Capital Hill warms to "Occupier" theory on Suicide attacks

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 July 2005, 01:39 GMT]
Faulting the U.S policy makers for misreading suicide terrorism as a function of Islamic fundamentalism, Robert A Pape of University of Chicago says that most suicide attacks are undertaken to drive away occupying forces, Washington Post said in an article Sunday reviewing Pape's recent book "Dying to win." "Several of the 18 legislators at the Capitol Hill briefing found his [Prof Pape's] ideas interesting," the paper added.

"What over 95% of all suicide attacks around the world since 1980 have in common is not religion, but a clear, strategic objective to compel a modern democracy to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland," Washington Post quoted Prof Pape as as saying.

Senator Richard Lugar (Republican, Indiana) was impressed with the analysis, according to his spokesperson and Senator Craig Thomas (R-Wyoming) said he found the analysis plausible, the paper said.

Marc Sageman, author of "Understanding Terror Networks," faulted Pape for putting "al Queda in the same basket as such secular organizations as Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers and Palestinian groups in Lebanon. Pepe may be right about the Tigers and the Palestinians but he misunderstands al Qaeda, the review said.

Another analyst, Peter Bergen, author of "Holy war Inc" called Pape's theory "kind of brilliant."

Michael Schuerer, former CIA analyst, says Pape's statistics "definitely show that people are attacked by suicide car bombs not because of who they are or what they believe...Instead people use car bombs to attack occupying powers," Washington Post further said.

External Links:

WP:

A Scholarly Look at Terror