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Bush has also expressed the opinion that suicide bombers are motivated by despair, neglect and poverty. The demographic statistics on suicide bombers suggest that this isn’t the necessarily the case. Most of the Sept. 11 terrorists came from comfortable middle- to upper-middle-class families and were well-educated. Ironically, despair, neglect and poverty may be far more significant factors in the deaths of American soldiers and veterans who are taking their own lives.
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There is a particularly terrible irony in the relationship between suicide bombers and the suicides of American soldiers and veterans. With the possible exception of some few sadists and psychopaths, Americans don’t enlist in the military because they want to kill civilians. And they don’t sign up with the expectation of killing themselves. How incredibly sad that so many end up dying of remorse for having performed acts that so disturb their sense of moral selfhood that they sentence themselves to death.
There is something so smugly superior in the way we talk about suicide bombers and the cultures that produce them. But here is an unsettling thought. In 2005, 6,256 American veterans took their own lives. That same year, there were about 130 documented deaths of suicide bombers in Iraq.* Do the math. That’s a ratio of 50-to-1. So who is it that is most effectively creating a culture of suicide and martyrdom? If George Bush is right, that it is despair, neglect and poverty that drive people to such acts, then isn’t it worth pointing out that we are doing a far better job?
Basically, I agree. However, I have to quibble with the reference to the 911 hijackers. From time to time I read some piece that’s making sense but then refers back to the “official” 911 story. Of course, 911 is not something that can be deconstructed on the fly, but certainly enough questions have been raised about the “official” story that, in my opinion, it should never be referenced as a supporting fact in any serious discussion.
For example, this two-minute video raises questions about the supposed hijackers, like how is it that some of them are still alive? These questions have never been answered to my knowledge, and there’s tons of this stuff in the public domain. You could literally spend weeks checking it all out. Why? Is it because there are conspiracy theorists everywhere? No, it’s because there are so many &$^# unanswered questions. So until we have answers, I say concede nothing excepting that thousands of innocent people were murdered. Who did it, and why and how: TBD.
