Robert Pape

Posted by Andrew L on July 10, 2005, 03:25 AM | #

That is Interesting statistically, and for a small portion of study, not new of course, but it does not mention anthing about the Caliphs or Immam, or submission, so in reverse do we strap bombs around our waste and walk into mosques and detinate them, do you think we can end the Islamic occupation of the west.
Would they get the picture and go back to the shit hole they came from-even where their parents came from as the case may be, I do’nt think so.
Mind you if it was Nuclear I woulds seriously contemplate Mecca, Do you think they would get the Idea, No your right.

Posted by john rackell on July 10, 2005, 03:26 AM | #

The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic ovbjective to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka…

Pape also says that a large number of suicide attacks are by Tamil separatists. Didn’t they perfect suicide bombing? My limited understanding of the Sri Lankan situation (brought to me by umpteen PBS Newshour reports) is that the Tamils are the interlopers in Sri Lanka, having been brought over in the 19th Century as cheap labor (hey, there’s a pattern!) for the tea plantations.

By Pape’s logic the Sinhalese should just withdraw their forces from those parts of Sri Lanka that the Tamils consider their homeland. Hey, maybe Papes’ll recommend the Brits appease their Moslem hordes by withdrawing British forces from Bradford, Luton, Birmingham, Manchester and large swathes of London. [Self-determination for Britain’s distinct non-white ethnic groups will be on the Left’s agenda next.]

Anyway, Pape’s could have cut the Gordian Knot of his convoluted weasel interpretation by stating the obvious (OK, obvious for me after hanging around MR for a few months) that suicide bombing has to do with competing EGI. Two dogs and one bone. Or two competing ethnic groups sharing the same piece of turf.

Suicide bombing doesn’t need to be explained. It’s just a particularly nasty tactic in a nasty form of war: ethnic war. Papes himself says that the IRA didn’t need to resort to it because they were getting all they needed from conventional violence, you know, kneecapping, blowing up Canary Wharf etc. If it’s tactical then the overarching theory trying to get at root causes doesn’t really fly. The question is why do people fight, not why a person would willingly transform himself into Swedish meatballs. What strategy are they pursuing when they fight?

Why won’t Pape look at the pink elephant in the living room?

Papes misses the point when he says all there needs is a political solution of democracies withdrawing their forces. But War is a political solution!! (by whatshisname’s famous dictum). War is the solution when the problem is how to achieve ethnic cleansing. The fight between Israelis and Palestinians is about EGI, as is that of Sinhalese and Tamils, and on low simmer between Greeks and Turks in Cyprus. These conflicts don’t have much to do with Pape’s formulation.

Posted by Geoff Beck on July 10, 2005, 11:31 AM | #

John Rackell,

You raise good points, and I’d like to see Pape address them.

What I find interesting about Pape’s research is, obviously, it contradicts the “they hate us because they envy us” crap the political establishment sows the media with.

I’ve never bought that explanation, and Pape’s findings undermine that bromide.

I see the Iraq resisitance, and these attacks on the West, as planned and coherent attempts to end Western intervention in Islamic lands. Doesn’t that make sense?

Posted by john rackell on July 10, 2005, 12:12 PM | #

Geoff, I guess I found the Pape article confusing as he nods in the direction of Tamil suicide bombing but most of the article is about Iraq. Trying to prove it’s not a religious cause is valid as far as it goes but doesn’t explain what it is. The American Conservative has been anti the Iraq war for a long time (eg Justin Raimondo & Scott McConnell have been scathing of its justification etc). So the amcon audience would be pretty immune to the bromide. If it works on the O’Reilly crowd,  OK.

But Pape says what it isn’t but I never got the sense of what it is (I read it quickly)? A let down for an article that promises the “logic” of suicide bombing.

Matt Nuenke blogged on a Pape piece
http://majorityrights.com/index.php/weblog/terrorism_and_its_link_to_religion_versus_our_evolutionary_past/ which I hadn’t remembered seeing (maybe I was channelling Matt) but he gives the overarching theory of why people blow themselves up: EGI. Perhaps Pape is aware of this himself but shows his true academic colors by not stepping in that mine field. That seems weasily to me.

Posted by Geoff Beck on July 10, 2005, 12:31 PM | #

> but shows his true academic colors by not stepping in that mine field.

Agreed.

Posted by Geoff Beck on July 10, 2005, 12:33 PM | #

John Rackell,

Do you live in the USA, were you born here? (Don’t worry, I welcome visitors and immigrants from Europe -if they are European that is).

Posted by john rackell on July 10, 2005, 12:42 PM | #

Geoff, I live in the US, but not born here. But neither one nor the other.

Posted by Geoff Beck on July 10, 2005, 12:51 PM | #

Good, I hope you settle here and find a good woman, and then have three kids.

You can move to the midwest, lots of clean air and land. Sure, you’ll have to fight off the Mexican, but if you move back home you’ll have to fight Arabs - a foe I consider smarter than the Mexican.

Of course, you’ll be a loss for England, but our gain.

Posted by Zach on July 10, 2005, 01:30 PM | #

I think Pape is trying to stick a square peg in a round hole. That the Islamists are fighting for areas that “the terrorists view as their homeland” says it all. Today the Umma’s homeland is in the Balkans, tomorrow south England, and the next day it’s Dearborn, Michigan.

What is far more reveling, and really gets to the point, is that he says that 95% of the attacks have occurred in or at democracies. Arabs, and Muslims more generally clearly have a strong tendency to fight the weak; so the real question is, what makes current democracies so weak that they are viewed as easy targets?

I think we all know the answer to this one. And that brings us the the “they hate us because of our freedoms” problem. Sure, they may fear freedom, since Islam as a system for organizing society can’t stand the competition of ideas that freedom provides. However, this is only a small part of why they fight; the Muslim tendency of opportunism towards any chance to aggressively spread their territory is a more prominent factor.

The neo-con aim to protect freedom by spreading freedom is in a sense right. What they don’t say however is that we are spreading freedom because freedom (in it’s current implementation) can only survive if everyone else is equally weak. This is very similar to the view by communists that communism could only achieve success and be safe when all the world was communist. They were right of course; if the West had been just as poor and weak as the U.S.S.R., the Soviet Union would never have appeared weak in comparison.

The real problem right now is that we must face the unpleasant fact that a politically correct, multi-cultural society is fundamentally weak by design. We prefer to believe that with enough MTV, foreign aid, etc, we can simply convert the rest of the world into an equally weak form of social order. However, until we patch up the weaknesses in our defense, the West is going to be easy picking for the Islamists.

Posted by Geoff Beck on July 10, 2005, 01:46 PM | #

> The neo-con aim to protect freedom by spreading freedom is in a sense right.

Well, I think we may respectfully disagree. I have no interest at all in how foreigners choose to live. None.

Futhermore, if we left them alone they would indeed be benign friends. It is immigration and intervention that is causing terrorism.

Again, left alone, the Arab and Muslims kill each other, not ourselves. They are congenitally backwards. tribal, and cousin marrying.

Posted by Zach on July 10, 2005, 02:12 PM | #

Well Geoff, I didn’t say it would work in practice, just in theory. Just like gun control nuts believing that outlawing guns will make it so nobody ever gets shot.

Posted by Geoff Beck on July 10, 2005, 02:13 PM | #

Zach,

Sure, we agree mainly. and besides it is ok to differ.

Posted by Svigor on July 10, 2005, 03:31 PM | #

This is very similar to the view by communists that communism could only achieve success and be safe when all the world was communist. They were right of course; if the West had been just as poor and weak as the U.S.S.R., the Soviet Union would never have appeared weak in comparison.

The real problem right now is that we must face the unpleasant fact that a politically correct, multi-cultural society is fundamentally weak by design. We prefer to believe that with enough MTV, foreign aid, etc, we can simply convert the rest of the world into an equally weak form of social order. However, until we patch up the weaknesses in our defense, the West is going to be easy picking for the Islamists.

That’s an interesting analogy.