Suicide Bombers

Interesting angle.

They r as much a coward as the man who sits in his chair & says - "Send them in Richard".

I think it also depends very much on the situation.... where the Japanese Kamakazi pilots cowards??

I don't think so - even when we'd defeated their army, they kept on coming.

Where the 911 ppl cowards??

I don't think so - it has to take some guts to take over a plane full of ppl in the first place.

R they brainwashed?? In many cases - yes, but again it varies on the situation. It is short sighted to put them in pot/

Why do they target civilians? Because they r not strong enough / haven't got the resources to take on the dominating powers.

Is it right? Probably not - its certainly not desirable, however a lot more analysis should be done to determine why each indiviual attack is happening.


Moving on.... I watched a programme last night, & was surprised to hear about how much religion influences US politics.

I'm sure Adrian will fill us in, but the head of the most popular church in the US (It is different to England where the queen is still the head of the church of England) - is very much a fundamentalist in the same way some of these middle Eastern ppl are. His answer was to Nuke the middle East, as this would herald the second coming of Jesus (from his own mouth).

He also claimed to have influenced the election, as he controlled 70 million of the votes (bound to be exagerated + all his followers wouldn't necessarily vote for him).

He has now teamed up with a Zionist party.... that see things very black & white - their religion = good. Others = Evil.

The religious influence is carried over to the President "God Bless America etc..". Tony Blair wanted to say God Bless you at the end of a 911 speech. As one, the cabinet rose saying "Not a good idea - you'll be seen to be letting religion influence your politics".

I'm sure Adrian has a few things on the subject. & JBJ who is very much against religion, yet supports a born again christian as a leader.

ROFL..thanks for seriously giving me a bit of a chuckle today. This is the first I have heard of any of this. I would love to know more about this church being that it is the most popular and all.

Catholics are by far the most numerous single religious denomination in the United States, with 62 million adherents in nearly 22,000 congregations.

Errmm, yes, he was a Catholic....

And he said that he thought we should nuke the Middle East? I guess he beats to his own drummer then, because that isn't what the Catholic Church believes.

Re:Religion and politics. Bush is quite religious and thinks he's on a jihad to fight terrorists. He has claimed to be directed by God to fight terror. Like any intelligent, forgiving god would direct the leader of the most powerful nation on earth to wage war on an abstract noun by dumping cluster bombs on rural Iraqi villages. Right. There's rumors of a picture that's given to $500 contributors to the president's reelection campaign featuring a picture of the prez with a ghostly George Washington and Abraham Lincoln laying their hands on his shoulders as he hunches over in prayer. This could be a joke, but it sounds about right. The guy's a schizophrenic at worst, and at best dresses up his speeches real nice with religious overtones to appeal to the soccermoms.

I'm almost afraid to say stuff about zionist influence over politics since saying anything in the least bit negative about Israel usually nets one the label "anti-semitic". Oh what the heck. The Jewish lobby is incredibly powerful in Washington, surpassing the NRA in lobbying power, since many bankers and industrialists are Jewish. They influence Washington to protect Israel which they all believe is the promised land they're somehow entitled to after 2000 years (no one will say this however). Washington couples this intense pressure with our single-minded drive for oil, and now there's an almost irresistable tug to screw with the middle east. Israel "protects" "our" oil supply, we rough up anyone who so much as looks at Israel cross-eyed, and the only losers are the oppressed Palestinians who have been held in a virtual concentration camp in their own country since like 1948. No one likes to deny anything to the Jewish people and state since they did after all suffer through the holocaust. Despite the fact that the ratio of Palestinians to Israelis killed (these are civvies mind you) is something like 10/1. The Israelis impose indefinite curfews (penalty:jail or death) on Palestine then lift them randomly, leading to people getting shot for going to the market. They're one of the last few countries left that allows torture in non-ticking-bomb cases. And guess what? They spoke about relocating the whole Palestinian population out of Palestine (read:at gunpoint) before a meeting of the Christian Coalition, and got the approval of the meeting. If I'm not mistaken the head of the CC actually applauded the suggestion. I'm suprised God didn't strike him down with a lightning bolt right there. Is there anything more Anti-Christian than forcably moving unwilling people out of a country they've possessed for 2000 years? Read the book Terrorism And Tyranny by James Bovard. He describes in great detail the abuses of the Palestinians by the Israelis. Israel is the only country on earth where you'll find Jewish Nazis.

Note:I have NOTHING against Jewish people as a race. Absolutely nothing. I do however think their government needs some serious reorganizing, and several of their high ranking officials need to be handed over to the PLO.

Mousebounce:Hating someone due to religious differences isn't the worst thing ever. The act of hating does not force someone to cross thousands of miles to blow up buildings. The Taliban (supposedly) hated everyone who didn't subscribe to their brand of Islam, but they didn't attack Britian, France, Germany, or even Iraq, all of whom were definitely closer. They had a definite problem with the US and chose to target the US for specific crimes (which are even to non-muslims, crimes). They didn't try to kill US citizens because we were infidels, they tried to kill us because our government butchered and starved the Iraqis for ten years and kept them from getting most relief supplies.

Adrian

The fundamentalists believe that'll herald the second coming.

Not Bush - this guy doesn't have a direct influence on Bush & I'm not calling Bush a fundamentalist (yet).

Religion is the most significant force shaping Middle Eastern societies. So it may not be the entire driving force behind these attacks, but it is a huge factor. All of these terrorists expect to be rewarded in the after life for their wrongdoings because Allah would approve of it. The problem is that they twisted a peaceful religion around to support their own needs.

I do agree with you about this though.

[quote="Mousebounce"]Religion is the most significant force shaping Middle Eastern societies. [quote]


Some would say Western Influence. After all - religion shaped us, but we didn't all turn into terrorists.

[quote="Mike"][quote="Mousebounce"]Religion is the most significant force shaping Middle Eastern societies. We didn't take it to the extreme.