Reddit reviews Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism

This book covers the topic pretty exhaustively and finds many are motivated by factors other than religion...foreign occupation for example:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400063175/103-6875448-6296639?v=glance&n=283155

Do the ones covered by that book count?

I thought I'd add this to the little research pool you've got going: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Bombing <PDF>. The author, Robert Pape, has elaborated on his findings in the book Dying to Win, which is well worth reading. Pape was one of the earliest researchers to address the topic by looking at the full battery of modern suicide terrorism campaigns, and his conclusions have largely been born out by subsequent research, like that of the Flinders study.

To anyone who's really delved into the available research, I don't think there's any doubt that suicide bombings are largely a response to a political situation, one characterized by an imbalance of power.

In short, yes. This is largely due to the fact that they only read books that are prescribed by the program, and they do not do outside research. For example, two books that began to change my views on terrorism and DHS in general were Blowback: the Costs and Consequences of an American Empire, and Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.
http://www.amazon.com/Blowback-Costs-Consequences-American-Empire/dp/0805062394
http://www.amazon.com/Dying-Win-Strategic-Suicide-Terrorism/dp/1400063175

Most of my classmates do not understand the principle of Blowback (unintended and usually unwanted consequences of a sinister action), which the CIA coined due to their meddling secretly in other governmental affairs around the world in the mid 1950s. When you truly understand why we were attacked, and when you actually read quotes of why they say they attacked us, it fits into this idea of blowback.

I had a teacher in my very first class on homeland security tell us we were attacked simply because we were free, and they hated freedom. That sadly could not be farther from the truth, however mainstream media and many educators of our day push this idea.

I hope that answers your question!

Edit: grammar

Nearly all religions (except most Eastern religions) breed violence (The Bible is a very violent piece of prose). Religious terrorists are from any faith. Draw a picture of Mohammed get killed by Muslim extremists, have an abortion here you get bombed by Christian extremists. Over generalization in the media makes it seem that ALL Muslims wish to kill innocent children with ball bearings and explosives... Not true. Muslim extremists, that's their gig. And the current situation now isn't primarily a religious struggle, it's a political one: http://www.amazon.com/Dying-Win-Strategic-Suicide-Terrorism/dp/1400063175

Also, we must look at the fact that America is the country that radicalized these groups with the coup in Iran. Read a book by Stephen Kinzer, it will be clear. Also look into atheism, it gets you away from these theologically sticky issues altogether.

Awesome work! This is pretty cool.

I'm pretty sure you might have heard of the following book: "Dying To Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism" by Robert Pape. If not, I highly recommend it :)

http://www.amazon.com/Dying-Win-Strategic-Suicide-Terrorism/dp/1400063175

No

>The ideology of the Tamil Tigers emerged from Marxist-Leninist thought, and was secular. Its leadership was atheist.[31][32][33]
[edit]TULF support

You should read the article on the Tamil Tigers on wiki here

I would highly recommend the book Dying to Win here, it has a very interesting and enlightening analysis of the ubiquitous term "suicide bombing".

Here is the product info from Amazon

>FACT: Suicide terrorism is not primarily a product of Islamic fundamentalism.

>FACT: The world’s leading practitioners of suicide terrorism are the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka–a secular, Marxist-Leninist group drawn from Hindu families.

>FACT: Ninety-five percent of suicide terrorist attacks occur as part of coherent campaigns organized by large militant organizations with significant public support.

>FACT: Every suicide terrorist campaign has had a clear goal that is secular and political: to compel a modern democracy to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland.

>FACT: Al-Qaeda fits the above pattern. Although Saudi Arabia is not under American military occupation per se, one major objective of al-Qaeda is the expulsion of U.S. troops from the Persian Gulf region, and as a result there have been repeated attacks by terrorists loyal to Osama bin Laden against American troops in Saudi Arabia and the region as a whole.

>FACT: Despite their rhetoric, democracies–including the United States–have routinely made concessions to suicide terrorists. Suicide terrorism is on the rise because terrorists have learned that it’s effective.

>In this wide-ranging analysis, Professor Pape offers the essential tools to forecast when some groups are likely to resort to suicide terrorism and when they are not. He also provides the first comprehensive demographic profile of modern suicide terrorist attackers. With data from more than 460 such attackers–including the names of 333–we now know that these individuals are not mainly poor, desperate criminals or uneducated religious fanatics but are often well-educated, middle-class political activists.

>More than simply advancing new theory and facts, these pages also answer key questions about the war on terror:

>• Are we safer now than we were before September 11?

>• Was the invasion of Iraq a good counterterrorist move?

>• Is al-Qaeda stronger now than it was before September 11?

>Professor Pape answers these questions with analysis grounded in fact, not politics, and recommends concrete ways for today’s states to fight and prevent terrorist attacks. Military options may disrupt terrorist operations in the short term, but a lasting solution to suicide terrorism will require a comprehensive, long-term approach–one that abandons visions of empire and relies on a combined strategy of vigorous homeland security, nation building in troubled states, and greater energy independence.

>For both policy makers and the general public, Dying to Win transcends speculation with systematic scholarship, making it one of the most important political studies of recent time.

If you are interested I can also link you to some psychology papers studying those who would later commit suicide attacks.

Suicide bombing actual has its origins in the Tamil Tiger movement which is a secular movement. Dying to Win: The strategic logic of suicide terrorism explains this well. It turns out that suicide bombers are typically rational actors that have developed a weapon that is incredibly effective against democracies. (http://www.amazon.com/Dying-Win-Strategic-Suicide-Terrorism/dp/1400063175)

But it's not one, it's a lot more than one, and their families and friends get very upset. Then they start killing solders in retaliation. Suddenly they are the new enemy. It compounds on itself until regular Americans or regular Europeans are targeted.

Dying to Win by Robert Pape is a good book about this.

If you want to go on some humanitarian mission to Afghanistan, then you go do it, but I don't want to pay for the damage that's being done.

Your numbers are wildly off. Afghanistan does not have "hundreds per year." And while atheism wasn't their main goal, just like Islam wasn't the main goal of most of the aforementioned groups, the LTTE did get some atheist inspiration, as did many of the Vietnamese Communists.

Robert Pape, who teaches at the University of Chicago, has written an interesting book you should read: "Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.". He examined every documented case of suicide bombing from 1980-2003.

> Pape argues that the news reports about suicide terrorism are profoundly misleading. "There is little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any one of the world's religions," Pape reports. After studying 315 suicide attacks carried out over the last two decades, the political science professor concludes that suicide bombers' actions stem from political conflict, not religion. While television viewers and newspaper readers in the US hear more about events in Israel, Iraq, Madrid and London, Pape points out that the Tamil Tigers, a group that most Americans have never heard of, are responsible for more suicide attacks over the last two decades than any other group. The Tamil Tigers have have been influenced by a Marxist/Leninist ideology which is largely atheistic and disavow any connection with the Hinduism practiced by many of the people the the region of Sri Lanka where they operate. The Tamil Tigers are engaged in a struggle for independence from the central Sri Lankan government.

>Pape's strong conclusion is that religious fundamentalism is NOT the source of suicide bombings or terrorism. "What nearly all suicide terrorist attacks have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland." This is true in Sri Lanka, it is true in the Middle East (where many terrorist groups consider themselves secular rather than religious) and, yes, in Iraq, where former Baathist supporters of Saddam Hussein may use Islam as a cover and even a recruiting tool, but are motivated by clear political objectives: the pressure the US to leave Iraq so that the way will be clear for their own return to power. Worldwide, the struggle is about power and politics, not religion.

>Bottom line: Asymmetrical warfare makes the world safe for suicide terrorism, while religion is a smokescreen and cover for what is actually happening. Focusing on "Muslim extremism" is therefore likely to make matters worse, rather than leading to a solution to the problem..

Passages lifted from a review