Originally posted by icemaw
The muslims doing these acts of murder are animals
Yep, homo sapien, just like you or I.
See as what the topic of this thread is concerned, I though I would post the following article.
"Mideast 'martyrs' often manipulated by masters
Ian MacLeod
The Ottawa Citizen
Monday, October 06, 2003
Suicide bombers are often no different from people who kill themselves out of deep personal anguish, according to a new study by one of Canada's leading suicide researchers.
In what is sure to be a controversial finding, Dr. Antoon Leenaars found the central motivation for some Middle East suicide bombers, Palestinians in particular, is not politics, but depression and despair. Terrorist groups often manipulate the emotional misery of such individuals, especially the young, and induce them to sacrifice their lives for the group's political cause.
Suicide bombers "don't differ much from others, except what they're feeling is a loss of freedom. They're depressed about their freedom," says Dr. Leenaars, a Windsor, Ont., psychologist and past-president of the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention.
"There's still anger, there's still unbearable pain, there's still anguish. But their anger is towards the Israelis, as opposed to anger towards Sally or Mary or whatever. These people may not be as different as you and I think."
Dr. Leenaars is an internationally recognized expert on suicide notes and much of his latest research is based on deciphering the background, final messages and suicide notes of bombers. His study also explores forms of "altruistic suicide," including sati, the ancient Hindu custom of a widow immolating herself on her husband's funeral pyre, and the self-immolations of Buddhist monks protesting the Korean and Vietnam wars.
His work is to be published in the January edition of the Archives of Suicide Research, the quarterly journal of the International Academy for Suicide Research. Dr. Leenaars is the journal's editor-in-chief.
While suicide bombers are considered by most people to be terrorists, the sociology of suicide classifies them as altruistic deaths, motivated by a sense of duty to their social group. A classic example is the soldier who unquestioningly accepts a "suicide mission." Another is the political martyr.
Dr. Leenaars examines, among others, the case of Arien Ahmed, a 20-year-old Palestinian business administration student who was to be a suicide bomber. Her case was the focus of a major exposé in The New York Times in 2002 after she gave a jailhouse interview to Times reporter James Bennet.
"She was to be a martyr, what we call an altruistic suicide, although others would claim, a terrorist," Dr. Leenaars writes in his upcoming article. "Yet, she fit no known terrorist pattern. There was no lengthy training, no connection to a dissident group and so on -- she was only shown how to push a button on a bomb. She was, however, to become a suicide bomber because of duty -- her society saw an obligation for people to kill others, the Israelis, by killing themselves."
Palestinian society, he says, is a culture that fosters anguish, despair, hopelessness and helplessness.
"This was true for Ms. Ahmed. Her father, for example, had died when she was six years old. Her mother remarried and abandoned Arien. She was alone.
"Ms. Ahmed, however, made friends, did well in school and lived with her extended family. In The New York Times, her family is reported to have stated that Ms. Ahmed, 'hid a great deal behind her bright smile'."
But the family was unaware of just how deep her anguish ran and of her sudden suicide mission.
Ms. Ahmed had only offered to blow up herself five days before the planned act. On May 22, 2002, she was approached at Bethlehem University, shown a bomb and how to trigger it. She was soon placed in a car, dressed as an Israeli, and sent off with an accomplice.
What was the motivation?
"Not duty, but to avenge -- there was deep aggression -- the death of her fiancé, Jaad Salem," a member of the Tanzim, the militia connected to the violent Palestinian group Al Fatah. After his death, Ms.Ahmed felt she had lost her future. She wanted to die and join Mr. Salem in the afterlife. Al Fatah convinced her she should do that by martyring herself for its cause.
"This reads like a suicide note," says Dr. Leenaars of Ms. Ahmed's circumstances. "She was depressed and forlorn; she believed that the Israeli soldiers had killed her fiancé. (Israeli intelligence agents told the Times he had accidentally blown himself up.) Her pain was deep. Her needs were frustrated. She wanted to attack, to have revenge. These are not atypical markers of most suicides.
"Yet, to her social group, she would become a martyr, a hero. Her death was not to be seen as a suicide, or an act of terrorism, but an act of martyrdom," a notion that Ms. Ahmed told the newspaper she found "stupid."
As she neared her bombing objective in the town of Rishon le Zion, Ms. Ahmed later told Mr. Bennet she remembered a childhood belief, "that nobody has the right to stop anybody's life."
At the last moment, she turned back. Her accomplice carried through, killing himself and two Israelis. Ms. Ahmed is now in an Israeli jail.
Reporter Bennet says she agreed to be interviewed to discourage other Palestinians from suicide attacks, and to gain sympathy for herself. The Israeli Security Agency, he wrote, appeared eager to allow the interview to illustrate how easily militants manipulate susceptible people and send them to kill and die.
© Copyright 2003 The Ottawa Citizen"
