Afghan bomb injures three Canadian soldiers
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Michael Dorosh
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DG-41 said:
Maybe he's just more dedicated to his cause than you could ever hope to be. I don't understand the penchant for laughing them off or wishing they would "run out of martyrs." Look at the number of successful kamikaze attacks the Japanese mounted on Allied warships in 1945. They weren't insane, they weren't even slightly loony. These were dedicated military professionals who felt they had a cause worth dying for. Were it not for the A bombs, there would have been many more deaths - Japanese suicide pilots/soldiers as well as Allied servicemen. It only seems crazy because we are on the outside looking in. Few people in the world do things to be "evil" or because they are "nuts." And there have been far too many suicide bombings to be able to creditably put them all down to mental illness.
DG, you swore an oath. Could you blow yourself up in order to live up to it? I couldn't. I think that puts this guy one up on me, frankly.
Keep thinking that their sanity is an issue; we also thought that 'the Nips' were bucktoothed medieval minded pissants who couldn't see well in the dark because of their slanted eyes. Then they taught the world a few lessons at Hong Kong, Singapore, and in the Phillipines. Ask any pilot in a Brewster Buffalo or Vindicator what he thought of the Zero and the guys that flew them.
Don't get me wrong, we will beat these "terrorists" just as we beat the Japanese, but wishing for them to kill themselves off without us having to do anything about it, or try to understand how they think - and why -is not going to accomplish that goal.
But a Kamakazie was going after a high-value target with a long-lead replacement time where successful completion of the mission would result in a substancial military effect. You take out an aircraft carrier or a fully-loaded fleet oiler, and you have accomplished something.
It's very, very difficult to talk about what I would or wouldn't do with regards to missions with low survival probabilities with any degree of certainty when faced with the real thing - everybody is a VC waiting to happen in their heads - so take this next part with an appropriate grain of salt.
- I can imagine participating in a zero-survivable mission if the stakes were dire enough and the payoff large enough (Kamakaze)
- I can imagine participating in a low-survivable mission (like the Guns of Naverone) if the payoff is large enough and there is at least a hope that skill and luck might pull me through it.
- I can imagine sacrificing myself to save my comrades (the archtypical throwing one's self on a grenade)
But I cannot imagine sacrificing myself to take out a couple of lone soldiers on patrol. There's no payoff. Even if there is complete success, I'm dead and the damage done to the enemy is so slight as to be hardly worth mentioning.
I think any rational soldier can invision circumstances where he might have to sacrifice himself for the greater good in the line of duty, but the assumption that goes along with that is that the sacrifice would mean something. To sacrifice one's self with no hope of meaningful payoff... that implies, to me at least, a certain lack of rational thinking.
What really fascinates me is - what is driving these guys to the point where they are willing to self-sacrifice for so little payoff? Are their lives so horrible that suicide is the only way out? If so, why - and what can we do to correct that?
DG
It's very, very difficult to talk about what I would or wouldn't do with regards to missions with low survival probabilities with any degree of certainty when faced with the real thing - everybody is a VC waiting to happen in their heads - so take this next part with an appropriate grain of salt.
- I can imagine participating in a zero-survivable mission if the stakes were dire enough and the payoff large enough (Kamakaze)
- I can imagine participating in a low-survivable mission (like the Guns of Naverone) if the payoff is large enough and there is at least a hope that skill and luck might pull me through it.
- I can imagine sacrificing myself to save my comrades (the archtypical throwing one's self on a grenade)
But I cannot imagine sacrificing myself to take out a couple of lone soldiers on patrol. There's no payoff. Even if there is complete success, I'm dead and the damage done to the enemy is so slight as to be hardly worth mentioning.
I think any rational soldier can invision circumstances where he might have to sacrifice himself for the greater good in the line of duty, but the assumption that goes along with that is that the sacrifice would mean something. To sacrifice one's self with no hope of meaningful payoff... that implies, to me at least, a certain lack of rational thinking.
What really fascinates me is - what is driving these guys to the point where they are willing to self-sacrifice for so little payoff? Are their lives so horrible that suicide is the only way out? If so, why - and what can we do to correct that?
DG
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Religion and fanaticism mainly. Their living standards have nothing to do with it, generaly suicide bombers attacking "western" targets have been fairly well off even by our standards. In places like Palestine ofcourse, a large numebr of suicide bombers do come from poor families with horrible living standards, however, it's been shown over and over that poverty is not the root cause of such behaviour.
Michael Dorosh
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DG-41 said:
Interesting post, well stated. I'll focus on your last para. As 48 says, you're looking at it the wrong way around. These guys may be envisioning the next life they are going to - Paradise, Heaven, Valhalla, the promised virgins, etc. But I doubt that drives them either, not primarily. You don't think they could genuinely feel that killing a Canadian in a jeep is just as important as taking out the USS Bunker Hill? I doubt they sit down and do cost/benefit analyses. I can't speak for them, but I'd be foolish to try and rationalize from a western standpoint why they do what they do. And that's kind of the point, isn't it. You're not going to buy them off with Nintendos, or free health care. Gotta be much more goin' on under the hood than most of us are aware of. I doubt he wants a free subscription to MAXIM and a six-pack either.
But I do know he's not insane, and 48 says he's not poor. What does that leave. Idealism? What are his ideals?
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"What really fascinates me is - what is driving these guys to the point where they are willing to self-sacrifice for so little payoff? Are their lives so horrible that suicide is the only way out? If so, why - and what can we do to correct that?"
You know i wanted to post an answer for you, but i cant, and no one else on this forum can post an ANSWER, they can only post their thoughts. The answer i can give you, my thoughts rather are this. Imagine you are an Iraqi, or afghanistani, your parents were raised like theirs before them, to hate the west for reasons that may now forgotten, and from the time they can teach you, you are taught "the west is bad, they want us to be like them, they want to have it worse, so they can have it better and easier, if they catch you, they will hurt you or try to make you someone else" now your mind state is this as a child " my parents are telling me the way things are, so it must be so and i shall hate the west because they are evil and want to do me harm" and you are told this every day of your life, and you will pass it on to your children because you have met no westerners yet so you know no different, and then, an invasion and press your beliefs harder, and now you know what was taught to you, and what you taught your kids is true, and instead of being caught and tortured, you will die in sacrifice to kill as many as possible, so there are that many less "evil westerners" to harm those you love and know.
What can we do? Well, we can prove to them, that we aren't evil, but how long will that take? we can help them rebuild and improve their lives, but we can only reach out to so many at one time, and we can only change so many minds and views, some will always be stuck to what they were taught and raised upon.
These are my thoughts, feel free to criticise and rip apart.
You know i wanted to post an answer for you, but i cant, and no one else on this forum can post an ANSWER, they can only post their thoughts. The answer i can give you, my thoughts rather are this. Imagine you are an Iraqi, or afghanistani, your parents were raised like theirs before them, to hate the west for reasons that may now forgotten, and from the time they can teach you, you are taught "the west is bad, they want us to be like them, they want to have it worse, so they can have it better and easier, if they catch you, they will hurt you or try to make you someone else" now your mind state is this as a child " my parents are telling me the way things are, so it must be so and i shall hate the west because they are evil and want to do me harm" and you are told this every day of your life, and you will pass it on to your children because you have met no westerners yet so you know no different, and then, an invasion and press your beliefs harder, and now you know what was taught to you, and what you taught your kids is true, and instead of being caught and tortured, you will die in sacrifice to kill as many as possible, so there are that many less "evil westerners" to harm those you love and know.
What can we do? Well, we can prove to them, that we aren't evil, but how long will that take? we can help them rebuild and improve their lives, but we can only reach out to so many at one time, and we can only change so many minds and views, some will always be stuck to what they were taught and raised upon.
These are my thoughts, feel free to criticise and rip apart.
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