On Sun, 03 Feb 2008 14:33:01 -0600 Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> writes:
>
>
> shag wrote:
> >
> > at literature perversions http://chrisahall.com/, I saw this: "At
> > ScienceBlogs, grrrlscientist has put up a great list of the
> >
>
<http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2008/01/top_fifty_atheist_tshirt_a
nd_b.php?utm_source=mostemailed&utm_medium=link>Top
> > Fifty Atheist T-Shirt and Bumper Sticker Aphorisms, and unlike
> most lists
> > like this, it really lives up to its name. Some of my faves:
> >
> > 5. There's A REASON Why Atheists Don't Fly Planes Into Buildings
>
> False. It is fairly well established that the actual reasons for
> flying
> planes into buildings are shared by atheists and believers.
>
> Carrol
>
I suspect that a lot of readers here are going to be perplexed by Carrol's somewhat cryptic remarks. However, it is probably true that in the case of suicide bombings, the role of religion as a motivation has been overemphasized by many commentators. The University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape has presented an argument, stressing the rationality of suicide bombings in a book, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Bombing (New York: Random House, 2005). (A paper by Pape which can be found online and which summarizes his main arguments can be found at: http://danieldrezner.com/research/guest/Pape1.pdf).
I don't think that Pape is so easily refuted, since Pape offers us an analysis of what he calls the "strategic logic of suicide bombing" which enables us to predict when and where people are most likely to resort to suicide bombings as a political tactic. His analysis is based on his studies of suicide bombing in Israel/Palestine, Sri Lanka, Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey, and other countries and he concludes that suicide bombing represents a rational military strategy under conditions of asymmetric warfare. He finds that almost invariably, suicide terrorism is guided by clearly identifiable strategic goals. Suicide bombings are not mere acts of wanton cruelty, though they are certainly cruel. Nor are they acts of desperation by the dispossessed. Rather, such attacks are nearly always carefully calibrated to accomplish the political goals of nationalist groups. In other words while we may find such acts to be appalling, they are not irrational. One of the main reasons why suicide terrorism has grown in frequency over the past couple of decades is that in many cases suicide bombings have proven effective in helping their perpetrators to achieve their goals.
Pape also cautions his readers not to overemphasize the influence of religion. In his research on suicide terrorism, Pape found that many of its perpetrators are not necessarily religious at all. This has been the case with the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, who, while of Hindu origin, were avowed Marxist-Leninists who disdained religion, who nevertheless have been perpetrating suicide attacks for many years. Even in the Middle East, many suicide bombings have been perpetrated by members of secular nationalist groups rather than by Islamists. This, Pape found to be the case in Lebanon. And even in the case of Israel/Palestine, many of the Palestinian suicide bombers have come from the more secular groups like Fatah and even from the left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and not just from Islamist groups like Hamas or Islamic Jihad.
Pape views the recent waves of suicide terrorism in the Middle East as representing a strategy designed to force the West to withdraw its military from the Middle East and Central Asia. As long as the US and its allies maintain a military presence in the region, suicide terrorism will continue. He therefore recommends that the US and its allies establish bases outside the region, maintain readiness, and focus on strengthening homeland security.