Origins of suicide bombing

Bin Laden gives motives for his crimes in recent tape


BBC photo: Beirut 1982

Everyone like me who will vote Kerry/Edwards in this election must understand what we will be getting if they win. The Cowboy Letters provide some glimpses into the violence underlying our politics -- and the perceived justifiability of that violence. Justice depends on perspective.

Note in particular the position outline of Kerry/Edwards from National Jewish Democratic Council. This is tough, reactionary stuff attributed to our candidates. Also recall the debates. In one post I quote John Edwards at length around his justification for Israel's response to violence perpetrated against them. "What are the Israeli people supposed to do?" Edwards said in the veep debate.

Now Juan Cole has a post on the Towers of Beirut that looks at the origins of modern Mideast violence from an entirely different perspective. The scene -- the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. If you don't care to pick up Chomsky's Fateful Triangle and try to plow through the chapter on "Peace for Galilee", Cole provides an excellent primer on this ruthless Israeli action. Cole writes,

The invasion killed some 18,000 persons, half of them innocent civilians. During this period Sharon turned the task of guarding the disarmed and helpless Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps over to his allies, the fascist Phalangist paramilitary. The latter promptly murdered hundreds of defenseless Palestinians.

One of the 9/11 hijackers, Ziad Jarrah, was a Lebanese Sunni who was 8 when the Israelis invaded his country and wrought so much destruction. He obviously was deeply traumatized by the experience.

The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 was a wanton act of aggression and destruction that ended up radicalizing the Lebanese Shiites and leading them to develop the technique of suicide bombing. A majority of Israelis was disgusted with the war, and in the aftermath Sharon was politically marginalized for two decades. Somehow he has managed to rehabilitate himself and now pursues his agenda of killing without any let or hindrance.

Cole describes how the latest bin Laden tape has revealed the early conception of the 911 attacks stem from these times. Pictures of Beirut under Israeli bombardment (as seen above) ought to be eerily familiar to Americans saturated with 911 images.

No, the 911 attacks were not justified and did not bring justice for those harmed in the brutal Israeli and American occupations of Arab lands that have continued and escalated over the years since 1982. But at least for a moment should we not try to see the effects of US/Israel policy from the eyes of those underneath it? Why should Americans and Israelis be even the least bit surprised when those they attack choose to respond with violence? America does so just about as the first resort.

Is it too much to ask of Kerry & Edwards, or Bush & Cheney for that matter, to consider that the most belligerent actions are those most likely to be returned in kind? If we want to be "safer", we ought to recognize this simple truth.