Experts: Suicide Bombers Not Crazy

[bemildred]

MSM gets a clue. I don't expect the government is going to like this line of thought though.

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However, some experts — including people who are advising the U.S. government on terrorism — said not only are suicide bombers sane, but also that anyone of us, under the right circumstances, could become one.

"Absolutely, this is normal psychology, normal group dynamics," said Clark R. McCauley, a Bryn Mawr College psychology professor who is part of an outside team consulting for the Department of Homeland Security.

"Normal people, given the right circumstances or right set of friends, can become suicide bombers," said Marc Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist and former CIA officer.

"None of the suicide bombers would be put in a mental asylum on the order of the district psychiatrist," said Ariel Merari, one of the leading Israeli experts on suicide bombers, who has interviewed dozens of attackers captured before they could kill.

ABC

[fooj]

1. IMO, they are FAR from crazy...

Peace.

[K-W]

2. Duh. EOM

[etherealtruth]

3. I 2nd that DUH

[Jack Rabbit]

4. It really doesn't say very much

Normal people, given the right set of circumstances, can also become accessories to mass murder in the role of administrators. I remain haunted by Hannah Arendt's view of Eichmann as banal, mediocre sort who oversaw the Final Solution with the same dispassion he would have had requisitioning office supplies.

As pointed out in the article, the suicide bomber is less akin to a bureaucrat that to a foot soldier or bomber pilot on particularly dangerous mission. Still, that doesn't quite do it. An ordinary combat soldier may realize when he gets up in the morning that the day may be his last, but again goes forward in the hope that he will be spared. One who is posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor usually makes a spur-of-the-moment decision in a desperate situation to sacrifice his life, not one that takes hours or days of preparation for certain death which he can back out of at any moment. Even the analogy to a kamikaze pilot doesn't seem to fit. The Japanese kamikaze came from a culture that validated ritual suicide. The Islamic jihadi comes from a culture that explicitly condemns all suicide. We call it suicide bombing; they call it martyrdom. It takes a bit of rhetorical acrobatics to justify the act of strapping explosives to one's torso and voluntarily detonating them as something other than suicide.

"Part of the power of suicide bombing is the impact of martyrdom," McCauley said. "Once it's somebody that you know and somebody that you care about that has taken his or her life in this fashion, that has made the sacrifice, then there is a kind of a guilt associated with doing less than they were willing to do."

This sounds like the product of mass hysteria. Heretofore, terrorists planted time bombs in cafes or other public places by hiding them in purses, parcels or parked cars and leaving the scene before the explosion. The well-trained bomber lived to bomb again, just like a good conventional soldier who survived a day of combat. That sounds grotesque and, for my part, I regard any willful targeting of civilians as a war crime. Still, from the point of view of a military organization, it makes more sense to preserve a soldier than to expend one every time there is a mission.

[bemildred]

5. A couple things:

1.) Evil, like the Buddha nature, lives in us all, and we were better served to admit it, as most great religious leaders do. There is nothing like a good bout of righteous indignation to set the four horses free.

2.) Hate is a wonderful motivator, just the thing to get somebody worked up for some mindless killing, which is why people who stir up hate, who set the headless monster loose, are such fools.

3.) There is far too much fuss about suicide, it's a perfectly reasonable option in various situations, and it's been resorted to throughout history in all sorts of cultures (let me just mention Socrates here) for all sorts of reasons. We are ephemeral beings, and throughout most of history and in most places this has been well recognized, and people have always acted accordingly and cut their losses when the time came.

4.) "Suicide bombing" is just a new technology, not very hi-tech mind you, but very effective and extremely cheap. It's spreading, and if one wants to stop the spread one will have to remove the contitions that make it an attractive weapon.

[Jack Rabbit]

6. Response

1. No argument. (Mu!)

2. No argument.

3. Nevertheless, here we see suicidal behavior being sanctioned by a culture that condemns suicide as contrary to the laws of God. Moreover, even a heinous act of terrorism can be carried out in a way that does not require the terrorist to take his own life.

4. The cost of suicide bombing is not at all cheap; it takes time to train a soldier for a mission. The method of attack assures that the training of one soldier will be expended on one and only one mission. That doesn't sound like an efficient use of resources to me.

Nevertheless, you are correct in stating that the west would be wise to remove the conditions that make it an attractive weapon. That won't guarantee that it will stop, but it could only help.

[K-W]

7. Why would they do it if it wasnt worthwhile?

You are basically arguing that suicide bombing is pointless. Now you could be right, but I am quite skeptical, it seems to me that the people on the ground know what does and doesnt work better than you do. Suicide bombing isnt an isolated thing and has spread through multiple religions and cultures, it does seem to serve a purpose logistically.

[Jack Rabbit]

8. Response

Many years of suicide bombings by militant organizations brought the Palestinians nothing except retaliation from Israel. We have a special forum at DU to discuss the rights and wrongs of that, so let's not get any deeper than that here.

What finally brought whatever concessions (for want of a better word) they are getting in the form of a withdrawal from Gaza has been Sharon's realiZation that the demographic time bomb is real and that it is ticking; a state that is at once Jewish and democratic cannot exist on land extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea where soon a majority of the population will be Arabs, if that is not already the case.

There will be a Palestinian state not because of suicide bombings but because it suits the Israelis as well as the Palestinians to bring one into existence.

Suicide bombings in Iraq are currently having little effect because Iraq is not really a sovereign state. No sovereign state features a government that needs foreign troops to remain in power; that's an oxymoron. Bush and the neocons don't give two bits if Sunni Arab Iraqis kill Shia Iraqis as long as the petroleum is sold to western transnational oil corporations.

If foreign troops quit Iraq in the near future, that dynamic will change. However, Bush will not be driven out by suicide bombings in Iraq but by his poll numbers bombing at home.

So, yes, I am arguing that suicide bombings are pointless. Whatever point they do make can be made more efficiently by other means.

[K-W]

9. You arent really addressing my point.

You are making the case that violent resistance isnt pragmatic, which is a different issue, and one on which we agree.

What I was arguing is that the abundency of suicide bombing indicates to me that for those people who have chosen violent resisitance suicide bombing must be pragmatic.

[Jack Rabbit]

10. That assumes that these people are pragmatists

I don't think they are. I think they're religious fanatics. This is an expression of rage, not a search for a practical solution to a problem. There's really nothing political about these people. Politics implies that one must reach an understanding with the enemy. These people don't appear to want an understanding with anybody they regard as a foe of God, and therefore of them.

They believe the outcome is in God's hands. They see no need to find a practical solution to accommodate all parties (which would be the hallmark of a pragmatist). In this respect, they are no different from many Israeli settlers, a good many Iranian mullahs and much of Mr. Bush's political base.

[K-W]

11. No it doesnt.

It simply means that there is some pragmatism in all human behavior, even the most fanatical.

Your theory, that they are just crazy and do crazy things is silly.

Right, they chose violence, why do you keep bringing this up. Yes, they have chosen violence, which is the wrong choice, but to them it is the right choice. The fact that they choose violence does not mean that when they exercise that violence they wont attempt to find methods of violence that work.

You are confusing pragmatism with critical thinking. These people arent thinking critically but are within thier poor reasoning pragmatic. If there was obviously a better way to bomb people dont you think one of them might try it at some point and others might see it work and do it too.

[Jack Rabbit]

12. Response

They believe they are on the side of God. By killing their enemies, they believe they are killing the enemies of God. In that respect, they believe that they are achieving something worthwhile.

If you want to call that pragmatic, go ahead. I wouldn't.

[K-W]

15. We arent discussing thier theology or thier choices re violence.

We are discussing whether or not, once they have decided that violence is neccessary and that thier god approves of it, they would choose the most effective option of violence available to them.

I dont see why you cant stick to that issue. And if you are arguing that because they choose violence and justify it with theology they cannot be pragmatic in any other way, you are arguing a rediculous point.

[Jack Rabbit]

16. The point you are trying to make is one I reject

I also refer to your post no. 14.

Algerian patriots adopted terrorism, but not suicide bombing, in their war of independence against France. This proved quite effective for them.

To concede your point, somebody may very well think this is the most effective means to an end. For my part, I have serious doubts that it is.

[1democracy]

13. Do you think

that if they could kill the same number of people without killing themselves they would do it? Is the suicide part integral to the mission?

[K-W]

14. Exactly my point.

I think that if there were an easy, obvious and better way to do it, they would do it that way.

[frankieT]

18. i agree with you

"usual" terrorism (planting a bomb in public places) is too risky for military weak organizations : the bomb can be discovered and intercepted by security forces, and the carrier intercepted and interrogated. palestinians are weak in this perspective, just look at the hyped shitty kassam rockets they used or their inability to conduct military operations (Jenine), they were just firing inaccurately their AK47s at tanks. it was more of a show of resistance than actual effective resistance. i think they adopted the suicide bombing technique for pragmatic reasons: it is almost unpreventable and politically it shows everybody how resolved (or desperate) they are. after this operational choice, they twisted the highly powerful image of the martyr in islam to fit their plans. algerians nationalists spoke also of martyrs referring to their human losses, but they were engaged in a broad classic guerrilla in mountains mostly. if palestinians had access to more sophisticated weapons (high explosives, rpg, mortars, mines...) they would abandon certainly the martyrdom technique.
i think the same calculations are at work in iraq: initiating close combat operations against US forces will result in the loss of one or more of their combatants with no obvious chances of killing US soldiers. that's why they attack mainly from distance (mortars, IED) or use suicide missions for close combat. there are of course many cases of "classical" battles but they do that only if they have high numerical superiority or if they're trapped (Fallujah).
once they integrated the fact that their enemy is too strong to be attacked in a classical way without sustaining heavy losses, it is totally rational for them to "waste" a soldier in a suicide mission if they want to inflict immediate damage to the enemy.

[bemildred]

19. Mu.

3. Nevertheless, here we see suicidal behavior being sanctioned by a culture that condemns suicide as contrary to the laws of God. Moreover, even a heinous act of terrorism can be carried out in a way that does not require the terrorist to take his own life.

Which merely indicates, correctly as I think, that culture is not a useful indicator, not the relevant factor.

FWIW, I think suicide bombing is a very effective way to express rage, and this must not be discounted, and that in sufficiently extreme mental states the suicidal nature of the act is seen as a positive feature, the notion of wanting to take some of the bastards with you is not unusual at all, and when one reaches such a state one is already far outside the realm of dispassionate reason and discourse.

4. The cost of suicide bombing is not at all cheap; it takes time to train a soldier for a mission. The method of attack assures that the training of one soldier will be expended on one and only one mission. That doesn't sound like an efficient use of resources to me.

Cheap is a relative notion, an opinion. One might as well say "accessible" to the technically disadvantaged. It is worth adding that suicidal missions are common from antiquity in military affairs, in politics, and in religion. Lacking access to modern weapons, one may still with determination and modest resources construct the means to retaliate with some effect.

I would like to add that I do agree with your assertion about the heinous moral nature of these acts, as I am sure you know, but I do not think that that buys you much, since these sort of acts do not commonly arise in situations where reason, order, and equity are not already absent.

[Dirk39]

17. Let me comment on some suicide bombers:

Hello from Germany!

For many years now, the Bush administration refuses to do anything about Global Warming. They did not sign Kyoto. They pay would-be scientists to play it down. At the same time, the Pentagon is spending billions of dollars to prepare for the wars to come as a result off global warming.
They expect millions of refugees to escape catastrophic situations and they prepare to kill these people in order to let the U.S. Empire survive.
I would like to see some psycholgists and the media discussing every single day the mental-state of these people.

"Normal people, given the right circumstances or right set of friends, can become suicide bombers,"

Maybe, but would they become Bushes and Cheneys, too?

Help me,
Dirk

[bemildred]

20. Yes, although on the dumb side, the moral vacuum they represent

is not unusual at all.

[GoBlue]

21. Guess it depends on what you define as 'crazy' or 'normal' or 'insane'

but IMO these so called experts are being irrational.