Ominously, suicide bombing has been growing almost normal. Robert Pape of the University of Chicago, in his book Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (Random House), notes that in the whole world there were about three suicide bombings a year during the 1980s and about one a month in the 1990s. By 2003 there was almost one a week. This year there are so many in Iraq that some of them don’t even get widely reported in the West…
In Hebron a mosque sponsored a soccer team called Jihad, whose training schedule included daily pledges of allegiance to Hamas. Eventually eight of the players killed themselves in separate suicide attacks, murdering more than twenty people and wounding dozens of others. When the team actually played soccer they wore jerseys saying, “Al Jihad: Prepare for Them”…
Suicide bombers bring to their crimes a mixture of motives. They get caught up in a group loyalty encouraged by their coaches. They want to impress their friends, please their parents, and become celebrities (how often do they choose to be anonymous?) Some may believe they are going to paradise, although not all… “If it were true, why is it that the leaders of the Islamic movements are not all running out to be killed themselves and sending their own children on these missions?” In Arab countries, none but the brave ask that question in public.
