'Suicide Bombers: Psychopaths or Not?\r'

'Psychopath or non? Are self-destruction bombers untamed? Do you think their way of opinion is sane? At first, the answer anyone would let seems obvious: they must be excited and stomach incorrect thoughts to muff themselves up and kill innocent pot in the process. However, terrorist act experts have proposed several rational motives for their actions. Some political scientists believe that terrorists grade a tactical choice to theatrical role felo-de-se batterys a consumest a stronger resistance. Other experts show that felo-de-se terrorism is part of a â€Å"cycle of humiliation” fueled by a suicide bombers’ desire to accomplish back at those who have mistreated or shamed them.Some psychologists have reason out that suicide bombers be ordinary, everyday passel who argon unlikely to commit violent acts until they identify with and join a terrorist radical which manipulates and pressures them to commit these violent acts. Suicide bombing attack s have become a mechanism of choice among terrorist throngs beca physical exertion of their lethality and ability to cause mayhem and fear. Though depressing, the al intimately daily sassys reports of deaths caused by suicide attacks r arly relieve what motivates the attackers.Between 1981 and 2006, 1200 suicide attacks constituted 4 sh areage of totally terrorist attacks in the universe and killed 14,599 people or 32 percent of all terrorism related deaths. The question is wherefore? Between 1981 and 2006, 1200 suicide attacks constituted 4 percent of all terrorist attacks in the world and killed 14,599 people or 32 percent of all terrorism related deaths. (figure 1) disdain everyone’s stereotype sentiment that suicide bombers â€Å"are both sociopathic and irrational people, galore(postnominal) political scientists believe that or so terrorists are rational people with tactical goals.Evans (a political scientist), for example, argues that terrorism is a dod ging. Those who use it sine qua non to expose their cause, draw the enemy into a costly conflict, and provoke an overreaction that go out make the enemy look unadvisable or evil, get in asserters, and prevent finding the middle ground. Robert Pape also believes that suicide terrorism has an essential strategic logic. It is politics to a greater extent than than religious passion that has led terrorists to blow themselves up.In Roberts view, â€Å"Suicide-terrorist attacks are not encouraged by religion save more as a clear strategic heading: to force modern democracies to remove troops forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. ” charm terrorism can be seen as a rational strategy, feelings of shame and bewilderment may make suicide the tool of choice because they can get their retaliate as well as bonny send away their miserable life, Interviews of failed bombers or bombers-in-training divulge that they are striking back at those w ho humiliated or injured them.On October 4, 2003, 29 year old Palestinian attorney Hanadi Jaradat exploded her suicide belt in the Maxim restaurant in Haifa cleaning 20 people and wounding many another(prenominal) more. According to her family, her suicide mission was in revenge for the killing of her brother and her fiance by the Israeli security forces and in revenge for all the crimes Israel had perpetrated in the western Bank by killing Palestinians and confiscating their lands. The principal(prenominal) motive for many suicide bombings in Israel is revenge for acts committed by Israelis. The bombers want to send a message: their enemies are responsible for their humiliation and ultimately for their death.In kinfolk 2007 when American forces raided an Iraqi insurgent bivouacking in the desert t subsistledge of Singar tight-fitting the Syrian border they discovered biographies of more than seven hundred foreign fighters. The Americans were affect to find that 137 were Libyans and 52 of them were from a footling Libyan town of Darnah. The reason why so many of Darnah’s materialization men had gone to Iraq for suicide missions was not the global jihadi ideology, only when an explosive desegregate of desperation, pride, anger, sense of powerlessness, local usance of resistance and religious fervor.A similar mix of factors is now motivating young Pashtuns to proffer for suicide missions in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Further point that suicide bombers are responding to humiliation is plunge in the 430 recorded biographies of suicide bombers which were conservatively analyzed by terrorist experts Haqqani and Kimmage. Professor Riaz Hassan, power of a forthcoming book on suicide bombing, tells us. For one, the conventional wisdom that bombers are insane or religious fanatics is wrong.Typically, nearly suicide bombers are psychologically prescript and are deeply integrated into social networks and emotionally attached to their nationa l communities. idiosyncratic bombers show no ainity disorders and the attacks themselves are often politically motivated, aimed at achieving particular strategic goals such as forcing concessions or generating greater support. Moreover, the penurys are complex: â€Å"humiliation, revenge, and selflessness” all drive the exclusive to claim in, and the community to overlook, suicide bombing. Indeed, as Hassan notes, articipating in suicide bombing can effect a range of meanings from the â€Å"personal to communal. ” Without discretion these motivations and addressing them, it would appear the governments or boldnesss that seek to end suicide bombings are likely to be disappointed. Humiliation, revenge and altruism play a bring out role at the organisational and soul levels in shaping the sub-culture that promotes suicide bombings. Humiliation is an emotional process that seeks to chequer the target party’s doings by attacking and lowering their own a nd others’ opinions of whether they deserve respect.Revenge is also a reaction to the continuous suffering of an aggrieved community. At the lovingness of the whole process are perceptions of personal harm, unfairness and injustice, and the anger, indignation, and hatred associated with such perceptions. The motivation for jihad is almost alship canal . . . the quandary of the humiliated Muslim nation, victimized by the joint evil forces of kufr (unbelief, embodied by the United States as the enemy bent grass on the destruction of Islam) and tawaghit (tyrants who have garment themselves up, or are propped up, as gods on earth).Although Americans tend to think of suicide bombers as â€Å" man-to-man people taking soul decisions to kill people” says Timothy Spengler, they unremarkably operate as members of amplyly organise terrorist groups. For bombers-in-training, feelings of shame and humiliationâ€even their individual identitiesâ€are replaced by identific ation with the group, as shrink Vamik Volkan explains: â€Å"In normal life, a person who wants to kill themself has low self-esteem. For the suicide bombers it was the oppo orderâ€by killing yourself, you gain self-esteem.These were people with cracks in their personality that could be filled up, as if with cement, with the large group identity. So their individuality was erased. ” Once recruits have identified with a terrorist group, they are willing to do anything asked by the group and pay back extreme risks because they feel invincible. Their individual motives and determine are replaced by the motives and apprises of the terrorist group, and dissension or questioning of the group’s norms is not encouraged.Men attach more value to vengeance than women; and young people are more prepared to act in a vengeful manner than one-time(a) individuals. It is not surprising, then, to find that most suicide bombers are both young and male. The key to understanding s uicide bombers, then, is to understand the organizations and groups that recruit and train them to be the people you know them as. Understanding the terrorist organization’s logic is more important than understanding individual motivations in explaining suicide attacks.Suicide bombings have graduate(prenominal) symbolic value because the willingness of the committers to die signals high resolve and dedication to their cause. They serve as symbols of a just struggle, stimulate universal support, generate financial support for the organization and become a source of new recruits for future suicide missions. As Cronin concludes, â€Å"Although . . . individual suicide attackers . . . are not technically ‘crazy,’ . . . they are often manipulated by the pressures and belief structures of the group”. The causes of suicide bombings lie not in individual psychopathology but in broader social conditions.Understanding and knowledge of these conditions is life-sus taining for developing appropriate public policies and responses to shelter the public. Suicide bombings are carried out by motivated individuals associated with community based organizations. Strategies aimed at finding ways to induce communities to evacuate such support would curtail support for terrorist organizations. Strategies for eliminating or at least addressing bodied grievances in concrete and effective ways would have a significant, and, in many cases, immediate impact on embossment the conditions that nurture the subcultures of suicide bombings.Support for suicide bombing attacks is unlikely to diminish without tangible proficiency in achieving at least any(prenominal) of the fundamental goals that suicide bombers and those sponsoring and supporting them share. The most important choice a suicide attacker makes is not when to press the trigger, but whether or not to join a terrorist group. (figure 2) Figure1 [pic] Figure 2 References Altman, N. (2005, March/April) . On the psychology of suicide bombing. Tikkun, 20(2). Retrieved November 20 2012, from donnish Search elite group database. Atran, S. (2004, Summer).Mishandling suicide terrorism. The cap Quarterly, 27(3), 67â€90. Retrieved November 20 from the Center for strategical and International Studies weathervane site: www. twq. com/04summer/docs/04summer_atran. pdf Cronin, A. K. (2003, exalted 28). Terrorists and suicide attacks. CRS Report RL32058. Washington, D. C. : Congressional query Service. Retrieved November 21, 2012, from Federation of American Scientists Web site: www. fas. org/irp/crs/RL32058. pdf Evans, E. (2005, Spring). The mind of a terrorist: How terrorists see strategy and morality.World Affairs, 167(4), 175â€179. Haqqani, H. , & Kimmage, D. (2005, October 3). Suicidology: The online bios of Iraq’s â€Å"martyrs. ” New Republic, 233(14), 14â€16. Retrieved November 21 2012, from Academic Search Elite database. Hudson, R. A. (1999, September ) The sociology and psychology of terrorism: Who becomes a terrorist and why? Retrieved November 22 2012, from Library of Congress Web site: http://www. loc. gov/rr/frd/pdf-files/Soc_Psych_of_Terrorism. pdf McConnell, S. (2005, July 18). The logic of suicide terrorism [interview with Robert Pape]. The American Conservative.Retrieved November 22 2012, from http://amconmag. com/2005_07_18/article. html Solow, B. (2004, whitethorn 26). The â€Å"patient is regressing”: A distinguished psychiatrist visits the Triangle to lecture on the outlook of the U. S. war on terror. Independent Weekly. Retrieved November 22 2012, from http://www. indyweek. com/durham/2004-05-26/election. html Volkan, V. D. (n. d. ) Suicide bombers. Retrieved November 22 2012, from http://www. healthsystem. virginia. edu/internet/csmhi/suicide-bomber-psychology. pdf ———————†Anthony Leach 11/22/12 D’Amato College writing\r\n'