Dying to win - the strategic logic of suicide terrorism

[gavinlit]

The below blurb is taken straight from the randomn house website. I heard an interview with this guy (Robert Pape) on the radio today and it struck me as pretty relevant to the topics flying back and forth on this board. I don't know anything about the guy, nor have I read the book but the assertions he has made sure sound interesting. While the blurb below just states 'fact' for a few things, Robert Pape was able to produce the stats to back them all up on the interview I heard. Think I'll be buying the book - sounds interesting.


ABOUT THIS BOOK

Suicide terrorism is rising around the world, but there is great confusion as to why. In this paradigm-shifting analysis, University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape has collected groundbreaking evidence to explain the strategic, social, and individual factors responsible for this growing threat.

One of the world’s foremost authorities on the subject, Professor Pape has created the first comprehensive database of every suicide terrorist attack in the world from 1980 until today. With striking clarity and precision, Professor Pape uses this unprecedented research to debunk widely held misconceptions about the nature of suicide terrorism and provide a new lens that makes sense of the threat we face.

FACT: Suicide terrorism is not primarily a product of Islamic fundamentalism.

FACT: The world’s leading practitioners of suicide terrorism are the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka–a secular, Marxist-Leninist group drawn from Hindu families.

FACT: Ninety-five percent of suicide terrorist attacks occur as part of coherent campaigns organized by large militant organizations with significant public support.

FACT: Every suicide terrorist campaign has had a clear goal that is secular and political: to compel a modern democracy to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland.

FACT: Al-Qaeda fits the above pattern. Although Saudi Arabia is not under American military occupation per se, one major objective of al-Qaeda is the expulsion of U.S. troops from the Persian Gulf region, and as a result there have been repeated attacks by terrorists loyal to Osama bin Laden against American troops in Saudi Arabia and the region as a whole.

FACT: Despite their rhetoric, democracies–including the United States–have routinely made concessions to suicide terrorists. Suicide terrorism is on the rise because terrorists have learned that it’s effective.

In this wide-ranging analysis, Professor Pape offers the essential tools to forecast when some groups are likely to resort to suicide terrorism and when they are not. He also provides the first comprehensive demographic profile of modern suicide terrorist attackers. With data from more than 460 such attackers–including the names of 333–we now know that these individuals are not mainly poor, desperate criminals or uneducated religious fanatics but are often well-educated, middle-class political activists.

More than simply advancing new theory and facts, these pages also answer key questions about the war on terror:

• Are we safer now than we were before September 11?
• Was the invasion of Iraq a good counterterrorist move?
• Is al-Qaeda stronger now than it was before September 11?

Professor Pape answers these questions with analysis grounded in fact, not politics, and recommends concrete ways for today’s states to fight and prevent terrorist attacks. Military options may disrupt terrorist operations in the short term, but a lasting solution to suicide terrorism will require a comprehensive, long-term approach–one that abandons visions of empire and relies on a combined strategy of vigorous homeland security, nation building in troubled states, and greater energy independence.

For both policy makers and the general public, Dying to Win transcends speculation with systematic scholarship, making it one of the most important political studies of recent time.

[gavinlit]

Ok - I found the link to the interview - it's on the first part of the program, runs for about 10 minutes or so. Any of you who've posted about terrorism will find it interesting one way or another.
http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/hack/mod_windows/thu.asx

[red-beard]

Any link to the actual data he used?

[gavinlit]

Just the interview red beard. I guess I'll have to wait for the book but he claims to have studied every suicide bombing from 1980 - 2004.

[IROC]

Very interesting. The funny thing is that it makes sense although it does seem to me (from what the media shows us anyway) that there is a religious element to this. I mean, I think you'd be hard pressed to talk large numbers of people into blowing themselves up for the secular causes noted above.

Getting people to fight for those secular causes is one thing, but I think convincing people of suicide for secular causes takes a little more persuasion.

Mike

[gavinlit]

One of the three main elements he identifies in the interview is a difference of religion so I'd say you're on the money. It's a prime motivator in stirring people to an extremist reaction.

[Jeff Higgins]

I'll take this with a big grain of salt for now. It will be interesting to see how his observations fare in the eye of acedemic and public scrutiny. Unfortunately, the title "professor" no longer carries the credibility it once did with regards to this kind of research. Time and time again the political motivations of these "professors", and the universities that grant them tenure have been exposed. It seems like no one is truly "neutral" or "unbiased" anymore.

Yes, Sri Lanka has been dealing with communist rebels for some time, and yes they resort to suicide bombings. Remember the difficulty we had in bringing aid to their people in the wake of the tsunami? Anyway, their ongoing conflict probably sways the statistics somewhat. Their problems are isolated to their island. The rest of the world is dealing with Islamic terrorists, pure and simple. I would venture to guess that the vast majority of suicide bombings outside of Sri Lanka are carried out by Islamic terrorists. Pape appears to be trying to minimize this, for whatever reason.

[gavinlit]

If religious difference of an occupying military force and a local community is a necessary factor and most of the occupying forces appear to be christian, occupying land that is resided in by islamic people it would make sense that most of the suicide bombers are islamic no.

What I find interesting is that you can 'venture to guess', and myself and many others can 'guess' or hypothesise yet the amount of responses to this thread - where there's a link to some hard anaysis, draws little response. Seems to me most people (both camps) might prefer to stick with their 'thoughts, guesses, feelings, biases' than want to get to the root of the problem. We'll never get the upper hand if that's the case. Disappointing.

[techweenie]

Professor = liberal = Commie!





(just thought I'd beat Mule, LD, fint, etc. to it.)

[Jeff Higgins]

Well techweenie, hopefully this thread doesn't swirl down that particular drain any time soon. Not everything is either blue or red. We can all cite instances of "studies" based on "hard evidence" from both sides that have been heavily biased.

And you are right, Gavinlit, if we merely stick with baseless assumptions and gut feelings, we will never understand what is happening here. It is a very complex situation, and all I am saying is that I'm not quite ready to say "by golly, that's it! Pape has figured it out!" just yet. I think I have based my views on this situation on a pretty good amount of activity from these people that has been pretty well reported to us over the last several decades. I didn't just wake up with it one day. Remember, too, that Pape is trying to sell a book. Contradicting popular knowledge, factual or not, is one hell of a good way to do that.

Pape has introduced another factor that may or may not bear consideration in what we are facing in the Mid East. He clearly states that the Sri Lankan rebels are not religiously inclined. The Islamic terrorists clearly are. Does that mean they are religiusly motivated? We have assumed so, simply because they invoke the name of Allah and use words like "infidel". So is it valid to introduce another factor (the Sri Lankans) with such a basic difference as this in our efforts to understand Middle Eastern suicide bombers? Why would Pape do that? I think it confuses, rather than clarifies the issue.

He is certainly not the only one studying the characteristics of these bombings, no matter what he says. Does anyone honestly believe the Israelis, for one, have not looked into this? I'm sure many very bright intelligence types are kept very busy on this topic. Their findings, when passed on to us, are nothing like Pape's. But then again, they are not trying to sell us a book...

[campbellcj]

Sorry, but I find the whole "suicide bomber" thing really hard to get my arms around.

If people want to die for whatever reason, why don't we allocate a nice big, isolated chunk of desert sand someplace where they do so. If it turns them on to blow up other people, well there should be plenty of other bombers from other nations/sects/etc. also there and willing to be blown up in the name of, whatever they blow up other people for.

Of course, there is a chance that they may prefer to convene in other locations, such as the middle of major cities -- London, New York, Los Angeles, etc. -- I think in the center of each major metropolitan area, we should set aside a well-demarcated area in which they can gather, at any time. There will be plenty of willing and able folks to help them "find peace with XXXXXXX" at the push of a button or pull of a trigger...

Seems very simple to me...let's find them and help them on their path to salvation without them having to work so hard....

[RoninLB]

Originally posted by Jeff Higgins

. He clearly states that the Sri Lankan rebels are not religiously inclined. The Islamic terrorists clearly are. Does that mean they are religiusly motivated?

I read an article that said the brain washing of the terrorists is assisted by twisting Islam. The author's position is that the murder of 1.5 million Hindus around Nepal/i think didn't lead to any terrorism because Hinduism is geared against that completely.

[M.D. Holloway]

you can get most people to do just about anything...girl dorms are filled with such!

[RoninLB]

Originally posted by campbellcj


If people want to die for whatever reason, why don't we allocate a nice big, isolated chunk of desert sand someplace where they do so. If it turns them on to blow up other people, well there should be plenty of other bombers from other nations/sects/etc. also there and willing to be blown up in the name of, whatever they blow up other people for.

Wall St could mkt your idea as a Disney Land. Pay one price then party hearty with each other.

ps: it could be co-ed

[strother]

The University of Chicago has produced intriguing thinkers -- their politcal philosophies often snake all over the political spectrum. I like this from Pape: "a lasting solution to suicide terrorism will require a comprehensive, long-term approach–one that abandons visions of empire and relies on a combined strategy of vigorous homeland security, nation building in troubled states, and greater energy independence."

Proactively eliminate our strategic interests in the Middle East -- such as the need for Middle East oil -- thereby allowing us to have straightforward and transparent motives for being over there, and maybe some Middle East will hate us less.