Our Suicide Bombers : Thoughts on Western Jihad »
Posted By dissent 3 months, 2 weeks ago in Political OpinionThe actor Will Smith is no one's image of a suicide bomber. With his boyish face, he has often played comic roles. Even as the last man on earth in I Am Legend, he retains a wise-cracking, ironic demeanor. And yet, surrounded by a horde of hyperactive vampires at the end of that film, Smith clasps a live grenade to his chest and throws himself at the enemy in a final burst of heroic sacrifice.
Wait a second: surely that wasn't a suicide bombing. Will Smith wasn't reciting suras from the Koran. He wasn't sporting one of those rising sun headbands that the Japanese kamikaze wore for their suicide missions. He wasn't playing a religious fanatic or a political extremist. Will Smith was the hero of the film. So how could he be a suicide bomber? After all, he's one of us, isn't he?
As it happens, we have our suicide bombers too. "We" are the powerful, developed countries, the ones with an overriding concern for individual liberties and individual lives. "We" form a moral archipelago that encompasses the United States, Europe, Israel, present-day Japan, and occasionally Russia. Whether in real war stories or inspiring vignettes served up in fiction and movies, our lore is full of heroes who sacrifice themselves for motherland, democracy, or simply their band of brothers. Admittedly, these men weren't expecting 72 virgins in paradise and they didn't make film records of their last moments, but our suicidal heroes generally have received just as much praise and recognition as "their" martyrs.
Read Full Story at commondreams.org »
311 Views Share Story 19 Comments Report
Submitted By:
dissent
we live in a culture of war.
let's make it a culture of peace.
"my country is the world. and my religion is to ...
Who Also Submitted:
RSS Join the Discussion
+ Add CommentComments So Far: 19 (view all)
-
67%
Thinker223 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
> ..our suicidal heroes generally have received just as much praise and recognition as "their" martyrs.
Reply
This is true. There is no big difference is the actions of "our suicidal heroes" and "their martyrs" as long as one ignores the victims. OUR suicidal heroes kill "hyperactive vampires". THEIR martyrs kill women and children in crowded buses and shopping malls.
The difference in the VICTIMS is the reason honest people do not consider Japanese kamikazes to be mass murderers and terrorists. They DO see "their martyrs" as such. -
100%
tchef3 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
To me there is a big difference between a suicide bomber who walks into a crowd and blow himself up to cause harm to others and some one who sacrifices themselves to save others. In the end of I am Legend Will Smith blows himself and the zombies up so that the girl can get away and take the cure to the colony in the north.
Reply-
80%
Natureboy3 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
"To me there is a big difference between a suicide bomber who walks into a crowd and blow himself up to cause harm to others and some one who sacrifices themselves to save others."
Reply
Why is the guy who walks into a crowd to blow himself up doing what he is doing?
How is he different from the Air Force pilot who believes he is "serving his country" by dropping bombs on an inhabited city? Besides the fact that the Pilot is risking little, whle the suicide bomber is sacrificing everything.
-
-
100%
Candida3 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Has anyone seen the movie: "Red Dawn"? When I saw it some time ago, the program announced it as: high-school guerrillas take on invading Soviet troops. It takes place in the US, where courageous civilians put up a valiant fight against occupying Soviet, Mexican and other Latin American troops. This movie illustrates beautifully how guerillas are born.
Reply
Of course, in the movie the American teenage guerrillas are the heroes rather than the villains, but the point is that circumstances create guerrillas, and they all tend to use similar tactics.
Of course, they don't wear uniforms, troublemakers are rounded up by the occupiers and put into the equivalent of Abu Ghraib or Gitmo, the guerrillas abuse and kill captured enemy soldiers, and a dying guerrilla even booby-traps herself to kill whoever finds her body. There is even a reference in the movie to winning hearts and minds. All one has to do is change the roles, substitute Iraq, Afghanistan or whatever for the US, US troops for the Soviets, and the “coalition of the willing” for the other troops to get a glimpse at what might be going on in Iraq and Afghanistan.
When a country is occupied, the locals fight in any way they can, and they are depicted as heroes when they are on "our" side, and as villains when they are on the "other" side, even when the methods used are exactly the same.-
-
Neutral
Thinker223 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
> ..When a country is occupied, the locals fight in any way they can...
Reply
... and in this case they can not be referred as "innocent unarmed civilians" Candida. You CAN NOT blame American, Israeli or any other soldiers for killing ARMED FIGHTERS during a war... even if the number of those killed armed fighters exceeds by far the number of soldiers they've killed.
-
-
Neutral
DarkWizard3 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Although, I found the article and its attempt to correlate suicide bombing to suicide missions interesting, I by no means believe the two to be the same.
Reply
There are very distinct differences in what a suicide bomber does and the preparation involved compared to what a mission involves or the spontaneity of someone sacrificing their life to save others. -
Add a Comment
Sign In With Your Propeller Account
Please keep your comments relevant to this story.
To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.