Suicide Bombing Has A Lot Of Damage

Why "Suicide Bombing" Must be a Myth and What Purposes it Really Serves? After reading The Logic of Suicide Terrorism--It's the Occupation, Not the Fundamentalism by Robert Pape, the main idea that we come away with is that suicide bombers are real, very real indeed. Though we were promised a revelation of the logic, these questions remain:

If the purpose of a suicide-terrorist attack is not to die, but to kill and to inflict the maximum number of casualties on the target society, why do they die?

Attacks such as this February 2009 incident have become a seemingly common occurrence in the world. Media images of the aftermath, for all the horror they evoke, are familiar: dead bodies in the street, scores of empty slippers among pools of creeping blood, traumatized survivors wailing at the sky or simply staring in silent shock. Thirty people died in the attack. Sixty more were injured [source: Mahshud].

From a purely strategic standpoint, suicide bombings are chillingly logical. By concealing explosives on a willing carrier, a faction can smuggle death int­o densely populated areas or close to key targets. The precision of this delivery method surpasses even the most sophisticated missile guidance systems, allowing the will of a single individual to rival the technological arm of a superpower. How can anyone stop an adversary who has already forsaken everything for his or her cause?

Yet emotionally, the suicide bomber is often a hard pill to swallow. A man, woman or even a child gives up his or her life and, in doing so, drags down even more lives with them. Faced with such senseless carnage, we often write them off as brainwashed pawns and fanatical monsters.

Despite all t­he misery and death they embody, suicide bombers are merely human and, far from being the product of a particular age or religion, their roots dive deep into the annals of history.

Most people have some preconceived notion of a suicide bomber... As a religious extremist, or a young man, or maybe a very poor person. While we may never know why someone would decide to blow himself up in a suicide attack, we are starting to see more details about who becomes a suicide bomber.

Who are these suicide bombers? Study after study shows that the primary motivation of suicide bombers is neither desperation nor depression nor hopelessness. Indeed most suicide bombers are middle-class, educated and emotionally stable. Noted psychologist Dr. Irwin Mansdorf has observed, “While [suicide bombers] may feel oppressed, the stimulus for the act is nationalistic and political, not psychopathological and clinical. In the case of Islamic terror, [there is] the additional variable of becoming a shahid (martyr), with all its attendant religious rewards.”

What do they say they want? Hamas and Islamic Jihad—as well as the young men and women they recruit as human bombs—make no secret of their goals. Indeed, Hamas’ charter states that “Israel will exist . . . until Islam will obliterate it.” Make no mistake: When well-meaning Westerners speak of Israeli “occupation,” they generally refer to disputed territories in the West Bank. When Hamas and Islamic Jihad speak of occupation, they refer to all the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River—including all of present-day Israel. Even the official symbol of the Palestinian Authority depicts a map of the region in which there is no Israel.