| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2005 9:03 pm Post subject: New Pape book: Suicide bombers driven by policy... |
| The Logic of Suicide Terrorism
It’s the occupation, not the fundamentalism
http://www.amconmag.com/2005_07_18/article.html
New Pape book: Suicide bombers driven by policy...
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1400063175/qid=1120941171/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_ur_1/002-5927327-1252023?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
Book Description:
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.
About the Author
Robert A. Pape is associate professor of political science at the University of Chicago, where he teaches international politics and is the director of the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism. A distinguished scholar of national security affairs, he writes widely on coercive airpower, economic sanctions, international moral action, and the politics of unipolarity and has taught international relations at Dartmouth College and air strategy for the U.S. Air Force’s School of Advanced Airpower Studies. He is a contributor to The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, The New Republic, and The Washington Post and has appeared on ABC’s Nightline and World News Tonight, National Public Radio, and other national television and radio programs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Poisonous Misinterpretations:
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/horton.php?articleid=6720
Last edited by Alpha on Sat Oct 08, 2005 9:21 pm; edited 4 times in total | |  | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2005 4:33 pm Post subject: ‘To end terror, we must end occupation in Islamic world’ |
| ‘To end terror, we must end occupation in Islamic world’
BY Tariq ali
Tony Blair's response to the attacks on London was characteristic. Flanked by Bush and Chirac he became civilisational: the barbarians were attacking “our civilisation”. No other explanation was deemed necessary. Why were these “barbarians” not targeting Paris or Berlin? Why Madrid and London? Could it be that these appalling acts had something to do with the continuing war in Iraq where the “civilised” conquerors do not even bother to count Iraqi civilian casualties?
Nor is it the case that this is the first time London and other British cities were targeted by organisations opposing the British government. Remember Ireland? During the last phase of the troubles, the IRA targeted mainland Britain: they came close to blowing up Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet when they bombed the Grand Hotel in Brighton during a Tory party conference. Several months later, a missile was fired at 10 Downing Street. London's financial quarter was also targeted, causing immense damage to property. There was no secret as to the identity of the organisation that carried out the hits, or its demands. And all this happened despite the “internment without trial” and the various prevention of terrorism acts passed by the House of Commons.
The bombers who targeted London on July 7 are anonymous. Although several claims have been made by groups purporting to have links to al-Qaeda, we simply do not know who did it. But as Tony Blair has already expressed his belief that an Islamist group is responsible, it is safe to assume that the cause of these bombs is the unstinting support – political and military – given by the PM and his New Labour government to the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
One of the many arguments deployed by Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, when he appealed to Blair not to support the war in Iraq was prescient: “An assault on Iraq will inflame world opinion and jeopardise security and peace everywhere. London, as one of the major world cities, has a great deal to lose from war and a lot to gain from peace, international co-operation and global stability.”
The aim of the bombers may have been to disrupt London while Bush and Blair hosted the G8 summit, but the majority of Londoners (and the rest of the country) were opposed to the war in Iraq. Tragically, it is they who have suffered the blow and paid the price for the re-election of Blair and a continuation of the war.
Ever since 9/11, I have been arguing that the “war against terror” is immoral and counter- productive. It sanctions the use of state terror – bombing raids, tortures countless civilian deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq – against Islamo- anarchists whose numbers are small, but whose reach is deadly. The solution then, as now, was political, not military.
The British ruling elite understood this perfectly well in the case of Ireland. Security measures, anti-terrorism laws rushed through Parliament, identity cards and a general curtailment of civil liberties of British citizens will not solve the problem. If anything, they will push young Muslims in the direction of mindless violence. The real solution lies in immediately ending the occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.
Just because these three wars are reported sporadically and mean little to the everyday life of most of Europe's citizens, this does not mean that the anger and bitterness they arouse in the Muslim world and its diaspora is insignificant. Establishment politicians have little purchase with the young and this applies especially strongly in the Arab world. As long as Western politicians wage their wars and their colleagues in the Muslim world watch in silence, young people will be attracted to the groups who carry out random acts of revenge. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2005 9:35 am Post subject: London Bombers Were Angered by War in Iraq |
| London Bombers Were Angered by War in Iraq
By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI, Associated Press Writer
Fri Jul 15, 5:32 AM ET
Shahzad Tanweer, the 22-year-old son of a Pakistani-born affluent businessman, turned to Islam, the religion of his birth, a few years ago. The transformation was gradual, but then his relentless reading of the Quran and daily prayers became almost an obsession, his friends told The Associated Press. He became withdrawn and increasingly angry over the war in Iraq, according to those who knew him best.
The U.S.-led war was what likely drove him to blow himself up on a subway train last week, said his friends.
"He was a Muslim and he had to fight for Islam. This is called jihad," or holy war, said Asif Iqbal, 20, who said he was Tanweer's childhood friend.
Another friend, Adnan Samir, 21, nodded in agreement.
"They're crying over 50 people while 100 people are dying every day in Iraq and Palestine," said Iqbal. "If they are indeed the ones who did it, it's because they believed it was right. They're in Heaven.
"Have you ever been inspired in life?" he asked.
Tanweer and three other bombers detonated their backpacks on a bus and three subway trains in London on July 7, killing at least 53 people, themselves included, and injuring more than 700.
Tanweer turned to religion before the war in Iraq began in 2003. His friends don't know the reason, but said they didn't see anything wrong or unusual about it.
"He always told me to read the Quran and said Islam is the way (of life)," recalls Iqbal.
Everyone interviewed in his neighborhood — those who knew him well like Iqbal and Samir, who were schoolmates, or those who saw him in passing — described Tanweer as pleasant and kind.
"He was a nice lad. I don't know how many times he served me fish and chips," said Peter Douchworth, 58, a Beeston resident for over 30 years. "He went out of his way to help."
Tanweer sometimes worked at his father's fish and chips shop, but an employee there said he hadn't worked there for a while.
The family's white house — which has been cordoned off by police since Monday — stands in stark contrast to the surrounding gritty red-brick Victorian row houses. Two fancy cars are parked in the parking lot at the back.
A devoted athlete, Tanweer studied sports science at Leeds Metropolitan University and planned to get involved in sports professionally. He showed up twice a week for pickup soccer games, said a teammate who gave his name only as Saj.
He had a younger brother and two sisters and always lived in the working-class multiethnic Beeston area of the city of Leeds in northern England.
Media reports said he was arrested once for shoplifting.
His uncle, Bashir Ahmed, said Tanweer traveled to Lahore, Pakistan, this year to study Islamic religion. He said his family believed he was attending "some religious function" on the day of the bombings.
Forensic evidence has linked Tanweer to the blast on the Underground train near Aldgate.
Friends Iqbal and Samir claimed ignorance as to how their friend became involved in Islamic militancy and how he became a prey to terrorist recruiters.
"All Muslims are connected," Iqbal said.
The friends said they had never been approached by anyone trying to indoctrinate them into militant Islam.
Where would Tanweer and his co-activists meet or plan their attacks?
"How do football fans get together and talk about football? It's the same thing," said Iqbal.
Tanweer's friend, Hasib Hussain, is another of the bombers identified by police. At 18, the handsome, 6-foot-tall soccer player was the youngest of the bombers. He was also the youngest of four children, two sisters and a brother. Like Tanweer, his family came from Pakistan.
Hussain, suspected of carrying out the suicide attack that claimed 13 lives on a double-decker bus, was known for his sense of humor and style. He sometimes wore blue contact lenses and long hair parted in the middle, according to a friend.
Some people said Hussain became more religious two years ago but never abandoned his boyhood friends for radicals. Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, born in Pakistan and another of the suicide bombers, is known in his neighborhood as an exemplary community worker.
A father of an 8-month-old baby girl, Khan was a popular former teacher of children with learning disabilities.
Documents belonging to Khan were found in the debris of the Edgware Road subway blast.
Former students at the Hillside Primary School said Khan left for Pakistan last December to look after his ailing father. It was not clear when he returned to Britain.
"I liked him. He was nice," said Billy Sandersen, 13. He and other former pupils said they were shocked when they saw his picture in the papers as one of the suspects.
However, they said they still liked him.
"Just a little bit, but not for what he's done — killing innocent people," Sandersen said.
"I still like him," said Sean Woodham, 13, another former pupil, "because he always helped me with my homework."
Maroof Latif, an unemployed Beeston resident, said he knew Khan since he was a child and believes if he took part in the terrorist bombings of the subways it was because of his anger over the war in Iraq and the U.S.-British occupation. | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
