So is it being part of the group or the virgins awaiting them? BTW, with all the suicide bombings going on, hasn’t heaven run out of virgins yet?
Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber
Suicide bombers are not mentally ill or unhinged, but acting rationally in pursuit of the ‘benefits’ they perceive from being part of a strict and close-knit religious enterprise, according to a University of Nottingham academic.
Research by Dr David Stevens, of the School of Politics and International Relations, suggests that the widely-held view of suicide bombers as brain-washed religious fanatics, vulnerable through youth and poverty, is not an accurate one.
Dr Stevens argues that while religion plays a central role — there are few instances of non-religiously motivated suicide attacks — the suicide bomber is also driven on another level by a rational thought process. This is the desire to be part of a group that engenders strength and solidarity from strictness, and encourages members to submit totally to the collective aims of the group.
Being part of an exclusive group with very strict beliefs requires intense commitment, and engenders a deep belief in shared experience and self-sacrifice, according to a recent paper by Dr Stevens.
Suicide bombers are thus motivated by a “simple cost-benefit analysis”, in which the ‘benefits’ of self-destruction outweigh the cost. The benefits are perceived by the terrorist to be so great — in terms of membership of the group, achievement of collective goals, the promise of benefits in the after-life, and so on — that they outweigh the cost.
Yapp – – just another form of patriotism, team sports, religiousity, lower half of the intelligence curve (yes with too many exceptions). Face it, hoomans are social creatures and that affiliation is stronger than life itself.
Below is a link to a 60 Minutes interview. In it Hassan Butt talks about how one attraction to radical Islam for him was it offered a way to get out of an arranged marriage. It was interesting to hear how this is another driving force that helped him recruit young men for suicide bombings.
[edited: pls use tinyurl] http://tinyurl.com/2glueh
That is not Brainwashing they just use scrubbers to remove outside influence then orientate their collective thought toward a old world moral value as posted in the old testament.
This is the similar approach that Sundays schools in the Southern Bible Belt use to garner their 75% of young human beings in the South.
The wide angle point of view is strictly off limits.
After reading all that it still sounds like “brain-washed religious fanatics, vulnerable through youth and poverty.”
This is what happens when they fail.
This video is graphic, NSFW and some would consider it disturbing.
Scroll down a bit to watch it (it’s a link, it won’t load in this window).
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7fc_1181665828
I have a better idea – prophylactic suicide bombing. Simply supply your wish to be a suicide bomber & we’ll supply the bomb – via an F18 on your house.
Apart from the personal probability of death how does being a suicide bomber differ from joining the armed forces and being killed?
Same objective, same outcome?
Agree with #7 – sort of. Nothing new about “suicide missions” in the military. There have been some I would have supported. Especially in WW2. I have friends and relatives who survived a few. Some who didn’t.
So, you have to back up and decide which ends justify which means. Which is what the military always does and politicians should do.
Jeff, what are you talking about? The outcomes are rarely the same. Most in the armed forces try to stay alive and come back alive.
Look at the kid’s shirt. “Just do it.”
No.7 The big diff is the “fun” the military has in combat.God if we could just turn the military types onto paint ball.
#7: The objective in the military is not suicide, but to make the enemy die for their country.
#8: Agreed, though even for “suicide missions” the goal is/was to achieve the objective (blow up the bridge, destroy the headquarters, whatever), and try to get out of there alive afterwards.
All very nice, but still an overintellectualization of a simple, straightforward, fundamental fact.
Why do they do it?
In fewer words:
Because they lack sufficient reasoning ability to grasp the irrationality of the act.
In fewest words:
Because they are stupid.
Don’t forget that these suicide bombers don’t intend to die alone! If it were a matter of dying just for a cause, or for ideals, or for their faith, they’d just kill themselves in the middle of a field or something.
No, they want to take out as many of the “enemy” along with themselves as possible and go out in a blaze of glory. There’s no martyrdom if you kill yourself quietly.
14,
In the interest of fairness I’d like to point out if the peoples involved had governments with modern weaponry they wouldn’t need to become suicide bombers. Remember Japan at the end of the war, they used suicide attacks because they couldn’t develop the advanced weaponry in the quantities needed to fight.
If you were fighting a foe that vastly outgunned you you would use any means to fight that foe. I do not agree with the motivations of those involved, but their tactics are appropriate to the venue and tools available.
They aren’t going after military targets, they’re killing in schools, synagogues, and wherever else they can. If they really believe Israel is hurting them, then how about they go in front of a camera and blow themselves up? That would get them some respect.
The culprit isn’t mental illness, poverty, stupidity, or a lack of arms. The culprit is religion.
“the desire to be part of a group that engenders strength and solidarity from strictness, and encourages members to submit totally to the collective aims of the group.”
In other words, brain-washing.
In the marine corp its called basic training.
17. It is religion. But that is just a subset of “belief in one’s total righteousness” as Misanthropic Scott once pointed out.
Re religion. You have to understand that there are people out there who actually believe; body & soul, with every fibre of their being, with the same conviction that the sun will rise, that 1+1=2, without any lip-service or hypocrisy; that there is an actual, literal, perfect God out there and that they are carrying out His perfect commandments. Under those circumstances, with that same total understanding, who among us would say, “no?”
RBG
19. You see the same type of belief system with democrats.
(Geez, and I was doing so well there for a moment.)
RBG
Wish I could say the same for the wellness of my grammar.
#15 – smartalix,
… their tactics are appropriate to the venue and tools available.
Sorry, I can’t agree with this. It was unconscionable for the U.S. military to select Hiroshima as a target precisely because it was not strictly a military target and would have greater psychological effect (see wikipedia http://tinyurl.com/3u583 under Choice of Targets).
It is equally unconscionable for any group, especially a group hiding among civilians on their own side, to target civilians over military personnel. As Heinlein said in The Notebooks of Lazarus Long:
“All’s fair in love and war”-what a contemptible lie!
#19 – RBG,
Exactly correct.
#20 – RBG,
Haven’t seen this with Dems. Perhaps though, it’s because so many people I know that vote democrat, myself included, do so as a lesser of two evils, and not so religiously. I’d hope that people aren’t voting dogmatically for a particular party rather than for their ideas and ideals, but am probably mistaken, especially given recent presidential elections. I can’t imagine anyone thought they’d get less government spending from W, for example.
@19, Ok RGB, i guess we’re back to brainwashing in perpetuity again.
@20, so contrary to popular belief, democrats aren’t mentally ill or unhinged, just desperate?
22. “In 1904, the Russo-Japanese War found Hiroshima again a large-scale army base of operations and the city prospered as wars and incidents occurred: Manchurinan Incident, the Shanghai Incident, and the China Incident.
In 1941 the army and navy of Japan launched an attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and on the British on the Malay Peninsula. Hiroshima military installations and heavy industries were rapidly developed to support the army and to support the nearby massive Kure naval shipyard, home of the Imperial Japanese Fleet.” http://www.ww2pacific.com/hiroshima.html
“Hiroshima, a center of war industries and military operations, became the first objective.”
http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/histryotln/newdeal.htm
I read comments like those above, and I think Bush has been the one brainwashing. Calling SBs stupid is just what the study debunks. Most SBs are rational.
This is from the Qur’an, ” O ye who believe!… [do not] kill yourselves, for truly Allah has been to you Most Merciful. If any do that in rancour and injustice, soon shall We cast him into the Fire…” (Qur’an 4:29-30).
If we were had a half a brain, we would be quoting this verse from the Qur’an to the Arab insurgents day and night. Instead Rush Limbaugh/Bush irrationally say Arab terrorists are nut jobs and we just need to kill them. And news flash: the Arabs are listening to what Bush says. Unlike us, they actually have translators.
Among Palestinians, the SBs are regarded as heros, and the Saudi Arabian benefactors provide for the families of SBs. Given the lack of hope and a future among most Palestinian families, one of the best things one can do for one’s family is be a SB. If those families were given some hope and we held Saudi Arabia accountable, chances are recruiting SBs would be much harder.
It really troubles me that those in our leadership has not looked into the motivation of a SB better. It is good news that SBs are rational; that means by definition they can be reasoned with… if we would actually ever try that route.
I see this thread persisting through the weekend, and for good reason.
I’ll be back this evening to take on all comers, but before I depart on errands, I’m gonna lay it down right now:
Only a truly stupid – unintelligent, superstitious, and unknowledgable – would ever even consider the concept that the very creator of the universe expects and approves of deliberately, horribly inflicting violent death on one’s fellow humans.
Suicide bombers are primitive, egocentric, gullible, brainwashed morons. One and all, without exception.
It’s never been a coïncidence that as intelligence drops, religious belief rises. Religion is an artifact of childhood emotional conditioning, followed by a lack of both ability and desire to think dispassionately and objectively in adulthood – which is as good a definition of stupidity as most any…
27, half a brain is all they have at the White House these days. Total.
#28 – Lauren the Ghoti,
There is something a tad, shall we say fishy, in your line of reasoning. If there were an omnipotent and omniscient being in our universe, then by definition, said being likes war, famine, pestilence, drought, and yes, suicide bombers. It was said quite well in the following lyrics. Clearly, such a hypothetical being is already getting exactly what s/he wants, by definition.
http://tinyurl.com/2dgckb
30. To add to that, Muslims believe EVERYTHING and every moment is pre-ordained by God. Thus they say “insha’Allah” (God-willing) after every statement that might somehow indicate that they, themselves, have a say in the matter. ie: “I’m going to buy some milk this afternoon, insha’Allah.”
27. You’re right, Muslims believe that if you willfully commit suicide, you don’t get to go to paradise. Whaaat? But they (the radical militant ones, anyway) also believe you can do whatever it takes to defeat the enemy. Are you not essentially committing suicide when you attack a larger, superior force as the Prophet did at the Battle of Badr? (This is my own, likely correct, interpretation.) I would like to hear a moderate Muslim’s response that might invalidate that viewpoint.
RBG