University of Chicago explains how to reduce the risk of suicide bombings without gropes and feelups

[JohnyCanuck]

But either the politicians are not listening (or more likely IMHO) have their hands tied by the MISC, (Military Industrial Security Complex) preventing them from deviating from the much more profitable (for the MISC) business as usual path.

How to end suicide bombings: New book argues the problem is not Islam, but lengthy military occupations

October 4, 2010

snip

Despite a popular belief that suicide terrorism is the result of religious fanaticism, such bombings are really a calculated response to occupations by outsiders, according to research in a new book, Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It. The book examines exhaustive data on suicide attacks since 1980 in the Middle East, Chechnya, Sri Lanka and around the world.

The data show that the best way to reduce suicide bombings in Afghanistan or Iraq is not to condemn Islamic extremism, but to end foreign occupations as quickly as possible, Pape claims.

Pape’s co–author is James Feldman, a former professor of decision analysis and economics at the Air Force Institute of Technology and the School of Advanced Airpower Studies. The book is published by the University of Chicago Press.

snip

The central problem is that leaders in the United States have constructed a narrative that identified the threat as coming from Islamic extremists who hate the United States. That explanation led to the invasions, occupations and eventual efforts to establish democratic regimes, something that requires a heavy military presence, the authors explained.

“But we now have strong evidence that the narrative — that suicide terrorism is prompted by Islamic fundamentalism — is not true,” Pape said. Despite some military success, suicide terrorism has continued, Pape said.

http://news.uchicago.edu/news.php?asset_id=2118

[JackintheGreen]

1. Just a bunch of liberal America haters

from the Midwest's only bastion of East Coast elitism.

:sarcasm:

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. This is entirely too sensible an approach!

And besides, nobody can get rich off of it!

Recommended.

[SoCalDem]

3. Yep..people get a bit "upset" when outsiders show up with guns

& start telling them how to live their lives.

America has pretended to "care" about the "little people"..the oppressed people in countries all around the globe, but underneath all that "care", is a desire to get at whatever resources that country has to offer..and get it cheap.

When a country does not just "give it up", they pay the price.

It's odd too, because about the time that the UK was figuring out how occupation is not all that great, we took over and filled the void they left.

We (as a society) have claimed to want to bring the whole world up to "modern standards", but that has turned out to be not that great of a plan.

Countries that once had a balance of agrarian & urban, ended up with overcrowded cities that were not ready to support a large influx of people in a short time, and massive slums full of exceedingly poor, underskilled people who were angry about their circumstances, and too poor to even try to move back to the countryside.

When people are stressed like that, the outcome can be chaos, which only invites MORE outsiders showing up to "help".

Stressed out, hopeless people often turn to religion (fundamentalist religion) to find some comfort in their dire circumstances, and when young people (now hooked in to international media thought cell phones & tv) see how "other people live", compared to the awful lives they have...welll they get pissed off and militant.

[MisterP]

9. it's not just resources, but geopolitics and two main ideologies:

the old "mission civilatrice" (go to http://www.islamophobia-watch.com/ and count just how many 19th-century liberals and positivsts are warning us of the Primitive Barbarian Theist menace: it's a lot) and anticommunism (State Department, Pentagon, Langley, WACL, the School of the Americas, Horowitz and Mitrokhin saying that 60% of the media is Moscow-controlled). Melani McAlister's "Epic Encounters" is a nice intro to Cold War attitudes on the Middle East.

also, any and every war is profitable to war profiteers, so their PR-industry and bipartisan hirelings will push for it in the interest of seizing the public teat

[Rage for Order]

4. Then why the suicide bombings and attacks in Mumbai, Bangalore...

Spain, Bali, Pakistan....?

[DCKit]

6. The coalition of the willing? Countries with their own internal issues?

Countries that didn't stand against our illegal wars and occupations or the slaughter of civilians?

The argument for invasion and occupation would be moot if we had simply acted proactively, secured our borders (without any groping) and enforced laws that existed prior to 9/11.

But we didn't. And now we're experiencing the fallout of The Shock Doctrine and Disaster Capitalism.

[Rage for Order]

7. India and Indonesia are part of the coalition of the willing?

I don't completely disagree with the U of C paper, but to state that the only reason people want to blow us up is because of lengthy military occupations is a bit simplistic. Ending the military occupations would be a great help, but we would still need to be vigilant.

[DCKit]

8. No. I would assume they fall under "coutries with their own internal issues."

But thanks for playing.

[DailyGrind51]

5. "Cut taxes and de-regulate?" Oh, wait, that is U of C's School of Economics!