Secret Origins of Suicide Bombers

Brian Doherty | June 28, 2004

Did the sinister concept of the suicide bomber enter the world through an attempt by the author of a 1973 issue of Marvel Comics Avengers to invent a way for a non-super-powered human to make himself temporarily powerful enough to damage a synthezoid with diamond-hard skin--all in the name of rank fear over a new sort of miscegenation?

That's the fascinating thesis presented for our consideration in this Jim Henley essay at the American Spectator. Regardless of whether he has indeed discovered the secret origin of that form of heinous villainy, Henley nonetheless provides some interesting speculation on the cultural history and mentality of the suicide bomber.

Comments

Mo|6.28.04 @ 3:54AM|#

Gee, and here I thought that the Bible invented the whole "kill yourself, but take out your enemy at the same time" concept in the West. You know that Samson dude.

|6.28.04 @ 4:32AM|#

And more recently, the kamikazes of WW2. Of course, never underestimate the fondness of Islamic militants for 70s English-language comics.

Jesse Walker|6.28.04 @ 4:42AM|#

From the article: "There had always been suicide operations in wartime, however ad hoc, finally systematized in Japan's kamikaze program. But there is a qualitative difference between flying a plane into a warship during a battle and walking up to someone on the street and blowing you both up. In 1973, suicide bombing as we know it existed purely in the imagination of a comic book writer. The real world waited until 1980 for the Tamil Tigers to use it as a terror tactic."

|6.28.04 @ 4:48AM|#

Why not? The Foundation books by Asimov were responsible for OBL and Al Queda.

Mo|6.28.04 @ 5:14AM|#

Jesse,
That quote is why I didn't mention the Japanese. Toppling a temple to collapse on yourself and a bunch of your enemies is hardly different than "walking up to someone on the street and blowing you both up." In fact, I would say the difference is largely a difference in technology.

On a seperate note, in desperate wars for survival, it is quite common to send troops on "suicide missions". Granted, suicide isn't the method of fighting, but the odds against survival, in many cases, are very long. Those that are lost are heros to their people. The suicide bomber is a result of a conflict where the side with numbers is the side with the least power, so it is rational, noble even, in that society to sacrifice yourself to harm your opponent. Especially if conventional warfare is so stacked against the larger population that suicide is almost the only way to succeed since death (or arrest) is almost inevitable.

|6.28.04 @ 5:15AM|#

You know what would be a REAL intelligence coup?

If some mysterious and heretofore unseen cleric appeared out of the sands of Afghanistan just long enough to report the Truth of his Vision (pun not intended):

That REAL martyrs wear plunger hats. No plunger, you only get two dirty hookers instead of the other.

|6.28.04 @ 5:54AM|#

Too busy to look it up, but certainly one of you knows.

I always understood that the Czar of Russia (prior to Nicholas) was killed by a suicide bomber (revolutionary activist) at the turn of the 20th century, while riding in his carriage in St. Petersburg (I think).

CBK

Mo|6.28.04 @ 6:54AM|#

CBK,
Correct, Alexander II. Quote Wikipedia

"On the very day on which this decree was signed�March 13, 1881 ... he was mortally wounded by the explosion of hand-made grenades and died a few hours afterwards ... The Tsar was killed by the Pole Ignacy Hryniewiecki (1856-1881), who died during the attack."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_II_of_Russia

Not quite the same thing (I don't know if Ignacy inteneded to go with the Tsar.

|6.28.04 @ 7:17AM|#

So does this mean that the pilot for The Lone Gunmen was the inspiration for 9/11?

The transition from kamikaze tactics to suicide bomber tactics involves little more than the transition from attacking military targets to attacking civilians. Since terrorists specialize in using "military" tactics against civilians, it's hardly a surprising development.

It's certainly a more likely explanation than that they were inspired by a comic book.

Jesse Walker|6.28.04 @ 9:36AM|#

Also from the article: "I'm not stupid enough to waste effort trying to find out if some Sri Lankan kid paged through Avengers 113 and grew up to put his reading into practice....Who turned a traditional tactic of desperation into a system? The answer, I think, is that it doesn't matter who. Suicide-murder will present itself as the logical solution to anyone who values the destruction of something else more than his own life."

|6.29.04 @ 4:56AM|#

Jeff,

I have been waiting for over 2 years to hear someone make the Dune reference. I always thought his use of the "Radical Islamics" a bit creepy and fortuitous.

Jeff|6.29.04 @ 6:23AM|#

Here's a bit on Islamic themes in Dune.
http://baheyeldin.com/islamic-themes-in-frank-herberts-dune

|6.29.04 @ 8:06AM|#

"You know that Samson dude."

I know him. Samson gets me lifted.

Elizabeth|12.29.04 @ 4:48PM|#

aiaaoeatpd tlauimewe.