Study: Terrorists are motivated by Politics more than Religion

[Mr.wizard]

I wonder how they surveyed past suicide bombers?

[Regina]

Why are we so obsessed with trying to say there's just one motive for terror? Can't there be multiple? Ever considered it might be BOTH religious and political?

I do think it's more political. I think just like the Christian inquisitions in early modern Europe used Christianity for power, Islamism is a far-right political movement that uses Islam as it's face. Islam is a means of power and control, it's used for political gain. So yes, it's both religious and political, but it's mostly political through use of religion.

[dyresand]

If you want to look at it islam and isis is what the christian extreme right could be and that is a scary thought because we
are a secular country. Isis in reality has that power due to the fact well look at how the country is they were really screwed over from
progressing. This is saying a lot religion tends to halt and regress progress. Looking at it now religion is doing things to us in US for one trying
to ignore that barrier of church and state and even harming education at its core. Overall the religious right wants religion to be top dog when it
comes to things and will do anything to force people into believe and such. You have isis who has that power and influence over people using religion and brutality. isis is using fear to spread religion and it's working that is the scary part of it. Islam for the lack of a better word needs to fizzle out in the next few years because well people will use it like isis.

[Minimalist]

Japanese kamikaze pilots were motivated by patriotism and the understanding that they had virtually no chance of surviving an encounter with the US Navy.  Making themselves into a guided missile was a chance to accomplish something other than being shot down by the combat air patrol or anti-aircraft fire.

[Excited Penguin]

To think religion has such a little role to play in it is delusional.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

To think religion has such a little role to play in it is delusional.

An Islamic martyr gets to intercede for 70 of his family members so that they can get into paradise.  Don't you think that's a loving sacrifice for them?

"Jihad (Kitab Al-Jihad)  

Dawud :: Book 14 : Hadith 2516

Narrated AbudDarda':

The Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) said: The intercession of a martyr will be accepted for seventy members of his family."

[abaris]

Suicide terrorism isn't the same thing as terrorism. I'd imagine that the study examines suicide terrorism in particular because they are trying to make this point to start with and set the parameters to include the Tamil Tigers. I don't think that a knowledgeable political science professor chose that 1980 date by coincidence, nor limited the study to 'suicide attacks' by coincidence. These are the results he wanted to get from the start and manipulated his parameters to get them. Which makes them pretty worthless, if you ask me.

1979/80 is one of the big watersheds. It coincides with the revolution in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan with the mindless western support of any group willing to fight the invaders. It also roughly covers the start of the war between Iran and Iraq.

Before that, terror was a tool to achieve certain goals and suicide along with killing hostages was the last option. Now, Islamist terror is merely for terror's sake. There's still a larger plan behind it, but the terrorists sent abroad are no longer concerned with any getaway plans. In their majority.

Japanese kamikaze pilots were motivated by patriotism and the understanding that they had virtually no chance of surviving an encounter with the US Navy. Making themselves into a guided missile was a chance to accomplish something other than being shot down by the combat air patrol or anti-aircraft fire.

The simplistic assumption of one plane and one pilot for one warship and countless troops. But there was more in the ideological play at that time. Shintoism played some role as did the code of the Samurais. But most of the pilots were drafted into being volunteers. And the few survivors spoke out about the methods used to force them to sign up for suicide missions.

[Minimalist]

The failure of Japanese pilot training vis a vis the Allies is well known.

This was a level of training and preparation with which the IJN could never dream of competing. The IJN training programs suffered from an insufficient number of qualified instructors, lack of fuel for extensive flying time, poor maintenance of training aircraft, and shortages of ordnance. The two most critically lacking areas were, first, a too long, into 1943, adherence to traditional adversarial nature of their programs (for every one graduate, there were nine others who did not) and, secondly, of course, time. There was never enough time to develop the students’ skills, to practice attack tactics or defensive actions. Most of them arrived in combat squadrons with less than 200 hours in all, by the very end of the war, less than 100 hours. Most had to learn combat skills on the job once assigned to a combat squadron. By then, it is too late and few survived. (Cited from: http://www.militarian.com/threads/failur...gram.9519/)

By contrast, US pilots were arriving with 600 hours of flying time aside from flying superior planes with radar vectored traffic control and secure in the knowledge that considerable effort had been made to recover downed fliers which the Japanese totally neglected.  Earlier in the discussion above the author noted that the IJN "trained " to the standards noted a total of 24,000 pilots.  The USN trained  nearly that amount in 1943 and 44 each. 

The Pacific air war was a slaughter.  There is an interesting chart in this book:

https://books.google.com/books?id=uOsKNa...es&f=false

You have to scroll up to see the chart and then turn your head sideways.... but operational losses in 1941-42 totalled just over 1,000 planes for the Japanese while from 43-44 that number rose to over 3,000.

What is the effect on morale of watching plane after plane crack up on take off or landing?

[Cato]

Never wondered, why China & Japan are so faraway from the Muslim terrorism? they support nobody in the region, that's why less people hate them.

You should probably read up on the East Turkistan Independence Movement. Xinjiang suffers attacks annually.

[GoHalos1993]

Well obviously. That's why they hide behind religion.