What causes suicide terrorism? part one: Robert A. Pape
November 7, 2003

This will be the first in a two-part series on suicide terrorism and its motivations. What we set out to do here is challenge the theories about the causes of terrorism that saturate left-wing and pc circles, anti-globalization rallies and the writings of radicals like Noam Chomsky. Their central thrust is that the proximate cause of terrorism is always oppression and economic and political injustice. In this way, terrorism becomes a justified response to evil, and usually with only means at the disposal of the oppressed. “Though shocking, the atrocities of 9-11 could not have been entirely unexpected,” wrote Chomsky, for his is the theory of cosmic justice at work – if the U.S. spreads death and destruction everywhere, the big bad empire will get its just deserts.
 
The first article here is the summarized editorial version of a paper recently published by the American Political Science Review by Robert Pape, a political scientist at the University of Chicago. A vigorously-researched paper that incorporates into its analysis every suicide attack from 1980 to 2001, Pape’s conclusion centers around the idea that suicide terrorism is a rational policy used to coerce democracies to make territorial concessions, and that its proliferation worldwide is the result of its perceived successfulness. And this is the counter to the leftist argument: terrorism is caused not by poverty, oppression or injustice, but rather it is a strategic decision undertaken by calculating individuals against democracies because of its effectiveness.
 
That terrorism only works against democracies has been consistently argued by this listserv. The simple explanation is that democracies, unlike dictatorships – which by definition rule through force – are unwilling to respond to terrorism’s indiscriminate slaughter with equally indiscriminate repression. Autocracies, monarchies, theocracies, one-party states, military juntas and the like have little problems with bloodily crushing rebellious movements. The classic example is the response to an Islamist attack on Syrian Ba’ath party officials in 1982, which prompted Syria’s late dictator Hafez al-Assad to lay siege to the city for 27 days, literally bulldozing it, and killing an estimated 10,000 or more. Assad made it clear that any terrorism would be immediately met with such overwhelming force that it could never be considered worthwhile. 
 
In the 1980s, Hezbollah targeted a Soviet diplomat in Beirut. The next day, the brother of one of the attackers was found dumped in front of Hezbollah headquarter with his genitals sown into his mouth. Notice was sent that if Hezbollah tried it again, the same fate would befall their other brothers, then their wives, then their children, then their parents, then their aunts and uncles, and so forth. No matter how jihad-filled your head may be, these are the type of things you can’t just ignore, especially when dealing with a superpower than can make good on its promises. Various left-wingers and pc-radicals like to mythologize terrorism, imagining it as a many-headed hydra, where cutting off one head only leaves two more in its place. But they’re wrong: you can stop terrorism dead in its tracks if you’re willing to commit massive violations of human rights, which many states are, and those states – non-democracies or ineffective authoritarian regimes – are free from terrorism.
 
On the other hand, the U.S., along with Israel, European countries, Australia and about 30 other institutionalized democracies are not. By contrast, in April 1983, Hezbollah kidnapped, tortured and killed a number of Americans in the early 1980s. Then it bombed the U.S. Embassy in October 1983, killing over two hundred U.S. marines, leading Reagan to withdraw U.S. forces.  Now, bin Laden cites this an example – along with Mogadishu in 1993 – to demonstrate how the corrupt, materialist U.S. runs at the first sign of casualties, no match for heroic, warlike enemies like them.  Hamas drew the same lesson from Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000.
 
One point Robert Pape makes is that because there are terrorist groups like the Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam – mostly Hindu and Marxist-inspired – suicide terrorism can be seen as distinct from radical Islam. This is true. But, at the same time, it must be understood that radical Islam has fundamentally different motivations than the LTTE, and nearly all terrorist movements since the early 20th century Russian anarchists. Far from seeking territory, radical Islam is a mass pathological movement, whose apocalyptic ideology is composed of manipulated religious traditions, conspiratorial fantasies about diabolical enemies, millenarian ambitions for new and perfect societies and romanticized cults of murder and death  Such ideas can only increase the eagerness to commit acts of mass-murder, and the proof is that radical Islam clearly monopolizes suicide terrorism today, in addition to being an inspiration for a least a dozen conflicts, from Mindanao to Kashmir to Chechnya to Israel.
 
Many thanks to Thomas Gorman, a student at Columbia University, for sending us Robert Pape’s article. Thomas himself wrote a well-research paper on U.S. counterterrorism strategy last year, and found that perhaps the most significant trend is the increasing lethality of terrorism. Before September 11th, Thomas points out, the average number of Americans killed annually by international terrorism was 30, a third of the number killed by lightning strikes yearly. But now, conversely, we face the prospect of mega-violence, carried out by crazed fanatics who are actively seeking out the world’s most deadly weapons. 
 
Even if the LTTE, al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades and Hamas and others have territorial goals in mind (which includes the destruction of Israel), as Pape argues, I doubt bin Laden should be included in this rubric. Bin Laden is convinced that Islam is locked is a life-or-death cosmic struggle with the West in which only one will be left standing.  If bin Laden had a magic weapon that could vaporize all 280 million American instantly, would he use it? If he did so, would he drop to his knees to thank Allah for victory against the satanic Jews and Americans? 
 
The paper, which is readable and runs about twenty pages, can be found here: http://danieldrezner.com/research/guest/Pape1.pdf.