[Milton-L] Samson as suicide bomber

[Derek Wood]

'High profile"? Not exactly: the killing of JFK was high profile but not a suicide killing. I was thinking of killers who expect to die in the attempt. It was not the place for a full list e.g. the Oklahoma bombing, the Mau Mau, the Tamil Tigers. Chechenya, the U.K. Underground etc. An interesting question is whether you can distinguish 'political' from 'religious' motives, the question Harold Skulsky raised.. Samson hates the colonial 'oppressors' of his people. Is that the same as hating idolatrous worshippers of Dagon? Robert Pape minimises the importance of the religious difference and emphasises the 'nationalist' anger of the colonised terrorist.
 
Derek N. C. Wood,
Senior Research Professor and Shastri Fellow,,
St. Francis Xavier University,
ANTIGONISH,    NS,
Canada,    B2G 2W5
 
e-mail: dwood at stfx.ca
phone: 902-867-2328 (w)
           902-863-5433 (h)
fax:      902-867-5400
web:     http://www.stfx.ca/people/dwood <http://www.stfx.ca/people/dwood/Welcome.html> /Welcome.html 

________________________________

From: milton-l-bounces at lists.richmond.edu on behalf of alan horn
Sent: Tue 12-May-09 8:18 PM
To: John Milton Discussion List
Subject: Re: Re: [Milton-L] Samson as suicide bomber



> "Inevitability" is a lot less precise than Alan Horn seems to think: Lea Tsemel, the Israeli lawyer who defends Palestinian terrorists, tells us that many suicide bombers do not succeed and are arrested. She finds that most of them are relieved. Their motives I think are relevant as of those extremely likely to die, like the Assassins..
>
> Why 'limited'? I guess it's because I am writing an e-mail not a book.

"Inevitability" was your word, Professor Wood. I guess the real
distinction is that a suicide seeks death by design. Obviously, that
result is inevitable only if the act is successfully carried out. But
it's whether there is an intention to die behind the act, not whether
it is fulfilled in any particular case, that makes it suicide. Or
would you like to argue that since many suicides fail, there is no
difference between suicide and putting yourself at mortal risk?

I'm glad to hear there was no unconscious ethnic bias in your choice
of examples. If your point was merely "all high-profile assassinations
are generally suicide missions," there didn't seem to be any need to
cite specific examples at all. So naturally I wondered what you found
especially suicidey about those assassins from South Asia that led you
to associate them, together with the kamikaze pilots and the Nizari
Ismailis, with Islamist suicide bombers.

Alan H.

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