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Suicide Bombing: Anything but Islamic Simon Fraser University, Canada Published on July 20, 2005 No platitude can be more trite than ascribing suicide, let alone suicide bombing to kill innocent civilians, to the teachings of Islam. Neither the Quran nor the Hadis literature permits suicide as a mode of escape from worldly troubles or a means to inflict pains on other human beings. As there is absolutely no room for �total war� or attacking women, elderly, children and civilians from the enemy camps in the Islamic code of warfare, destruction of cities and civilian quarters by artillery or aerial bombing is simply un-Islamic, hence totally forbidden. Many Pakistanis would be shocked to learn that even their �Islamic nuclear bomb� is antithetical to the teachings of Islam. However, the recent proliferation of Muslim suicide bombers both in the West and the East has given the impression to Muslim and non-Muslim laymen and scholars, peacemakers and warmongers, soft-on-Islam and Islam-bashers that Islam has something to do with suicide bombing. Otherwise, one wonders, how come Usama Bin Laden and other �Islam-oriented� militants and even some Muslim clerics from Egypt to Indonesia or Europe to North America are glorifying suicide attacks on �infidels�, which might kill Muslim civilians as well? In view of the above, one does not blame the average Muslim or Islam-basher for ascribing suicide bombing to Islam. Since our collective memory is always weak and we are too busy to make critical appraisals of the �facts and figures� we watch on television screen, read in newspapers and come across through internet, we succumb to the popular myths and propaganda fed by the dominant media barons. And it is needless to spell out who controls the global media network. However, there is good news. Not only some leading Western academics and critical, knowledgeable and objective analysts, Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore and Tariq Ali among others, have been exposing the lies and deceptions behind the Bush-Blair�s �war on terrorism�, but some leading American conservatives like Pat Buchanan have also come forward, telling us how Bush is �barking up the wrong tree on terror�. It is quite tempting to cite Buchanan, who in a recent article (�Bush barking up wrong tree on terror�, Toronto Star, July 19, 2005) quotes George Bush�s recent speech at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, only to demolish the Bush thesis on the �war on terror�. Lambasting Bush�s arguments in favour of fighting the terrorists in Iraq, �the latest battlefield� in �a global war on terror�, as infantile, Buchanan asserts: �Our invading Islamic countries to overthrow regimes and convert them into democracies � is suicidal, like stomping on an anthill so as not to be bitten by ants. It is the presence of U.S. troops in Islamic lands that is the progenitor of suicide terrorism. Bush�s cure for terrorism is a cause of the epidemic. The doctor is spreading the disease. The longer we stay in Iraq, the greater the number of suicide attacks we can expect. The sooner we get out our troops out, the sooner terrorism over there and over here will end.� It is very surprising that arch conservative Buchanan tells us: �The 9/11 terrorists were over here because we were over there. They are not trying to convert us. They are killing us to drive us out of their countries.� Had one not seen this in print, one would have ascribed the statement to some Muslim radical or apologist with soft corner for Bin Laden. It is interesting that Buchanan, who edits the American Conservative magazine, published an article by Professor Robert Pape, the renowned terrorism expert from Chicago University. According to Pape, �Islamic fundamentalism is not as closely associated with suicide terrorism as many people think.� He has highlighted the fact that the world�s leader in suicide terror was the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka. This secular Marxist group �invented the famous suicide vest for the suicide assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991. The Palestinians got the idea of the vest from the Tamil Tigers�, affirms Robert Pape. Those who are still not convinced about the negative correlations between Islam and suicide bombing, should read Robert Pape�s path breaking book, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (Random House, New York 2005). This work is from an expert and is based on empirical data and rigorous research. Pape has beautifully differentiated facts from myths. His facts are highlighted as follows:
In view of the above, it is time we delve deeper into facts, looking beyond the media and fine tune our antennas. Then we will hear clearly what Chomsky, Tariq Ali and Michael Moore have been telling us, and of late even conservative Buchanan is not hesitant in accepting, that: �Far from making us safer against terrorism, the operation in Iraq has stimulated suicide terrorists�. The Iraq war is not eradicating terrorism, it is creating terrorists.� Responses:
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