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Originally Posted by Nebe
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Contrary to the article's contention that suicide bombings are about strictly secular acquisition of territory and resources, religious fervor is an important part of the equation.
The example of Tamil Tigers, Marxists, once being the world leader in suicide attacks, negating the idea that religious fervor is the sole motive for those attacks, misses the overall point that doctrine is motive whether its secular Marxism or fundamentalist Islam. Both types of suicide bombings are matters of doctrine. It would be idiotic for a suicide bomber to kill himself in order to gain territory or resources, at least so in this earthly life. But it would be rational if he believes he would gain resources in the next life.
And the article misses the whole point of Islam. The article separates secular desire from religious desire. That separation may exist in most other major religions, but there is no such separation in Islam. Islam, in its theocratic doctrine, is a secular religion. It is closer to Marxism than to Western secular democracy. And, like Marxism, it wishes to expand its territorial dominance worldwide. The major difference between the two, I suppose, is some notion of an all powerful Allah in one, and an all powerful dictatorship of some proletariat in the other. But in the end, each physically eliminates or subjugates dissidents and creates a utopia for the faithful. Socialism is not a whole lot different.
The article says 95% of suicide attacks since 1980 have in common that all are a response to military intervention. Even though there may have been different doctrines which provoked the suicide attacks, whether Marxists, nationalistic, religious, etc., it, again emphasizes the common thread, "military intervention," and avoids the different threads of doctrine. Which subtly negates the importance of doctrine.
And it discounts the motive for military intervention. It is cast as the sole boogey man. But military intervention is also a matter of doctrine. And there are different doctrinal motives for intervention. Some, as in US intervention, are actually a response to a foreign doctrine, such as Islam, that has attacked the US and threatens to continue to do so. And, in the case of Islam, its attacks have occurred before military intervention as a means to establish Islamic control.
The article wants to make foreign occupation as the motive for ISIS suicide bombings, but it doesn't account for the spread of so-called radical Islamism other than tracing the emergence of ISIS back to Afghan resistance to soviet occupation. But he doesn't account for the spread of Islam into previously unoccupied territories which were not Islamic. That spread has been true of Islam since its founding. Before Islam, the Middle East was diverse with a good deal of territory being Christian or Jewish. Not long ago, Lebanon was 80% Christian. Now it's more than 80% Muslim and growing more so.
The takeover of the Middle East and other Eastern countries by Islam was not due to revolts against foreign occupation. Islam was the invader of non-Islamic territories. It was not foreign "military intervention" against Muslims which created the expansion of Islam, it was the military intervention and terroristic tactics of Muslims against others which created that expansion. It was a theocratic radical named Muhammad who created a doctrine which called for world domination by his followers.
The article uses Abu Hamza as a source. Yet Abu Hamza became disillusioned with ISIS because the leaders, according to him, were not "good Muslims." That is, "they just wanted power." He called the foreign recruits "good Muslims." I presume by that he meant they were inspired by Islam not by acquisition of power. But the problem with that is that what he calls "good Muslims" have a different view of Islam than did its founder. Even the leaders of the epicenters of Islam, Saudi Arabia and Iran, have different views of Islam than what Hamza naively believes are "good Muslims." As McCarthy pointed out in the article posted by fishpart, what fundamentalist Islamists such as the Blind Sheikh, and by extension others such as ISIS, practice is in accordance to Islam's founding scripture. "Moderate" Muslims, like Hamza perhaps is, believe Islam is some religion of peace even though that is not demonstrated by scripture. As McCarthy pointed out, average Muslims can't answer fundamental questions about their theocracy. They leave that up to the Islamic scholars, such as the Blind Sheikh for instance, to say what doctrine means. And if they say Islam is a religion of peace, they literally accept that. Some, like Hamza, also accept that it is their duty, as a "good muslim" to jihad against those who threaten Islam. But, from what Hamza said about the leaders of ISIS, he probably would not agree with what Muhammad did if he knew the historical record rather than accepting the religious indoctrination that Muhammad was the perfect man. And if all "good" people, as he no doubt assumes he is, felt back in the day, as he does now, Islam may never have been created.
A reformation of Islam would have to condemn its founder in the same way that so many Muslims now claim to condemn radical Islamists. So a reformation of Islam would require the evolution of a totally new religion.