What Motivates Suicide Bombers (new analysis)

[Nancy Waterman]

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050617/news_lz1e17geyer.html

Yet, despite these surface indications of trouble ahead, the administration sticks stubbornly to its underlying thesis: Suicide bombers are religious zealots who must be defeated there, lest they attack us here. The logic has not budged an inch in two years: They are crazy and brutal Islamic fundamentalists, motivated by religious beliefs that would radicalize the entire Middle East were it not for us.... According to ground-shaking analyses by two brilliant, nonideological scholars, it is our military presence in the Middle East that is every day creating the suicide bombers – and will continue to do so until we change our policies.

snip

First, he did not find the bombers to be fanatical or essentially unusual people – "Suicide terrorists' political aims, if not their methods, are often more mainstream than observers realize," ...

Second, contrary to the beliefs of this administration, religion plays a very small role in their motivations. "Rather," Pape pointed out to me when we met recently at the University of Chicago, "what nearly all suicide terrorist attacks have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland. Religion is rarely the root cause."

Third, the president's beloved idea that "regime change" and "democratization" will decrease suicide bombings and other related violence is flawed. In fact, Pape says: "An attempt to transform Muslim societies through regime change is likely to dramatically increase the threat we face. The root cause of suicide terrorism is foreign occupation and the threat that foreign military presence poses to the local community's way of life.

[ixion]

1. hmmm... how about struggling against an illegal occupation?

:shrug:

[bemildred]

2. Previous discussion:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x92979#93171

And a few posts starting here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=124&topic_id=93031&mesg_id=93184

[alcuno]

3. I heard an interview with him.

Very knowledgeable.

[Igel]

4. He has his views, which oddly comport with what he wanted to

believe before he launched his study.

Most of the suicide bombers that have left written records wind up listing what seems to be a conundrum: religious reasons tied up with ideas of oppression, injustice, and occupation. This makes no sense to a researcher whose idea of justice and territoriality is not connected with religion and community. Therefore they usually dispose of the religion portion of it.

This view is reinforced by those suicides who list no religious reason. They must all fall into the same camp, remaining within categories that make sense to modern Western thought.