motivation for suicide attacks.

And, based on my reading of the situation, M.E. attacks are inextricably tied to religion, whether certain official "sponsors" of the attacks are officially religious or secular (as claimed by Mr. Pape).

I'd be happy to stand corrected, but until that happens, I'll continue to believe that we need to be very, very concerned about the impact of radical Islam, and to believe that creation of Pape's "discreet distance" isn't enough.

Most people here neglect that suicide attacks are used because they are effective against a stronger foe. It has two aspects, cost-benefit analysis and psychology. If a sucidie attack by one combatant result in the death ten enemies, it is cost effective. And it create a psychological effect on the adversary. One often is more fearful of an opponent who is not afraid of death. But the common demoninator between all groups who used suicide attacks is extreme ruthlessness to a point of calculating life by number of death.

Most people here neglect that suicide attacks are used because they are effective against a stronger foe.

They are also effective against a weaker foe, but the stronger party in a conflict generally doesn't use them.

Suicide bombing is a loser's tactic, employed by people who do not expect to win. All they hope to do is make the other side's victory as costly as possible.

If the jihadis were winning in Iraq, suicide bombings would cease. That they are the jihadi's primary tactic is one of the clearest signs than the US is winning- and that indicates that staying the course is the best policy.

If a sucidie [sic] attack by one combatant result in the death ten enemies, it is cost effective.

Not really. If all of the estimated terrorists in Iraq blew themselves up and took ten people with them, there would still be millions of free Iraqis and no terrorists.

The calculus can only work if there is endless stream of martyrs. There isn't in Iraq, as demonstrated by the fact that a number of the recent attacks have involved people handcuffed or taped into the cars, or blackmailed by hostage-taking.

And how has it worked as a tactic for the Palestinians? Have the Tamil Tigers won? Has Al Qaeda toppled the House of Saud while I wasn't looking?

Also, I would love to see Pape's explanation as to how religion is not a root cause of the Middle East conflict. But I guess if you characterize the Martyrs' Brigades as secular, you can define away the problem pretty easily.

Karl,

The Kamikaze pilots were not religious, they were nationalist. Suicide attacks started in the Far East, not in the Middle East.

Although I take issue with many aspects of the article, I think it should be noted that it is presumptuous of Pape to assume that the default explanation of suicide bombing in the West is religious fanaticism. In fact, I think it is quite the opposite. Lee Harris articulated it best in Civilization and Its Enemies the point that we always attempt to view foreign action through the lens of our own rationale. Therefore, a typical westerner would logically conclude that a suicide bomber must be a freedom fighter, because we would only conceive of taking such drastic measures if we were in fact fighting for our freedom.

This is the line that Pape is taking, even as he sets up opposite assumption as the status quo.

Christopher Hitchens has probably the most eloquent denunciation of this point of view in his recent article in Slate Magazine: http://www.slate.com/id/2118820/

One money quote:

As for the Bin Ladenists, they have taken extraordinary pains to say, through the direct statements of Osama and of Zarqawi, that democracy is a vile heresy, a Greek fabrication, and a source of profanity. For the last several weeks, however, the Times has been opining every day that the latest hysterical murder campaign is a result of the time it has taken the newly elected Iraqi Assembly to come up with a representative government. The corollary of this mush-headed coverage must be that, if a more representative government were available in these terrible conditions (conditions supplied by the gangsters themselves), the homicide and sabotage would thereby decline. Is there a serious person in the known world who can be brought to believe such self-evident rubbish?

I suggest everyone read the entire article. For the moment, my intellectual vote goes to Hitchens.

Scott Nowers.

It is unbelievable how racist (and/or bigoted) so many of you are in the way you argue about Islam.

Did you know that the Israelis are so brutal against the Palestinians because they are Jews? That is how stupid many of you sound.

The fact is that there is a religious (ideological) aspect to many of the events in the Middle East (as with every war in any part of the world), but the fact is that situations in which people find themselves gives rise to many of the most extreme actions. Jews moved to Israel largely out of the ashes of WWII, and that helped in the formation of their identity in many ways, and that is partly the reason that they are so brutal to the Palestinians. But at the same time they actually are in a hostile environment... and other things...

The point is that when you so blind to focus on Islam as though it is in and of itself a force that creates people who are willing to kill themselves, you are obviously missing the point. It is probably the case that someone is more likely to become violent on a large scale when they have an ideology (whether Christian missionaries, marxists, uber-Americans, Soviets, Muslims, Jews, Hutu Power...) that gives that violence some meaning, making it easier to justify. But it is almost surely true that people's environmental conditions (ie. occupation or war or fear of death or poverty...) create situations were death and violence become viable options (and more then a mere ideology).

And, the obvious fact is that suicide bombs would not be used if f-16s and M1 Abrams tanks were available to be used.

I quite agree with Michael B. that Prof. Pape’s exclusion of suicide bombings sponsored by states is question begging. In addition, I am skeptical about Prof. Pape’s analysis of the suicide bombers, given his treatment of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). Prof. Pape assumes that the goals of suicide bombers in J&K are entirely congruent with those in J&K who desire secession from India.

But Prof. Pape ignores that suicide bombing in J&K was initiated and popularized by the Pakistan-based LeT, a terrorist organization dedicated to ‘liberating’ all of India, not just J&K. And their motivation is thoroughly radical Islamist—they no doubt devoutly hope their jihad ‘liberates’ J&K, but that’s purely incidental to their larger goal of creating a pan-Islamic subcontinent by force. Even now, when a greater percentage of the suicide bombers in J&K are native Kashmiri Muslims, Pakistani Islamists in the LeT make up a substantial portion of those involved in suicide bombing.

Btw, the situation in J&K underlines that Prof. Pape’s attempt to hive off state-sponsored suicide bombing is misguided. The LeT, after all, is a creature of the Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), coddled by the ISI in an attempt to bleed India to death by a ‘thousand cuts’. So I see no principled reason to exclude state-sponsored suicide bombings from the analysis.

Kumar

For that matter, the suicide is not the end that is being achieved in suicide bombs. If that were the case, there would be mass suicides all over the place (minus the bombs). The bomb part is the genuine end, and it is an act of killing the enemy in a war. If you are a weak party in a war, your expect to take casualties in high numbers. And especially in the cases where there is a massive difference in the military strengths of the parties fighting (like the USA in Iraq, or the Israelis with the Palestinians). So the question of how best to take those casualties comes up. And when you are a suicide bomber you are taking an active role in your own death, you can do it with pride as you have engaged the enemy on your own terms. When otherwise you would be dead at their (the enemy's) hands (or guns...), which obviously is more disgraceful. So it helps to have an ideology to justify these realities.

Can an Irishman offer what seems to him an obvious insight? Conor Cruise O'Brien, whose written a great deal both on Ireland and on Israel made the point, long before the rise of suicide bombing in the Mid East, that religion and nationalism are usually two words for the same thing. The IRA seems split between the devout Catholics and many militant socialist unbelievers, but both draw on the language and imagery of religion, especially in the Easter celebrations and martyrdom through hunger strikes.

Also, having read Pape's full paper, I'm surprised at the op-ed's defeatist (or Realist?) tone. His argument, as I understood it, was that the tactic of suicide bombing was a political tool and not a signal in itself of unbearable personal suffering or political irrationality.

In other words, don't feel pity or terror, just deal with the SOBs either through craven concessions, as Pape accused the Israelis of doing in the nineties or eliminating them violently.

The first use of suicide bombing in the Middle East was by the PLO in their war against Jordan in 69-70. There was no religeous, ethnic of even nationalistic aspect to that - both sides war virtually identical in those aspects.. It purely a tactic used in support of a strategic goal.

Religion is a handy tool for convincing the bombers that they're doing the "right" thing, but claiming that it is a root cause is foolish and myopic.

Suicide bombers are used to try and affect some sort of socio-political change. It's facile to call them "evil", but how exactly one can differentiate between a bomb strapped around a waist and one dropped from a plane is beyond me. Both are premeditated uses of violence designed to try and force somebody else to change their ideas. The value judgement changes based upon whether one is the bomber or the bombed, I suppose.

Have to agree with Scott Nowers that the Lee Harris and Christopher Hitchens reflections are particularly revealing, and so, perhaps, of Pape's most fundamental lapse.

...but how exactly one can differentiate between a bomb strapped around a waist and one dropped from a plane is beyond me.

Consider the target.

I think the point about nationalism being congruent with religion is well worth considering. There has to be a transcendent, eternal cause upon which to offer up one's own life (this, of course, being the salient difference between BEING the bomb and dropping one from a plane, "Bart"). In this respect Pape's original thesis still resonates--it's his application of it in an overly specific (Iraq today) instance for political (and marketing) reasons that grates on so many of us.

Reading about ecoterrorism in the US today in the Washington Post, you have to wonder if the level of anger, passion, and willingness to commit crimes (so far against property only) married to a quasi-religious "Gaia" cult will eventually push some young Americans over the edge. But I suppose we could just as the hyperventilating "sick of it" what he/she thinks of the prospect--seems to have the finger on the pulse there.

Kelli:

I disagree with the "transcendent, eternal cause" claim.

Many people partake in military action that can only be considered suicidal, even if it doesn't involve human bombs. During the Iran-Iraq war the Iranians would sometimes launch "swarming" attacks on Iraqi machine gun emplacements, with the idea that while the gunner may be able to kill hundreds of charging Iranians, sooner or later one would reach him alive, and pitchfork him. This is but one example. People have been willing to sacrifice their lives for causes since the beginning of recorded history. It can be argued that many of those causes have not been particularly transcendental, unless you consider one's committment to their "patch of land" to be so.

Allowing me to meander a little bit, it seems that it is only in the modern west (what many would call the "Decadent West"), where the popularly perceived value of one's own human life is near-infinite, where we are so shocked by the very notion of suicide bombers. For so many of us First-Worlders, today, it seems, there is no cause so great that we would be willing to give our lives, and we are stunned into disbelief that some primitive "other" would ever value anything higher than their own earthly existence.

In the parts of the world where everyday survival is a bit more of a struggle, where the negative aspects of life are little bit more serious than the cable going out or gas osting $2, dying for a cause is not generally deemed to so utterly aberrant.

Maybe the solution is to try and make those smelly foreigners as shallow and self-absorbed as us, so they wouldn't want to kill themselves out of fear of missing the next episode of "Desperate Housewives."

To me, the suicide bombing phenomenon is loaded with cultural perceptions that understandably slant analysis. I would be interested to know if there as been any said about the definition of war in relation to the suicide strategy. Americans like the straight Clauzwitz model of war. Up to now they have encountered a Maoist style which has been upsetting. The suicide bomber takes it in a different direction again; further and further from the nice Bismark model. In war, as I understand it and in the classical sense, one places one self in a venue of relative danger in order to try and over come the enemy by killing a percentage of them that renders thier cause moot. One enters the venue with a reasonable chance of living even if one loses. Is it important that this precondition has moved toward a definite self-death? Is this an important distintion and why? Is perhaps more like serial killers who are cannibals. Cannibals are seen as so much more terrifing than even more prolific non-cannibal serial killers. Yet all they are doing is doing a little cleaning up. In real terms, the more you kill the more misery you create. Eating human flesh has nothing to do with it. So it is with suicide bombers. Why is this considered a more vile strategy? Why are these people not considered warriors but ( to use a now meaningless word ) terrorists?

I don't know the answers to these questions but I do believe that all is fair in love and war. When we get excersized about the morality of one tactic over another, I think we are being persnickety.

Bart,
You confuse suicide bombing with a hideous ineffective wartime strategy. Suicide bombing is a battlefield tactic only if one accepts the terrorists' claim (echoed chillingly by exclab) that all is fair in love and war, including the slaughter of children and other non-combatants. If that is so, then George Lucas is barking up the wrong tree with this nonsense about a "dark side" and Anakin's mass murder of jedi trainees is perfectly acceptable as a tactic in an ongoing (albeit undeclared) war. In that case, guys, Mei Lai was a pretty good for US forces and what the Syrians did to Hama is a model for the rest of us.

I am sick of it certainly has an interesting slant
on how to reduce violence. Equip murderers with
F-16s and M1-Abram tanks. Boy, that'll teach
those Brutal Israelis a lesson!

I know it is sometimes difficult to find
history books. One must go to a bookstore.
Or, failing that, a Library. Not many of
either of those here in the States I guess.

In 1948 Israel was criminally attacked by
6 Arab countries in direct violation of the
Genvea Accords and Binding UN Resolutions.
Their armies were equiped with, for that
time, the equivalents of F-16s and M1 tanks.
The Israeli's were equipped with personal
weapons and the sure knowledge that if they
lost the Arabs would murder every Jewish
Man, Woman and Child in the area.

I'll give you but a single guess to determine
which side won. I'll give you hint. It
was NOT the side that was equipped with the
most sophisticated weaponry.

I"m sure you think I'm just weaving you
a tall tale. But you can verify it's
accuracy with a trip to a Library and
investing some time reading a few history
books.

Of course, it's more likely you will
get your information from CBS or Newsweek
or NPR or BBC. It's the lazy persons
way to avoid thought. And it's beloved
by those on the Left.

Why are these people not considered warriors but ( to use a now meaningless word ) terrorists?

Warriors fight other warriors and attack military targets. Terrorists target civilians and attack targets with no military value.

Re suicide bombing and foreign occupation.

If memory serves, it was the Tamils who migrated (ie invaded) Sri Lanka from southern India some time (1000 years?) ago.

So who is occupying whom?

Futher, if suicide bombing came from foreign occupation then wouldn't Puebloan Peoples be blowing themselves up in the streets of Santa Fe, or Iriquoians in New York, or Mayans in Mexico City?

Think ideology and the culture from which it springs are far more important than claims to foreign occupation.

Lancer,

Vast majority of Sri Lankan Tamils were brought over by the British in the 19th and early 20th century to work the tea plantations. They were bonded servants who chose, for the most part, to stay on after their contracts expired. Their beef with the Sinhalese majority, just for the record, centered on the govt's decision (inspired, alas by nationalism as well) to revoke the status of English as one of the official languages of the state for university and government purposes. Since educated Tamils tended to study English rather than Sinhalese, this made them virtually unemployable overnight. A gross injustice, to be sure. In truth, the more you think about the Sri Lankan case, the less sense an "occupation" paradigm begins to make.

Let me correct myself before erg gets huffy. The language is Sinhala and the year in which the law was changed to remove English was 1956.

I still believe that alls fair in L and W. One might say warriors fight other wariors and have some code of honour. I don't believe it. A quick glance at L'Mort de Artur can trash that idea. One person's warrior is another's terrorist is another's criminal. Suicide bombers only work as terror. i suspect that they are not good functional military tool. But terror also is part of war and always has been. It seems to me disengenous to agonize over capital punishment and yet have a relatively equal compuction about going to the other side of world to kill people we do not know and did us no real wrong. And kill them in enormous numbers. Because we can afford to protect our fighters, we find the low grade strategy of the suicide fighter abhorent. We expect our code of honour to be theirs, even when we know that they couldn't possibly afford it. Clearly might makes right. The person who wins the war get to decide what is right, which means there are no real rules in the actual conflict. The chechens have been learning this rule from our friends the Russians.

My understanding of the Tamils' situation in Sri Lanka is that more than anything, it was the imposition of an affirmative action policy in favor of the majority of Sinhalas that caused all this. This was something that was not popularly demanded by the Sinhala Buddhists themselves initially. It was something that Solomon Bandaranaike, a Christian himself who thought a little bit of divide and rule might make things easy for him in elections, decided to try out. This policy made it very difficult for Tamils to get a good education and jobs. After protesting peacefully for more than a few years, the Tamil agitators were crushed by Sri Lankan police. This allowed the LTTE radicals to first finish off their more peaceful fellow Tamils who wanted to negotiate a better deal. Then they embarked on a full scale civil war. All of Sri Lanka and parts of India have been harvesting the bitter fruit of this war ever since.

Suicide bombing is a loser's tactic, employed by people who do not expect to win. All they hope to do is make the other side's victory as costly as possible.

and

And how has it worked as a tactic for the Palestinians? Have the Tamil Tigers won? Has Al Qaeda toppled the House of Saud while I wasn't looking?

The Tamil Tigers do control some areas of Sri Lanka. Similarly, Hezbollah was able to drive Israel out of South Lebanon. In both cases, suicide bombings were used in conjunction with a conventional guerilla battle.

Hamas has not been successful in a military sense with suicide bombing, but then no military tactic has ever really worked against Israel. On the political level, it has helped Hamas to do well in elections (helped by the corruption of Fatah).

So suicide bombings are just one disruptive tactic . I don't they say anything much about winning or losing a war by themsleves.

Also, one more point. It takes training to build an experienced guerilla fighter. It takes almost none for a suicide bomber. All they have to do is to strap on a suicide belt or drive a car. [ The 911 hijackers did require some minimal training in flying]. EVen children can be used (the Tamil Tigers use children) as suicide bombers.

Dan,

I haven't read the full article yet, however, on first glance, calling the Al Aqsa Martyrs a secular organization is a contradiction. Al Aqsa is the mosque on the Temple Mount that is the 3rd holiest place in Islam. Although it is part of Fatah (ostenisbly a secular organization) it's suicide branch is named after an Islamic holy place. How many Christian Palestinians have joined?

A pity you can't capture the soul of a suicide bomber and read out his rationale for strapping on a bomb and killing whomever is standing or riding with him. There is something surreal about this thread. History will not read the souls of bombers, only their leadership's motives, influence and objective actions.

And the number of irrelevant juxtapositions of suiciders here is really not to be taken seriously as scholarship, as others have pointed out. Rather, it appears to me to be false promotion of the idea of a pullback of our forces to the US and leave the rest of the world, for now, to the tender(?)mercies of Muslims. For now...that is. Anyone for a good old beheading on TV tonight?

Warriors fight other warriors and attack military targets. Terrorists target civilians and attack targets with no military value.

That's a noble sounding theory, but any scant examination of history shows non-combatant populations being slaughtered in piles since about the time humans started fighting each other. Militaries restricting their targets to other militaries is the exception.

All I can say is, it's rather quaint when one side in a fight unilaterally draws up a set of rules, and then acts all outraged when the other side decides that "winning at all costs" is more important than staying inside the lines.

By the way, according to the definition in the italicized quote above, Paul Tebbits and Bomber Harris were terrorists. Furthermore, US commanders in Iraq are fond of calling guerillas who attack US forces as "Terrorists." Beginning to understand the notion of "terrorist" having become a meaningless word?

Bottom line: all is fair in love and war.

Dear Manning,

Your characterization of this thread as surreal to me seems appropriate. Where as surrealism is often accused of drawing the rational mind into chaos, it would perhaps be more accurately described as bringing chaos to the audience of the rational mind. I think war is such a desparate enterprize that people decorate it with concepts and rules that are quickly disolved in the current of conflict. But these rules maybe a way of securing some hold on the unholdable. We seem to have an appetite for violence that is difficult to grasp. Why even "All is fair in love and war" is a thin desparate attempt to see the elusive and deadly tiger, flickering through our conscousness.

With suicide bombers, I think we are dealing with something much closer to ourselves than we may imagine. This is not unprecedented. We have been here before. In fact we have seen worse quite recently.

Warriors fight other warriors and attack military targets. Terrorists target civilians and attack targets with no military value.

That's a noble sounding theory, but any scant examination of history shows non-combatant populations being slaughtered in piles since about the time humans started fighting each other. Militaries restricting their targets to other militaries is the exception.

You cannot possibly be ignorant of how the current- and I do not pretend that it has always been this way- standard of behavior arose out of the brutality of the past.

If you want to discuss these matters, by all means, let us have a discussion. If all you want to do is beat on strawmen, find someone else to do it with.

All I can say is, it's rather quaint when one side in a fight unilaterally draws up a set of rules, and then acts all outraged when the other side decides that "winning at all costs" is more important than staying inside the lines.

Indeed it is. You seem to think I am kidding, but I am absolutely serious when I say that nations or other combatants that have not become party to such things as the Geneva Conventions should not be accorded any of the protections or considerations enumerated therein.

By the way, according to the definition in the italicized quote above, Paul Tebbits and Bomber Harris were terrorists. Furthermore, US commanders in Iraq are fond of calling guerillas who attack US forces as "Terrorists." Beginning to understand the notion of "terrorist" having become a meaningless word?

What Paul Tebbits and Bomber Harris did was prior to the establishment of the current laws and customs of warfare. I am not inclined to try dead men for crimes committed ex post facto.

Bottom line: all is fair in love and war.

If the enemy will not accept any constraints on their freedom of action, why should we?

The numbers are interesting, and obvious to anyone who thought of the suicide bombing in a purely strategic manner as a weapon of assymetric warfare. It's hard to comment, with out seeing the raw data though -- and getting a better distinction on his divide of muslim groups. Also, if you wanted to get at the religious aspect, you would have to control for occupations/military-conflicts in religious countries (etc).

Dan, i think you're expecting too much to get people to deal with just the data for a moment, and ignore their idealogy-of-the-minute. Data -> policy in america anymore. Although I think the peice would have been more effective leaving Iraq implicit, rathern than explicit.

Just to speculate on why democracies are more vulnerable (need to see the data) -- probably because they are more responsive to causalities, especially civilian causalities. Especially in fairly thinly supported wars.