<The actions of the US prison guards at Abu Grhaib played on what it meant to be an honourable self respecting subject in Iraqi society.>

So they suffered some humiliation. The prisoners the Arab freedom fighters took, were killed or had their throats cut on national television not to mention the probable rape and killing of their female hostages so they couldn't reveal the rape. Just recently some of their hostages were found dead in the street with electric drill holes all over them.

Humiliation won't kill you. What do you expect the Americans to do sit their attackers down and give them lamingtons and a cup of tea.
They'd all be lining up to be captured. The way some of these moslem men humiliate their women it wouldn't hurt them to suffer a bit of humiliation themselves anyway.

You say the suicide attacks carried out in Iraq increased dramatically after the photos at Abu Ghraib were shown. A lot of those suicide attacks were directed at other moslems. Shiites killing Sunnis and Sunnis killing Shiites over which tribe was going to govern Iraq.

The Japanese practised suicide bombing too, as the Allies advanced on Japan at the end of World War 2. They flew their planes directly into warships. Blew themselves and the warships up. No religious agenda with the Japanese. Just purely defence of their people and homeland.

That's what terrorist attacks are, males with their warrior intincts in full unchecked mode, attempting to defend their tribe or people because that is what the males role in nature is.

And that's why there is an everpresent danger of these attacks in any multicultural society when groups of males perceive some kind of threat or injustice to their ethnic group. I don't just mean the moslems I mean any ethnic group white,chinese,whoever, who feel threatened by the other group in some way. Even Sunnis and Shiites.

One glaring omission from the article - suicide bombers are almost always followers of the Islamic religion, now what's with that? And how does it gel with the article's contention that the motive is rarely grounded in religion? Perhaps Muslims throughout the world are persecuted more than anyone else. Perhaps no one else has a reason to resort to such extreme measures. The IRA never took to it, not that I'm aware of. It would seem to me that it's just a done thing for Muslims at that extreme end of the spectrum, it's the Jihad mentality - slaughter thy enemy and claim your numerous virgins. The 4 Corners doco (BBC sourced I beleive) about the Mumbai attacks had real conversations between the pawns and their leaders, whilst the high level motive was political (India vs Pakistan) it certainly seemed that religion was used to justify and motivate the pawns to fight to their own deaths.

People become suicide bombers because they are afraid not to be. The reasons are not religious or political – they are much more personal and have their foundations in dysfunctional family relationships.

Suicide bombing is not a rational act. It is something that has been brewing inside an individual from a very young age. Children are not born suicide bombers they become such because it seems to provide an escape from what they perceive as an impossible trap. Many lone suicides have the same rationale.

Children who are raised on a diet of fear by fanatically religious parents spend their whole lives entrapped between the demands of childhood survival and the instincts of their own feelings. It doesn’t make sense to a child to be beaten because it takes delight in the simple joys of life. The child represses any expression of delight or freedom of speech because its survival depends on pleasing the neurotic demands of its parents. Sometimes those survival mechanisms become so desperate and distorted that a child has to do extreme violence to its nature in order to keep alive. These attitudes become so ingrained that even when they reach maturity they are still trying to ‘please’ their parents in order to survive. They are unable to act rationally as an adult able to meet their own needs for survival. They become suicide bombers not because of religion or politics but because of a far greater imperative – the desire to survive. Nothing short of this would make these people do what they do. The fact that hundreds of innocent bystanders are also killed is outside of their scope of feeling.

There are many other people who wreak as much havoc in the world out of fears that belong to their childhood. Corporate greed causes the death of thousands. Drug barons contribute to the demise of millions. Ruthless dictators practice genocide. Most of these behaviours can be traced to upbringing.

It is too naïve to ask the bombers why they are prepared to bomb and to accept their own self-analysis.

Of course we dreadfully sane Westerners are not into suicide bombing--are we.

We use unmanned satellite guided drones, or launch cruise missiles from the safety of bunkers on the other side of the planet.

Plus how much money is spent every day in the now booming world-wide armaments race, most of which is produced by the dreadfully sane Western countries, which also includes Russia and the countries of Eastern Europe. And South America too.

Death is in the air, or rather the collective psyche of humankind altogether.

World-wide casual mega-death is now the only game in town, or rather, the entire planet.

The first line of your article sets up the most incorrect, misleading and sleazily anti muslim article I have recently seen on OLO.

<<Suicide bombing attacks have become a weapon of choice among terrorist groups because of their lethality and ability to cause mayhem and fear.>>

Crap! They do it because it is the only weapon they have left against massively overpowered and threatening enemies. Do you seriously say that these people WANT to die? It is a proven fact that the will to live is one of humanities strongest drives and it is only total and utter hopelessness or rabid, insane religious beliefs that can overcome it. If they had guns and tanks and nuclear weapons like we have I seriously doubt they would contemplate sacrificing themselves to kill their enemies.

Mikki <If they had guns and tanks and nuclear weapons like we have I doubt they’d contemplate sacrificing themselves to kill their enemy.>
True, and if they ever get those weapons you and most people on this planet can kiss your freedoms goodbye. Hitler stated he wanted a German state world wide and the Moslems have said the same,(we want a Moslem state world wide), they may succeed in bringing the world under the moslem heel where Hitler failed .

<The will to live is one of humanities strongest drives it is only total and utter hopelessness or rabid, insane religious belief that can overcome it.>
This is also true, but why are they totally hopeless, or rabidly, insanely religious, their own doing surely.
And the suicide bombers in Western countries have nothing to be hopeless about , they live in the richest countries in the world. If they can’t adapt and live like the Westerners do then why do they come here.
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