[lbo-talk] Motives of the London bombers

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Sat Aug 6 16:30:52 PDT 2005


On Sun, 7 Aug 2005, uvj at vsnl.com wrote:


>>> I am surprised by the claim that of suicide terrorist attacks from
>>> around the world since 1980 over half have been secular. Can you say
>>> which secular causes have led to suicide attacks on this scale?
>
>> Mainly Tamil Tiger separatism in Sri Lanka.
>
> Yes, but do Tamil Tiger attacks explain over half of suicide attacks world
> over since 1980?

According to him, yes. Remember, he is counting the bombers, each of whom counts as one, not the number of victims.

Besides the Tamil Tigers, who he says invented the technique in modern times (and also famously kept suicide vials around their necks), the other main example in recent years providing a lot of bodies is the Al-Aksa Martyrs, which was largely made up of members of the PLO's Fatah faction, whose discourse, like the Tigers, derives from Marxism rather than Islam. They had a tradition of "suicide missions" going back decades, with largely the same motivation. But suicide bombing proper started after Sharon's visit to the Temple/Sanctuary in 2001, partly because they felt in competition with Islamic groups, and losing support to them, and partly because the example of the Hezbollah kicking Israel out of Lebanon the previous years was foremost in many of their minds. They felt that the intifada proved the negotiation path of Camp David was dead; so now they should return to force; and this would be their ultimate weapon that would finally make force work, that would force Israel to withdraw from the West Bank as it did from Lebanon. They not only explicitly thought of it in terms of multiplied effectiveness, this was their Achilles heel -- they went too far down this path; they overestimated how effective the tactic would be, and vastly underestimated the need for backchannel negotiation, which is always needed, but especially in their unique situation. (Israel is an extra hard nut to crack because it's the one colonizer whose colonies aren't overseas but literally next door, suburbs of their cities. It is also a militarily unique situation where the entire resevoir population can be surrounded and oppressed.)

It's hard to remember now how stunned people were by seculars turning to the technique in 2001-2002, and how effective many people thought these "poor man's atom bombs" were going to be -- before Israel reinvaded and reoccupied the West Bank. The whole chapter has largely vanished from our minds because it doesn't fit our categories.

Michael



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