Chris, by "first instance" I was referring to the presumed leaders but mainly to the women I saw in that video they made, wrapped in their shrouds with bombs belted all around their bodies. There are certainly as many individual stories among the terrorist monsters as there are corpses, but it is nonsensical to think that mercenary motivation had any significant role among them. The term "suicide mercenary" is totally oxymoronic. I have tried to think empathically about *why* human beings would sacrifice their lives purely to inflict horror on innocents. The only human emotion I can imagine as sufficient is *revenge*, especially when bolstered by religious fanaticism. My revulsion at Justin's advocacy of state-administered vengeance is prompted by the moral legitimation it gives to religiously-or-politically-administered vengeance. IMHO the most valuable moral precept to be found in the whole Bible is the phrase "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord."
Shane Mage
"Mortals immortals, immortals mortals,
living their deaths, dying their lives"
Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 62
> > And in the immediate aftermath of the Beslan
>> horror--perpetrated
>> in the first instance by people carrying out
>> retribution for
>> real atrocities against their friends and
>> families--to justify
>> retributionism is to justify monstrosities. The
>> "Black Widow"
>> is the prototypical terrorist and the most sincere
> > retributionist.