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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (157910)	2/10/2005 9:55:42 AM
From: GST	Respond to of 281500

<it ideology that drives him, not just poverty> Yes, I agree. The question is who is most vulnerable to adopting an ideology that includes suicide. The answer seems to be twofold: Those who are inclined to believe, despite their worldly privileges and perhaps even because of them, and those who believe because they have none. I see no reason to deny that this is the deadly combination of human situations that combines to create the explosion of terrorism.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (157910)	2/10/2005 4:05:56 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Nadine Carroll; Re: "If a man is willing to kill himself for the cause, it ideology that drives him, not just poverty. The poor may take chances, but even for the poorest, the money does you no good if you are dead. It is the combination of religion, ideology, honor and money for the family that is needed to do the trick in suicide bomber recruitment." Suicidal attacks, straight out suicide, and worse, is not uncommon among people who feel that they are enslaved, or about to be enslaved. This is what I believe is the primary motivation for the (relative) ease with which the terrorists recruit suicide bombers. All sides in the Middle East do this sort of thing, from time to time. -- Carl P.S. By the way, at Masada, did EVERYONE willingly kill themselves, or did a few of them have to be, like so many at Jonestown, well, ummmm, ah, "convinced"? This question gets raised in Buchanan's new book. As it turns out, the fanatics arranged for the men to first kill their families. Hey, if you want the Palestinians to be far more successful at recruiting suicide bombers, I suggest you tempt them with alternatives that are more similar to the brutality that the Romans could dish out. In the absence of that kind of motivation, I expect that the Palestinians will continue to have a fairly small supply of suicide bombers. My point here is that the ability to motivate humans to commit crimes (i.e. murder their family) and then commit suicide is hardly unique to the present situation. For those who are interested in the history, here are the two mass suicides, Jonestown and Masada: religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu mfa.gov.il Also see juxtapositions such as: sociology.huji.ac.il jewishvirtuallibrary.org