Suicide Bombers: Psychopaths or Not?

Psychopath or not? Are self-destruction bombers untamed? Do you think their way of thinking is rational? At first, the assist anyone would give seems obvious they must be crazy and have ill-considered thoughts to impact themselves up and kill innocent hatful in the movement. However, terrorist act experts have proposed several rational motives for their actions. Some political scientists believe that terrorists mold a tactical prize to uptake self-destruction bombings against a stronger foeman. separate experts argue that self-destruction terrorist act is part of a cycle of confusion fueled by a self-annihilation bombers desire to strike grit at those who have mistreated or shamed them.Some psychologists have reason out that self-annihilation bombers atomic number 18 ordinary, everyday people who atomic number 18 un believably to site fierce acts until they identify with and join a terrorist theme which manipulates and closetures them to commit these violent acts. Suicide bombing attacks have become a weapon of choice among terrorist groups because of their lethality and ability to cause mayhem and fear. Though depressing, the al virtually daily intelligence information reports of deaths caused by suicide attacks r bely explain what motivates the attackers. among 1981 and 2006, 1200 suicide attacks constituted 4 percent of all terrorist attacks in the macrocosm and killed 14,599 people or 32 percent of all terrorism cerebrate 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) Despite everyones stereotype belief that suicide bombers atomic number 18 some(prenominal) sociopathic and irrational people, many political scientists believe that most terrorists are rational people with tactical goals.Evans (a political scientist), for example, argues that terrorism is a strategy. Those who use it want to expose their cause, draw the enemy into a costly conflict, and chevy an overreaction that will make the enemy look foolish or evil, upgrade supporters, and pr flusht finding the middle ground. Robert Pape also believes that suicide terrorism has an substantive strategic logic. It is politics much than religious passion that has led terrorists to blow themselves up.In Roberts view, Suicide-terrorist attacks are not encouraged by religion only more as a clear strategic objective to force modern-day democracies to remove military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. While terrorism can be seen as a rational strategy, feelings of shame and amaze ment may make suicide the weapon of choice because they can beat up their revenge as well as just end their inadequate life, Interviews of failed bombers or bombers-in-training reveal that they are striking back at those who small or injured them.On October 4, 2003, 29 year old Palestinian lawyer Hanadi Jaradat exploded her suicide belt in the Maxim restaurant in Haifa killing 20 people and wounding many 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 west Bank by killing Palestinians and confiscating their lands. The main 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 September 2007 when American forces raided an Iraqi insurgent camp in the desert townspeople of Singar earnest the Syrian border they discovered biographies of more than seven hundred foreign fighters. The Americans were surprised to find that 137 were Libyans and 52 of them were from a small Libyan town of Darnah. The reason why so many of Darnahs young men had gone to Iraq for suicide missions was not the global jehadi ideology, but an explosive mix of desperation, pride, anger, sense of powerlessness, local tradition of resistance and religious fervor.A equal mix of factors is now motivating young Pashtuns to volunteer for suicide missions in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Further evidence that suicide bombers are responding to humiliation is found in the 430 recorded biographies of suicide bombers which were carefully analyzed by terrorist experts Haqqani and Kimmage. Professor Riaz Hassan, reference of a forthcoming book on suicide bombing, tells us. For one, the conventional firmness that bombers are insane or religious fanatics is wrong.Typically, most suicide bombers are psychologically normal and are deeply integrated into social networks and emotionally attached to their national communities. Individual bombers show no personality disorders and the attacks themselves are often politically motivated, aimed at achieving specific str ategic goals such as forcing concessions or generating greater support. Moreover, the motivations are complex humiliation, revenge, and altruism all bait the individualist to engage in, and the fellowship to overlook, suicide bombing. Indeed, as Hassan notes, articipating in suicide bombing can fulfill a range of meanings from the personal to communal. Without disposition these motivations and addressing them, it would appear the governments or organizations that seek to end suicide bombings are likely to be disappointed. abjection, revenge and altruism play a key division at the organizational and individual levels in shaping the sub-culture that promotes suicide bombings. Humiliation is an emotional process that seeks to discipline the target partys mien by attacking and lowering their own and others opinions of whether they deserve respect.Revenge is also a response to the continuous suffering of an aggrieved community. At the heart of the whole process are perceptions o f personal harm, unfairness and injustice, and the anger, indignation, and hatred associated with such perceptions. The motivation for jihad is almost always . . . the dilemma of the humiliated Muslim nation, victimized by the joint evil forces of kufr (unbelief, embodied by the United States as the enemy bent on the destruction of Islam) and tawaghit (tyrants who have set themselves up, or are propped up, as gods on earth).Although Americans tend to think of suicide bombers as individual people taking individual decisions to kill people says Timothy Spengler, they normally operate as members of highly structured terrorist groups. For bombers-in-training, feelings of shame and humiliationeven their individual identitiesare replaced by identification with the group, as psychiatrist Vamik Volkan explains In normal life, a person who wants to kill themself has low self-esteem. For the suicide bombers it was the enemyby killing yourself, you gain self-esteem.These were people with crac ks in their personality that could be filled up, as if with cement, with the large group identity. So their individuality was erased. one time recruits have identified with a terrorist group, they are willing to do anything asked by the group and take extreme risks because they feel invincible. Their individual motives and values are replaced by the motives and values of the terrorist group, and disagreement or questioning of the groups norms is not encouraged.Men attach more value to vengeance than women and young people are more prepared to act in a spiteful manner than older individuals. It is not surprising, then, to find that most suicide bombers are both young and male. The key to understanding suicide 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 organizations logic is more important than understanding individual motivations in explaining suicide attacks.Suicide bombi ngs have high symbolic value because the willingness of the committers to die signals high collapse and dedication to their cause. They serve as symbols of a just struggle, stimulate democratic support, generate financial support for the organization and become a blood of new recruits for future suicide missions. As Cronin concludes, 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 vital for developing appropriate commonplace policies and responses to protect the public. Suicide bombings are carried out by motivated individuals associated with community based organizations. Strategies aimed at finding ways to induce communities to abandon such support would curtail support for terrorist organizations. Strategies for e liminating or at least addressing embodied grievances in concrete and effective ways would have a significant, and, in many cases, immediate impact on easing the conditions that nurture the subcultures of suicide bombings.Support for suicide bombing attacks is unlikely to diminish without tangible progress in achieving at least some 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 Academic depend Elite database. Atran, S. (2004, Summer).Mishandling suicide terrorism. The Washington Quarterly, 27(3), 6790. Retrieved November 20 from the Center for strategic and International Studies Web site www. twq. com/04summer/docs/04summer_atran. pdf Cronin, A. K. (2003, August 28). Terrorists and suicide attacks. CRS Report RL32058. Washington, D. C. congressional Research 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), 175179. Haqqani, H. , & Kimmage, D. (2005, October 3). Suicidology The online bios of Iraqs martyrs. New Republic, 233(14), 1416. 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, May 26) . The patient is regressing A distinguished psychiatrist visits the Triangle to lecture on the mindset 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 DAmato College committal to writing