Here's a bit of meat for Tim...
Genesis of Suicide Terrorism
Scott Atran
Contemporary suicide terrorists from the Middle East are publicly
deemed crazed cowards bent on senseless
destruction who thrive in poverty and ignorance. Recent research
indicates they have no appreciable
psychopathology and are as educated and economically well-off as
surrounding populations. A first line of
defense is to get the communities from which suicide attackers stem to
stop the attacks by learning how to
minimize the receptivity of mostly ordinary people to recruiting
organizations.
CNRS-Institut Jean Nicod, 1 bis Avenue Lowendal, 75007 Paris, France,
and Institute for Social Research,
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248, USA. E-mail:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
...
Gotta love this excerpt:
Such sentiments characterize institutional manipulation of emotionally
driven commitments that may have emerged under natural selection's
influence to
refine or override short-term rational calculations that would
otherwise preclude achieving goals against long odds. Most typically,
such emotionally
driven commitments serve as survival mechanisms to inspire action in
otherwise paralyzing circumstances, as when a weaker person convincingly
menaces a stronger person into thinking twice before attempting to take
advantage. In religiously inspired suicide terrorism, however, these
emotions
are purposely manipulated by organizational leaders, recruiters, and
trainers to benefit the organization rather than the individual
(supporting online
text on religion) (36).
36.
In much the same way, the pornography, fast food, or soft drink
industries manipulate innate desires for naturally scarce commodities
like sexual
mates, fatty foods, and sugar to ends that reduce personal fitness
but benefit the manipulating institution. [S. Atran, In Gods We Trust
(Oxford
Univ. Press, New York, 2002)].
Whole article:
According to the U.S. Department of State report Patterns of Global
Terrorism 2001 (1), no single definition
of terrorism is universally accepted; however, for purposes of
statistical analysis and policy-making: "The term
`terrorism' means premeditated, politically motivated violence
perpetrated against noncombatant targets by
subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence
an audience." Of course, one side's
"terrorists" may well be another side's "freedom fighters" (Fig. 1).
For example, in this definition's sense, the Nazi
occupiers of France rightly denounced the "subnational" and
"clandestine" French Resistance fighters as terrorists.
During the 1980s, the International Court of Justice used the U.S.
Administration's own definition of terrorism to
call for an end to U.S. support for "terrorism" on the part of
Nicaraguan Contras opposing peace talks.
Fig. 1. Chanting demonstrators in
Pakistan-held Kashmir defending Osama
bin Laden's actions and ambitions as
freedom-fighting (November 2001).
[AP Photo/Roshan Mugal] [View Larger
Version of this Image (96K GIF file)]
For the U.S. Congress, "`act of terrorism' means an activity that--(A)
involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life that is a
violation of the
criminal laws of the United States or any State, or that would be a
criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United
States or of any
State; and (B) appears to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a
civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by
intimidation or
coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by
assassination or kidnapping." (2). When suitable, the definition can be
broadened to include
states hostile to U.S. policy.
Apparently, two official definitions of terrorism have existed since
the early 1980s: that used by the Department of State "for statistical
and analytical
purposes" and that used by Congress for criminal proceedings. Together,
the definitions allow great flexibility in selective application of the
concept of
terrorism to fluctuating U.S. priorities. The special category of
"State-sponsored terrorism" could be invoked to handle some issues (3),
but the highly
selective and politically tendentious use of the label terrorism would
continue all the same. Indeed, there appears to be no principled
distinction
between "terror" as defined by the U.S. Congress and
"counterinsurgency" as allowed in U.S. armed forces manuals (4).
Rather than attempt to produce a stipulative and all-encompassing
definition of terrorism, this article restricts its focus to "suicide
terrorism"
characterized as follows: the targeted use of self-destructing humans
against noncombatant--typically civilian--populations to effect
political change.
Although a suicide attack aims to physically destroy an initial target,
its primary use is typically as a weapon of psychological warfare
intended to
affect a larger public audience. The primary target is not those
actually killed or injured in the attack, but those made to witness it.
The enemy's own
information media amplify the attack's effects to the larger target
population. Through indoctrination and training and under charismatic
leaders,
self-contained suicide cells canalize disparate religious or political
sentiments of individuals into an emotionally bonded group of fictive
kin who willfully
commit to die spectacularly for one another and for what is perceived
as the common good of alleviating the community's onerous political and
social
realities.
Recent History
Suicide attack is an ancient practice with a modern history (supporting
online text). Its use by the Jewish sect of Zealots (sicari) in
Roman-occupied
Judea and by the Islamic Order of Assassins (hashashin) during the
early Christian Crusades are legendary examples (5). The concept of
"terror" as
systematic use of violence to attain political ends was first codified
by Maximilien Robespierre during the French Revolution. He deemed it an
"emanation of virtue" that delivers "prompt, severe, and inflexible"
justice, as "a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied
to our
country's most pressing needs." (6). The Reign of Terror, during which
the ruling Jacobin faction exterminated thousands of potential enemies,
of
whatever sex, age, or condition, lasted until Robespierre's fall (July
1794). Similar justification for state-sponsored terror was common to
20th-century revolutions, as in Russia (Lenin), Cambodia (Pol Pot), and
Iran (Khomeini).
Whether subnational (e.g., Russian anarchists) or state-supported
(e.g., Japanese kamikaze), suicide attack as a weapon of terror is
usually chosen
by weaker parties against materially stronger foes when fighting
methods of lesser cost seem unlikely to succeed. Choice is often
voluntary, but
typically under conditions of group pressure and charismatic
leadership. Thus, the kamikaze ("divine wind") first used in the battle
of the Philippines
(November 1944) were young, fairly well educated pilots who understood
that pursuing conventional warfare would likely end in defeat. When
collectively asked by Adm. Takijiro Onishi to volunteer for "special
attack" (tokkotai) "transcending life and death," all stepped forward,
despite
assurances that refusal would carry no shame or punishment. In the
Battle of Okinawa (April 1945) some 2000 kamikaze rammed fully fueled
fighter
planes into more than 300 ships, killing 5000 Americans in the most
costly naval battle in U.S. history. Because of such losses, there was
support for
using the atomic bomb to end World War II (7).
The first major contemporary suicide terrorist attack in the Middle
East was the December 1981 destruction of the Iraqi embassy in Beirut
(27 dead,
over 100 wounded). Its precise authors are still unknown, although it
is likely that Ayatollah Khomeini approved its use by parties sponsored
by
Iranian intelligence. With the assassination of pro-Israeli Lebanese
President Bashir Gemayel in September 1982, suicide bombing became a
strategic
political weapon. Under the pro-Iranian Lebanese Party of God
(Hezbollah), this strategy soon achieved geopolitical effect with the
October
1983 truck-bomb killing of nearly 300 American and French servicemen.
American and France abandoned the multinational force policing Lebanon.
By 1985, these attacks arguably led Israel to cede most of the gains
made during its 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
In Israel-Palestine, suicide terrorism began in 1993, with attacks by
Hezbollah-trained members of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and
Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) aimed at derailing the Oslo Peace Accords
(8). As early as 1988, however, PIJ founder Fathi Shiqaqi established
guidelines for "exceptional" martyrdom operations involving human
bombs. He followed Hezbollah in stressing that God extols martyrdom but
abhors
suicide: "Allah may cause to be known those who believe and may make
some of you martyrs, and Allah may purify those who believe and may
utterly destroy the disbelievers"; however, "no one can die except by
Allah's leave" (9, 10) (Fig. 2).
Fig. 2. Wreckage in Gaza after an Israeli attack
that killed Salah Shehadeh, Hamas military commander. It features the
green Hamas flag, and Arabic graffiti reads: "We
are resisters, death in the way of Allah is the life." [AP Photo/Adel
Hana] [View Larger Version of this Image (118K GIF
file)]
The recent radicalization and networking through Al-Qaida of militant
Islamic groups from North Africa, Arabia, and Central and Southeast Asia
stems from the Soviet-Afghan War (1979-1989). With financial backing
from the United States, members of these various groups were provided
opportunities to pool and to unify doctrine, aims, training, equipment,
and methods, including suicide attack. Through its multifaceted
association with
regional groups (by way of finance, personnel, and logistics), Al-Qaida
aims to realize flexibly its global ambition of destroying Western
dominance
through local initiatives to expel Western influences (11). According
to Jane's Intelligence Review: "All the suicide terrorist groups have
support
infrastructures in Europe and North America." (12).
Calling the current wave of radical Islam "fundamentalism" (in the
sense of "traditionalism") is misleading, approaching an oxymoron
(supporting online
text). Present-day radicals, whether Shi'ite (Iran, Hezbollah) or Sunni
(Taliban, Al-Qaida), are much closer in spirit and action to Europe's
post-Renaissance Counter-Reformation than to any traditional aspect of
Moslem history. The idea of a ruling ecclesiastical authority, a state
or
national council of clergy, and a religious police devoted to
physically rooting out heretics and blasphemers has its clearest
historical model in the Holy
Inquisition. The idea that religion must struggle to assert control
over politics is radically new to Islam (13).
<snip>
