Is there no hope at all for the Iraqis? I cannot get my head round the suicide bomber bit, but how evil is this? It makes me feel physically sick! BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Twin bombs kill scores in Baghdad
Dear God. I hope that the use of such easily abused individuals will now turn every Iraqi against Al Qaeda.
They will use any means at their disposal to cause grief. I believe the situation will get even worse as nothing is "sacred" in their continuing their carnage.
Alas, I can understand the desperation of these suicide bombers. They have lost hope for a better life in this world. However the act of desperation may have a positive political impact upon the lives of those around them. That s why they are termed as MARTYRS. There is a long tradition of martyrs in the Christian faith. Many have long been canonized, beified, sanctified. How about the tradition of awarding acts of self-sacrifice during combat? Medals have ben given to those brave or foolish souls who have thrown themselves on live grenades, or have charged a machine-gun nest. Is it evil to fight a war? These people may feel abused by the fact that their country is being occupied by a very foreign invader. They may wonder why it is that the infrastructure of their community remains in ruins. They may wonder why their world in up-side-down. I do not condone; I do not advocate for these tactics but I can understand their psycological frame of mnd.
Interrogator There is a lot of truth in what you say; the sacrifice of some of our own heroes and martyrs, over many centuries, was nearer to the suicide bombers than many people are comfortable believing. But, in the Western Christian culture, while some soldiers and martyrs may find it necessary to put themselves in situations where death is inevitable, they do not seek death for its own sake (one exception, I suppose, being Jesus Christ himself!). They only do go into these situations to achieve a specific high-value objective, not normally in order to kill a small number of civilians. (An example might be Eugene Esmonde leading his men on the attack on the Scharnhorst, Gniesenau and Prinz Eugen, which was virtually suicidal). And unlike the leaders of Al-Quaida etc, Western Generals and Politicians do not order their men to commit suicide. They may feel it necessary to send them into situations where high casualties are inevitable; they may make misjudgements about how many will die, but they do not actually want their men to die - and I include the WW1 generals in that (Nivelle being a far worse offender than Haig, and the politicians the worst offenders of all). The issue with these latest attacks in Baghdad, is that they weren't suicide attacks at all - they sent women with Learning Disabilities into the target area, and the bombs they carried were detonated by remote control. This is absolutely despicable. By the standards of any religion including Islam, these people deserve hell. We need have no shame in saying that our culture is better than theirs, whether we are religious or humanist, and our values are worth fighting for.
I know very little about Islam or any other religion for that matter, if I'm honest. However, watched a documentary on Yousef Islam/Cat Stevens the other day and he was quite open about there being so many interpretations of the teachings of the Koran. However, what he did say was that Islam is all about being at peace which is why I find it hard for other interpretations to consider suicide bombing etc a just act. Having said that, as I said, I know very little beyond a very basic understanding so shouldn't even be commenting.
I have read the Koran as well as the Bible. I don't want to turn this into a debate about the religions; lets just say that I found plenty of things to respect in the Koran, but I still prefer the Bible. But, to use the Koran to justify suicide bombing, or generally the massacre of civilians, you would have to take a few verses right out of context - which you could just as well do with the Bible. In both cases, it is the teachings of later interpreters which some would use to justify this kind of thing. All I will say is that its slightly disingenuous of Moslems to say that Islam means "Peace" - it actually means Peace, in the sense of Submission to Allah.
