[Mb-civic] Sanity in the Face of Suicide - Richard Cohen - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Sanity in the Face of Suicide

By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, July 19, 2005; Page A21

Back in 2002 I confessed that I once thought suicide bombing would be 
"self-limiting." At the time, I was referring to the Palestinian 
intifada, which had turned to suicide bombings even though the 
Palestinians were widely thought to be secular or moderate Muslims. But 
by February of that year, the number of suicide bombers had exceeded 90 
since the Oslo accords of 1993, the most recent being a woman, Wafa 
Idriss, who was described as anything but a religious zealot -- just 
someone who had had enough. Since then suicide bombings have become a 
worldwide daily occurrence, producing an unimaginable slaughter of the 
innocent. The Muslim world seems to have gone nuts.

<>Of course, it is not the entire Muslim world we are speaking of, just 
a portion of it and just a tiny percentage of worldwide Muslims. But the 
figures for Iraq alone are appalling -- about 400 suicide bombings since 
the U.S. invasion in March 2003. Even if the number includes a 
preponderance of foreigners -- Saudis in particular -- it would have 
been hard at one time to conceive that there were so many people willing 
to end their own lives, not to mention those of others, particularly 
children.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/18/AR2005071801326.html?nav=hcmodule 

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