Talk:Suicide attack

Old talk on homicide bombing is at talk:homicide bombing

I tried to define suicide bombing objectively, as well as to present two of the main ethical appraisals of it. A difficulty in discussing anything to do with "terrorism" is, of course, that many advocates persuasively maintain that their side isn't guilty of terrorism: their targets are legitimate, the women and children aren't innocent, and so forth.

It can be difficult to refute such arguments, while consistently justifying the military bombing of cities in declared war: e.g., Dresden, Hiroshima.

I don't think I have a handle on the issue. I just yearn for a world where no one would ever want to kill anyone!!! Ed Poor

IMHO the specific act of suicide bombing is inherently neither terrorist nor non-terrorist. It is only one tactic among many others. The specific choice of target determines its terrorist nature. Eclecticology

I tried to add some reasons to suicide bombings as I don't think "they are Arabs" is enough really :-) It's badly written and probably not NPOV so feel welcome to edit it. Then it struck me, after watching a documentary about firearms in USA, are the suicide massacres in some way similar to suicide bombings? You know where someone shoots 1 - 2 dozen people and then commits suicide before the police comes. Like the Columbine (sp?) Highschool massacre and so on. --BL

I worry about the focus on Islamic or Arab in this article. Even if true (and I am not immediatley convinced it is) I would think that the description should not include ethnic linkages. After the description, a list of groups engaging in suicide bombing (and notes on cynide capisuls), and perhaps a note that most suicide attacts are Arab or Islamic (assuming it's true) with a brief note of explination - such as currently large number of Islamic people feel that their religion, values, and countries are under attack by the west, and are unable to respond in any other way. I note that Islam has very strong prohibitions against suicide, this probably should also be covered. - Karl

The article clearly states that suicide bombing is not accepted by most countries. I am recommending that as an addition, the quote from the Koran on prohibition against suicide also be added. In general, it should be quite clear that suicide bombing is not considered generally acceptable. This too can be stated. It IS important to say why people engange in suicide bombing. Given the rather strong comdemnation of it in the general description, no rebuttal is necessary. If one group is singled out, then the reasons that this group engages in suicide bombing is important. I don't think that the truth of these reasons needs to be debated, rather when listing the reasons, comments like the Palistinian people believe that ... An additional section on the results of suicide bombing, ie escellating violence, terroristic responsees by the victim countries, demonization, evaporation of public support... (again without justifications... with the obvious result of escelating results until someone backs down (Sira Lanka might be a good example here.)Karl

Removed para:

Israel does everything possible only to target known terrorists who happen to also be civilians or to be posing as civilians. An unbaised observer should conclude, based on the record, that Israel does all it can to avoid collateral damage among innocent civilians, a task made near impossible when terrorists use civilians as human shields, invade and take over religious shrines such as the Church of the Nativity, or flee to and hide in densly populated civilian areas while being pursued. The record unfortunately shows, on the other hand, that Palestinian bombers tend to strive to do all they can to seek out maximum casualties among civilians. Reviewing their attacks one finds they prefer crowded buses, shopping or dining areas and other places where one bomb will have maximum killing effect among innocent civilians. This effect is further enhanced by deliberate addition of shrapnel to the bombs, for instance by packing large numbers of nails or other such items around the explosives. Finally they also have been known to arrange for a second bomb timed to go off in the same area when emergency crews have gathered and are working to recover the dead and relive the wounded. Each of these tactics is carefully, deliberately calculated to maximize casualties among civilians.

The above passage needs some serious NPOV work before the few sentences of good, non-redundant material within it can be included back into the article (much of the above is already stated in the article, albeit in a more - yet still not great - NPOV way). --mav

The Japanese kamikaze bombers for example clearly had other alternatives, and were not all that interested in altering the policies of a country in the way suicide bombers from terrorist groups are.

As a general rule, when a writer says something is clearly so, they're usually expressing their own opinion. Otherwise they would provide the fact that they imply is so "clear". To be neutral (or even to make sense), the above comment should indicate what "alternatives" the kamikaze pilots had. (The only thing I can think of is just tolerating failure of their bombing missions due to inability to deliver bombs accurately enough.) --Ed Poor 20:34 Dec 4, 2002 (UTC)

ah - I was under the impression that the japanese were using suicide bombing as a tactic in and of itself, from quite early in the war - before the failure of their bombing missions was so apparent. Similary, they were not doing that badly in the first part of the war, unless of course you are arguing that it was the suicide bombing that caused the japanese success. No matter. The purpose of the sentence was to try to show an example which did not include all the points listed. As opposed to discuss a point in detail. Karl

If an article edit is worth 1,000 comments, I put up Suicide bombing/temp to express my ideas on the current article. DanKeshet 21:21 Dec 4, 2002 (UTC)

Karl, I'm not trying to impose my views. If you have a reason for omitting my 3 paragraphs on military and "irregular" tactics, I'm happy to discuss it here on the talk page. Often when two people edit the same article rapidly, an "edit conflict" and one or both contributors lose their work. I would rather just come back later if you need to have the article to yourself for a while. --Ed Poor

Ed - i like your changes as currently made Karl

Thanks, but I found an even better version by DanKeshet. So I replaced all my work and your work with his version. This will be my last edit for now. I want to let everyone else have a chance, and I don't want anyone to feel I am "imposing" anything. --Ed Poor

it's fine, just as long as middle east warfare stays in other articles. You "imposing" things? Na! Who would ever do such a thing! :) Karl

It's so easy for me to "detect" bias in others, but usually awfully hard to see my own bias. I tend to think I always write neutrally, but several times a week someone has to correct me -- then I see my error. I guess we all have to coach each other. Anyway, I'm giving this article a rest till tomorrow. Come take a look at Palestinian, which I just spent an hour completely re-writing. --Ed Poor

Haven't the article lost alot since a few dozen edits? Like the discussion about the typical suicide bomber, reasons (or theories on) why it exists, countermeasures and so on? And I don't understand why there aren't ANY text related to the Palestinian suicide bombers. It is in Palestine/Israel that most of them occur. Anyway, I'll be back.. in a few days :-) Nice to see Ed too --BL

Oh dear, this is one of the most appallingly biased entries it has been my misfortune to see on Wikipedia. After a heavy edit, it's still poor, but improved a little at any rate. I removed this para of Righteous Revenge rhetoric:

The kamikaze attacks against American warships in 1944 and 1945 as Japan was already losing the war, only further antagonized the fighting men of America against the Japanese. American rage and firepower was unleashed onto the Japanese mainland by US bombers in massive fire-raid bombings that killed tens of thousands of Japanese citizens on Japanese soil. And when America finally dropped two atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in September of 1945 there was little mercy felt for the Japanese people because of their attack on America at Pearl Harbor in December 1941and culminating with the futile tactics of kamikazes as they lost the war.

because (a) it's difficult to see how Allied forces could have felt any more rage than they already did after the atrocities of the early part of the war (many of which were only coming to light in 1944/45 as Allied troops occupied areas where the Japanese had been in control - Burma, Phillipines, Borneo, and so on), (b) the bombing of Japan had been planned long before the kamikaze attacks began, and the bombing of Germany (which had nothing to do with kamikaze attacks) was in no way different, (c) because Pearl Harbor is completely irrelevant.

I have not the slightest intention of touching the Israli-Palestinian stuff, nor even of passing an opinion on it. I'll leave that one to those who take an interest in that conflict and are qualified to judge. The final S11 para reeks of righteousness, but I'll leave that one alone too, at least for now.

Tannin 08:55 Feb 16, 2003 (UTC)

Hey, I deleted "perfidious". :) -- Zoe

I didn't see "perfidious". Guess I was too busy swing that axe. Pity, the word has a nice ring to it. Now, if I could only work out how to get "perfidious" and "recalcitrant" into the same sentence, I'd go into politics. :) Tannin

Why would we bother to have any amateur assessments of its effectiveness? If there's somebody who's done a military study of the circumstances in which it can or has been effective, we should include it, but barring that, I don't see the need for armchair analysis. DanKeshet 16:29 Feb 16, 2003 (UTC)

"I tried to add some reasons to suicide bombings as I don't think "they are Arabs" is enough really :-) It's badly written and probably not NPOV so feel welcome to edit it. Then it struck me, after watching a documentary about firearms in USA, are the suicide massacres in some way similar to suicide bombings? You know where someone shoots 1 - 2 dozen people and then commits suicide before the police comes. Like the Columbine (sp?) Highschool massacre and so on. --BL"

Though not really a suicide bombing exactly, they both share the same essential feature of a terrorist act performed by a person with no regard to their own safety or future. The absolutely bizzare thing though, and something which really needs to be explained, here or anywhere, is why suicide bombings? If you don't care about living, couldn't you do better by running down the street with a machine gun?