At 04:06 PM 2/3/2008, james farmelant wrote:
>
>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.
>___________________________________
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