Suicide Bombers NOT Crazy??? "Experts" Say:

ABC News ^ | July 29,2005 | John Donvan ABC News

[FlashBack]

Experts: Suicide Bombers Not Crazy Psychologists: Group Mentality, Goals of Iraq, London Killers Likely Can Drive Sane People to Suicide Attacks Aug. 6, 2005 - It's been said that the suicide bombers who cause the scenes of carnage and chaos relayed on American TV screens and front pages must be driven by a cocktail of religious fanaticism and outright insanity.

However, some experts -- including people who are advising the U.S. government on terrorism -- said not only are suicide bombers sane, but also that anyone of us, under the right circumstances, could become one.

"Absolutely, this is normal psychology, normal group dynamics," said Clark R. McCauley, a Bryn Mawr College psychology professor who is part of an outside team consulting for the Department of Homeland Security.

"Normal people, given the right circumstances or right set of friends, can become suicide bombers," said Marc Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist and former CIA officer.

"None of the suicide bombers would be put in a mental asylum on the order of the district psychiatrist," said Ariel Merari, one of the leading Israeli experts on suicide bombers, who has interviewed dozens of attackers captured before they could kill.

Lincolnesque? McCauley even finds insight into the terrorist mind from, of all sources, Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. He points to a passage from Lincoln's speech on giving up one's life for a cause: "From these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion."

It is part of McCauley's argument that suicide bombers see themselves like the dead of Gettysburg -- sacrificing their lives for a greater good to ensure, in Lincoln's words, "that we, here, resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain."

In short, the experts kept saying suicide bombers are not necessarily irrational, and noted that lots of people in lots of places have been honored by their societies for choosing to kill themselves in order to kill others. Japanese kamikaze pilots in World War II did it. So have Tamil guerrilla fighters in Sri Lanka. And closer to Western civilization, there is the Biblical account of Samson, who pulled down a temple to kill his enemies, which meant killing himself.

"Part of the power of suicide bombing is the impact of martyrdom," McCauley said. "Once it's somebody that you know and somebody that you care about that has taken his or her life in this fashion, that has made the sacrifice, then there is a kind of a guilt associated with doing less than they were willing to do."

That is McCauley's point about Lincoln. Obviously, Lincoln was not calling for suicide attacks, but he was trying to mobilize the troops to fight harder to honor those who had died already.

Like Columbine? That dynamic, according to McCauley, is now in play in an Internet world where each new attack turns into a recruiting event for others: Bomb-making instructions are given out. Examples are set. And if you're a young man in a group of young men, you will get inspired.

"I think anybody could become a suicide bomber," said Sageman, the former CIA officer. "It's a process."

Sageman saw such a process in America in connection with the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado. There, the two boys who killed others and themselves got their inspiration from a wider group.

"The guys in Columbine, although they were two, they were very much connected to a whole community on the Internet," he said.

End Justifies the Means? Many would call it madness to kill innocents, including children, on a bus or train and to call it good. But in Israel, where it has been practically a weekly experience at times, Merari is convinced the attackers can tell themselves it is good and still be sane.

"What they say is, 'All Israelis are potentially soldiers. Israeli children are going to grow up and become Israeli soldiers,' " he said. "And that justifies their killing."

Outside the Middle East, how does the rational suicide bomber call it good to kill Americans in an office building or British people on a train?

"The kind of justification that is commonly employed," McCauley said, "is something about desperation: 'We're weak and they're strong. This is the only way we can hit back at them.' "

But when did the West ever deliberately hurt children? Many in the Muslim world might point to Iraq in the 1990s.

"Through much of the Muslim world, and even some of Europe," McCauley said, "it's believed that the embargo on Saddam Hussein's Iraq caused the deaths of several hundred thousand people, most of them children, from bad water, untreated sewage, lack of proper medical care."

ABC News' John Donvan originally reported this story for "Nightline" on July 29, 2005.

Copyright © 2005 ABC News Internet Ventures

[beavus]

First, remember it was the "psychiatrists" who decided that Adolf Eichman was "sane"...they ignored that sociopathy is a personality disorder.

People with personality disorders are not typically considered clinically insane.

[Paul_Denton]

No they are not crazy. They are monsters.

[FlashBack]

"Sane people are commonly passionately pursuaded by nonsense."

So, they went crazy right?

Do you suppose that just as soon as they've "hit the button" they, for a split second, think....OH SH**????
But then it's too late...a little to late lapse of insanity.

[PGalt]

"Experts".

LOL!

[FlashBack]

I guess whenever I see the phrase: "Experts Say" it brings to mind those tabloid papers you see at the grocery store while standing in line.

Or, the late night commercial where they're selling 'diamonds'...the guy comes on and says..
"I'm in the business and this looks like a 10,000.00 diamond to me."
In the biz of selling crap that is.
:)

[hinckley buzzard]

They may not be crazy, but they are definitely evil.

Well put. Just so.

[ladyinred]

I was trying to decide what in the world to say about this. I read your post, and you said it all. They are EVIL, as are those who try to justify their monstrous actions.

[Rockingham]

This line of analysis -- which is popular among academics for political reasons -- rests on poor quality data: accounts from the families of suicide bombers and surveys of captives.

There are many reports that, along with stable if sinister personalities, gullible and abused kids and outright nut cases are especially targeted, recruited, and fired up in mosques and clubs, then trained and sent to do suicide bombings and terrorist attacks. They move along as if on a conveyor belt. No matter the particulars, the families always insist on their lack of knowledge and the normality of their offspring for the sake of honor and to avoid scrutiny and punishment by the authorities.

Yet there is a sense in which Islamic terrorists are normal. The "normal" part of Islamic terrorism is that it stems from Islam, which approves of terrorism and martyrdom; and that Islamic societies and their self-made ghettos in the West produce a surplus of discontented young males with little prospect of employment and marriage.

A rare example of the rehabilitation of terrorists by the PLO and Arafat suggests the nature of the problem. When entering a phase of pretend peace, Arafat and his gangsters realized that they would have to do something about their most capable and dedicated killers and terrorists. If not somehow kept busy and pacified, these hard men would soon be drawn into their former trade in factional disputes, with Arafat and the senior PLO as targets. What to do?

The PLO recruited dozens of young women for a task that would require deep loyalty to the Palestinian cause and lifelong commitment. The bad boys were cleaned up and, at small parties, were introduced to the Palestinian gals.

Matches and marriages were quickly arranged, and with nice apartments, cash rewards, jobs, and stipends, the young couples settled down. The hard men supposedly became doting husbands and fathers who declined all offers to return to their former line of work.

Obviously, we cannot do the same sort of thing for Islam's millions of alienated young males. Islamic societies have to do that. Until then, Islam will generate a constant pool of discontented young men who require lots of police work and firepower to dispose of.

[AmishDude]

Psychiatry is the biggest form of theoretical hocus pocus in America.

Throw in all of the humanities and social sciences and you're right!

[America's Resolve]

"Normal people, given the right circumstances or right set of friends, can become suicide bombers," said Marc Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist and former CIA officer.

This is SUCH bull****!!!

We aren't raised fron infanthood to believe that the vast majority of humanity and less than human and should be eradicated because they're "impure".

[LadyDoc]

. Christianity teaches us that just to believe in Jesus we are offered an eternal spot seated in heaven

Actually,for most Christians it is a bit more complicated than that...

Jesus offers us salvation, but we can turn from it. Also, some people don't really follow Jesus, they merely pretend to.

Finally, non evangelicals think that we are saved by grace, but that we need to cooperate with graces...this is why at the "last judgement", the sheep and goats are separated by their deeds...and why Catholics believe that Jesus, thru grace, can save one who has no gift of faith but tries to follow God as best he or she can...which we call baptism of desire.

Islam is not monolithic. Most Muslims are pious people who try to follow God's will in everyday life, be generous to the poor, and pray daily. The Islamofascists have more in common with fascism and communist left ideology with their utopian ideas than with true Islam...