I don't understand suicide bombing?

Question

What do the terrorists think they are achieving? They murder a handful of people. The people who get murdered weren't a threat of any kind. They didn't kill enemy soldiers or other terrorists. They just murdered people buying groceries or riding the bus to school or browsing for a new pair of shoes.

It doesn't win any type of idealogical war. They survivors are more determined than ever to fight against terrorists. They don't give up and bow down to the terrorists.

Suicide bombing has to be the most idiotic act of war ever conceived. What is it's purpose?

Answer 1

They think they will get all these virgins in paradise when they die killing the infidel.

Answer 2

On the contrary, suicide weapons are a perfectly logical counter to  an occupying army's awesome advantage in hi tech firepower. If insurgents had helicopter gunships and cruise missiles they would use those, they don't, but suicide munitions are a cheap and highly effective alternative. Suicide bombers have achieved great success in the past, and no doubt will do so again. Just defending against them is hideously expensive and often results in atrocities in and of itself by the occupying force. As long as armies occupy hostile foreign lands, people will launch suicide attacks.

Answer 3

I don't understand American bombing from planes with arsenals including white phosphorous and carpet bombs.  Pretty wimpy to drop bombs on so many innocents from above with little chance of being shot down.  Or, artillery from a distance blowing up families in their homes, hospitals and mosques.  Big brave soldiers here.

Answer 4

The reason people will engage in terrorism and the reason people engage in suicide bombing are different.

People engage in terrorism when they wish to change the leadership of a country, but lack the forces for open assault. Terrorism, by definition, is designed to create terror. If people are being killed, and their leaders are unable to protect them, the people sometimes lose faith in their leader and replace him. Of course, sometimes this backfires, like Bush's soaring approval ratings after 9/11.

But think about this. Because of the attack on 9/11, the US got involved in two long, expensive wars in the Middle East. Bush has some of the lowest approval ratings in history. A black man stands a chance of being President--something that a few years ago would have been thought impossible--mostly because he opposes Bush. And while Obama is not a terrorist, not a Muslim, and not a coward, it is unlikely that he will be as supportive of Israel as a Bush is. The existence of Israel is one of the main reasons terrorists exist in the first place.

The people who engage in suicide bombing are carefully selected by terrorist groups. They are usually young, disenfranchised, angry at the world, and male. These are the same type of people who engage in school shootings in the US.

They are usually indoctrinated into fundamentalist Islam with the promise of acceptance and eternal paradise--the same way that many depressed people become evangelical Christians. Sometimes believing in a higher being makes you feel better.

The terrorist group will assure the bomber that if they carry out the attack they will be a martyr--that Muslims will respect him and he will spend eternity in paradise.

The bomber, who is, after all, still angry and still depressed, will carry out his mission, confident that he is on his way to salvation.

Answer 5

Its hard to understand, but the kamikazis did it. Imagine the n***s for example having won the war in europe and landed in the US and decided that all people there must go. Would suicide bombing make sense to you then? Its all in the mind and how desperate these people are.

Answer 6

you don't understand suicide bombing?

neither do suicide bombers!

they're all brainwashed into it  

Answer 7

it's not an act of war, they think its a way to appease their god. but they think theyre killing people that deserve to die because theyre also extremists. so i mean they are just trying to get a reward in heaven because they have a different idea of heaven than we do. and since no one has any real proof that any type of heaven exists they decide to believe that theirs does. the most idiotic act of war in my opinion is declaring it.

Answer 8

You are 100% correct. At the end of the day, it achieves nothing but the death of innocents. But terror must be fought wherever and whenever.

Answer 9

you need to be of muslim descent to understand that.

Answer 10

You know how sometimes, a criminal will kill a bunch of people, and then kill himself? I think it's an expression of deep mental torture----you want to die, but you want to bring others down with you, no matter who they are. There's no real logic to it.

Then there are some who feel they'll be rewarded in a heaven for it.