Last night I was watching Tora Tora Tora! with the wife, and got to thinking about the kamikazes, and then about wartime heros on both sides, people whose devotion to their comrades and principles led them to deliberately die in an act of courage, so that their principles might be saved.  That courage deserves admiration.

Then I thought about the world's present suicide bombers, people willing to strap on a dozen pounds of C-4 and roofing nails, and then go out to blow themselves up in a public place.  I have a lot of ideas about future lives available to these people. In my opinion they will probably be reborn into a place that what they have been doing is what everybody receives as daily fare. Not so good. Maybe they're not doing it right.

That led me to wonder whether the suicide bombers might be going at it all wrong. In many respects the Vietnam War arose from suicides. The difference is that the suicides were Buddhist monks who doused themseves in gasoline and burned up as a protest against social injustices. The public response was, in every case, one of horror, a great deal of empathy with someone who could be so upset, and yet who had found a harmless way to express it. A sense of wonder at the love for principles that transcended love of life, egotism and hatred. None of the immolated monks caused anyone any pain, except for the matter of cleanup. They left a taste of power, control and loving kindness, and a keen awareness of what they did, and why they did it.

This essence of love made the acts of the Buddhists far more effective than if they had, for example, blown a corner off the King David Hotel, or killed all the police candidates in some precinct. People who do that kind of thing leave an aftertaste of rage, indignation, hatred and hostility. (And they may carry such feelings to the grave, to their subsequent dismay.) To make people mad is a very poor way to make them want to agree with you, or to do what you want them to do. That might be the wrong way to approach matters.

That leads me to wonder whether it might be more effective for suicide bombers to go into major public places, clear everyone away, and then blow themselves up while friends videotaped them. The value of martyrdom is even greater in that kind of situation, because it expresses love and caring. Maybe they've been going about it less effectually in the past.

Consider, what would make the greatest impression on you? I'm interested in your feedback.

Case A is the heroic fighter who infiltrates the enemy camp and blows up a dozen people. We see a news flash that so many people have died and that women are mourning the loss of their sons and daughters.

Case B is the teenage girl whose friends hold back the public while she simply states her wishes for the people of her world, and then goes Bang.  Video tapes show her expressing her caring for the world, carefully avoiding harm to others as she explains what she is there to demonstrate,  and then she's gone.

I suggest that Case B would get at least ten times the international news coverage, and would leave critics gasping for lack of words with which to counter the act. "Good Lord. She was so young and so sincere. I'll pray for her."

I suggest that Case A would get no more than a twenty second spot on the Eleven O'Clock News, and would be forgotten tomorrow. "Damned nuisance."

Of course this might be none of my business, but I have come to the conclusion that all we see in the Middle East is hatred begetting hatred begetting more hatred. I stongly suspect that a suicidal act of love would be many many times more powerful. While we can easily forget hateful things, love lingers longer.

For certain, the loving acts bode better for reincarnation.

dave

  Yup, its not black and white, though i understand what Dave is trying to say.

Hello all,
This is a really complicated subjetc. We are trying to understand the reasoning of these people but we will never do.
I think muslims are just a different kind of human being and we can't judge them or justify them, let alone rationalize or understand them.
They are just something we have to live with always praying not to get in their way.
I am a londoner of catholic origen but years ago I became engaged to a bangladeshi muslim man. I lived whithin his community for over two years and I can honestly say muslims born and raised in western countries with access to education, degrees and sex have the same sick ideas as the middle east uneducated versions of them.
This was the main reason why I felt out of love with him and did not marry him.  As I said I lived as an insider within the close-knit muslim community in south east London and he was not alone with his ideas.
They are the biggest hypocrites on earth.
Years later I met my current partner. He is also a muslim but from an Eastern European country and since he did not practice I thought he'd be OK.
My partner eats pork, drinks alcohol, has never prayed or fasted for Ramadan and doesn't even know what the Koran looks like but don't you try and explain to him he isn't really a muslim because he will have you for his dinner.
He wouldn't support or organise terrorism but somehow he finds it in him to understand the minds of suicide bombers and the like.
It never fails to puzzle me. It goes way beyond religion and politics with muslims. Being made muslim by background give people an instant brainwash. It is as sad as that.
I was watching a TV program the other night titled "The root of all evil" and it was about science versus religion. The presenter was a scientist going around the world trying to discredit all religions in comparing them with the alternatives given by science.
I was just blown away by something a muslim cleric said when asked how jews can get along in Israel with muslims and his answer was more or less "Just keeping out of our way".
Now what do you do with that?

Peace.

SC.

I can't understand any of those "suicide for a cause" people.

If you want people to listen, perhaps setting yourself on fire isn't going to leave the best impression of intelligence and wisdom someone might respect enough to hear what they have to say, it being an extremely painful way to go and all..
A display of "love"?  ..to your own self, not so much..

Also, maybe it'd be more effective to stay alive here and do things for your cause, rather than just hoping your overly-dramatic death's attention will help it.

Yeah, Bud. - "I've never been impressed by suicides." That's my point.

If you arm yourself and join the jihad, like the Crusaders did when they went Grailing, then you're just a soldier doing what soldiers do, and it's too bad you're dead, but you were a nuisance to the other side.

Just to snuff yourself is pointless. Virgins notwithstanding (not being one, and not being married to one, I'm not impressed by perpetual virginity, although that suggests some bizarre karma if that's what you wind up with) if you die for acquisition of a good time it's about as smart as dying for AIDS. "Whoopeee - let's all get STDs and die."

But if we are willing to simply do our thing, and to accept death if that's the only way, and we do it in a way that proves our love for all humanity, I suspect that the very novelty of the intensity of love in a hateful world woul carry far more weight. That isn't a military campaign, it isn't an attack on the citadelof evil, it's simply a massive overload of human sensibilities and empathy that would stand out conspicuously.

I'm not here to criticize either side - tossing a bomb of having your house buldozed or whatever - that leads nowhere but back to itself. It's a closed loop. The only way out is love, and with it, trust.

But that's just an opinion.
d

Sorry for drifting off topic, but is terrorism allowed to exist because the victims are to compassionate?

Terrorism exist because terrorists can level the playing field with a super power.  Terrorist are correct when they call the U.S. or Israel a paper tiger.  They kill a dozen Israelis and Israel fires back and maybe kills the same amount (tit for tat).  If a super power had a policy of:  for every one of our citizens you kill we will kill one thousand of your people (unfortunately the super power would have to follow through once).  The cost of terrorism would be to high and terrorism would end that day.  I'm not saying this should be done.  Not sure if more lives are saved in the long run or not.  But I do think it would stop terrorism.

Am I drifting to the dark side for thinking of such a solution? 

Now I know why Alysia is leaving.
*****************
I don't think we wanna go there, dude.
Assuming that these terrorists ("freedom
fighters" to themselves, however misguided
they may be) are NOT cowards (and they
AREN'T) intimidation will not work on them.
Intimidation is best used on un-committed,
somewhat dis-interested foes... which these
Islamicists AREN'T.
Add that to the fact that these are religious
zealots (Islamicists) who have had their
natural fear of death brainwashed out of
them at their "Madrases" (religious training
schools) from the time they were little boys.
If we take the path of killing a thousand of
them for every American or Israeli killed, they
will sooner or later (most likely SOONER)
respond with, say... a suitcase nuke in New York
(where DID all those suitcase nukes go, that
the former Soviet Union couldn't account for..?)
or biological warfare (i.e., SMALLPOX. You wanna
go blind and/or be ugly for the rest of your life?
Or how about your wife, or your kids maybe..?)
I don't know what the best answer to terrorism
is. (Maybe we should do the "James Bond" thing, with professional assassins and million-dollar bounties on the heads of terrorist leaders? There's something we HAVEN'T tried, BTW. ) In any case, what we're doing, AIN'T working... so far it's been a bit like trying to excise a cancer with a sledgehammer and a fire axe. (All we've done is to irritate the tumor and made it spread..!) This WASN'T a job for traditional military forces (but try telling that to the Bush Administration.)
So... "upping the ante" with mass killings REALLY
ain't gonna work.

B-man

The 'terrorist' is always the other guy - who thinks and understands his world in a different way to others.

'We,' of course, are the Good Guys, who would never attack women, children and old folk, especially for oil.

The suggestion that a death retaliation ratio of 1000:1 was a mindset employed by Nazi Germany - with killing on a whim becoming the norm.

Is that the way the world should go?

Greed and selfishness coupled with an imagined military superiority will lead us to......where?

Aye, Doc, this line is being crossed constantly.
The US has used and is using nuclear weapons in Iraq (twice) Kuwait and Afghanistan.

These are now in the form of shells containing depleted uranium, which is very messy, but as there is no visible mushroom cloud - well, folks, you all can see that it's just 'normal' armaments.

The life of this hideous stuff is, apparently, thousands of years.
This is terrorism against unborn (mutilated) children and also affects and will continue to affect the military personnel who are currently exposed to it. When they do return home, goodness knows the full extent of what their families will be exposed to.

Thoroughly enjoy your posts, Doc, thank you.