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Shiranzai told me: "Something I've been surprised to learn is that these men, who are planning to blow themselves up, always become frightened when you open fire on them. As soon as the shooting starts, the suicider runs and hides. He doesn't want to be shot. He is here to die, but he is scared of bullets. It's strange".
A bomber had detonated himself in the middle of the bazaar. The blast alone would have ripped apart the dense mass of shoppers, sellers and kids, but what made it especially devastating was the closely set layer of ball bearings glued on the outside of the vest. The force of the explosion propelled the small steel pellets in every direction, and they pierced whatever thing or person stood in their trajectory. When Zahir arrived at the bazaar, the sky was dark with pulverized matter. Flames flashed in the dust. An electrical line had fallen; a transformer burned. Zahir saw that the ground was littered with bodies and debris. He was directing a stream of water from a hose toward a ruined storefront when he spotted his son, Gulam Rooz.
"I had no time to tend to his body," Zahir told me. "I had to ask someone else to take care of it while I finished putting out the fires. He was riddled with ball bearings. I still have his shirt. It's full of holes."
Soon police officers killed the last of the suicide attackers, not far from the hospital Altogether 34 civilians and four police officers died. More than 200 people were wounded. It was by far the deadliest day in Nimruz Province since 2001, and one of the deadliest of the war.
Mogelson, L. (2012, October 21). The White Hot Middle of Nowhere. The New York Times Magazine p. 33-40, p. 50
 
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That opening quote is so dumb... I don't like to sympathise with suicide bombers, but obviously they have a goal and it's not just to commit suicide. It's not strange at all that they wouldn't want to die before they'd completed their mission, or die the slow and painful death of a bullet wound, rather than the imagined nearly instantaneous death of an explosion. If all they wanted to do was die, then they could just hang themselves.
I hate journalism 
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Another important point about suicide bombers is that most likely they don't want to die. They want to live. They have just been pursuaded, by religious beliefs, threats or rewards, to do this thing that is to blow them self up. But basic instinct is taking over when being shot upon. So yes it's quite a dumb quote.
I'm just wondering what makes this special compared to every other peice about death and destruction?
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Hong Kong9179 Posts
For years the press has portrayed terrorists as crazy extremists who commit indiscriminate acts of violence, without any larger goal beyond revenge or a desire to produce fear in an enemy population. This characterization derives some support from statements made by terrorists themselves. For example, a young Hamas suicide bomber whose bomb failed to detonate said, "I know that there are other ways to do jihad. But this one is sweet-the sweetest. All martyrdom operations, if done for Allah's sake, hurt less than a gnat's bite!" Volunteers for a suicide mission may have a variety of motives--obtaining rewards in the afterlife, avenging a family member killed by the enemy, or simply collecting financial rewards for their descendants. By contrast, the goals driving terrorist organizations are usually political objectives, and it is these goals that determine whether and how terrorist campaigns will be launched. [p.51-52]
Andrew H. Kydd, and Barbara F. Walter, "The Strategies of Terrorism," International Security, 31, no. 1 (2006): 49-80
In essence, suicide terrorism is an extreme form of what Thomas Schelling (1966) calls "the rationality of irrationality," in which an act that is irrational for individual attackers is meant to demonstrate credibility to a democratic audience that still more and greater attacks are sure to come. As such, modern suicide terrorism is analogous to instances of international coercion. For states, air power and economic sanctions are often the preferred coercive tools (George et al. 1972; Pape 1996, 1997). For terrorist groups, suicide attacks are becoming the coercive instrument of choice. [p. 344]
At its core, suicide terrorism is a strategy of coercion, a means to compel a target government to change policy. The central logic of this strategy is simple: Suicide terrorism attempts to inflict enough pain on the opposing society to overwhelm their interest in resisting the terrorists demands and, so, to cause either the government to concede or the population to revolt against the government. The common feature of all suicide terrorist campaigns is that they inflict punishment on the opposing society, either directly by killing civilians or indirectly by killing military personnel in circumstances that cannot lead to meaningful battlefield victory. As we shall see, suicide terrorism is rarely a one time event but often occurs in a series of suicide attacks. As such, suicide terrorism generates coercive leverage both from the immediate panic associated with each attack and from the risk of civilian punishment in the future. [p. 346]
Robert A. Pape, "The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terorism," American Political Science Review, 97, no. 3 (2003): 343-361
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My point was just that calling suicide bombers cowardly because they don't walk into gunfire is about a moronic as it gets.
From a basic definition of a suicide bomb / kamikaze type attack, obviously it is done because it is likely to do far greater damage than one would ordinarily be capable of. Motivations are various, but the quote has nothing to do with that and isn't questioning their motivations. It's calling them cowards, as though they're not as devoted to whatever their cause or motivation is. As if we, as readers, are supposed to think that they don't believe in their cause nearly as much as we great westerners believe in ours when we put our troops into gunfire. It's ludicrous. The rest of the article tries to weave a narrative where a simple report of facts would have been much more responsible.
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The day after the bombings, Latifi showed his three detainees photos of some of the dead women and children from the bazaar. One of the young men turned away, then collapsed in convulsive sobs. Another, who was maybe 16, stared at the pictures, stone-faced. Eventually, he looked up and asked Latifi to kill him.
They're kids. And men no older than us. The oldest one that carried out the attack was 21. Just kids, brainwashed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and their religious leaders, to murder women and children. Police and military are equal game but they are taught to cause the most destruction. Just kids, listening to the voice of their seniors and believing it is not just square, but righteous with their lord to slaughter their neighbors.
There is no point to this blog. Anyone can post whatever they want. I was emotionally distraught by the article in its entirety and over the unthinkable losses that are a fixture in life in central Asia, the Middle East and Africa. It was cathartic for me to release it into a blog. There's no greater agenda or ploy to start a discussion. After all, what can you say? War is evil? It is.
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United States10346 Posts
Nonsense. The goal of suicide bombers is to kill, even Bush called them homicide bombers, and though it was simply to paint them in an even more negative light, it's exactly true. And maybe when your life is so horrible to begin with, suicide might not be so bad.
I think you should watch Paradise Now.
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United States33665 Posts
chef is reading far too deeply into why they used that quote
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EPT
