June 21, 2011 • 25 mins
It 1981 the first modern suicide bomber blew himself up. But this was by no means the first suicide bombing. Israeli psychologists evaluated the motivations of suicide bombers and found a number of commonalities. Join Josh and Chuck to learn more.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
Charles W. Chuck Bryant looking as spry as ever. Have
(00:23):
you ever seen Bad Santa? Yeah? Remember the kid? He's like,
you're granny? Is she spry? And it is. He's putting
on a ski mask and they come in the door
and he goes, Granny, are you spry? Really? Yeah? And
she's like, I'll make you some sandwiches. Now you're looking
very sprited it. Chuck, you've done something that you've never
done in me before. What man? What's going You literally
put a video on your laptop and just turned it
(00:45):
around and then started the podcast. And I'm waiting to
see what happens because I think it might have something
to do with the podcast. Did you see it? Did
it happen? It happened. It's pretty awesome and and it
has nothing to do with what we're podcasting, does it.
I just wanted you to see it. Putty General Interest.
I will be putting that on the Facebook page okay,
because ain't no party like our Facebook pages party. Yeah,
(01:06):
you're into people getting flung off of things. Apparently I'm
in a little a little bit of that mood right now. Yeah,
how how are you doing? I'm great? Well good. We
should probably tone it down a little bit because this
is a grim, grim subject we're about to talk about. Yeah.
That was the first minute, was about all the fun
we're gonna have here. Yeah, so chuck, Um, I got
(01:27):
an intro for you. I was, um jogging you mean?
And I were jogging on tread mills, as is our
want usually, and um, I prefer tread mills because I
can watch TV while I do and just totally forget
that I'm running. Right, the guy kills me, but it
works so well. Like I'm up to like five miles
each time, right, you know what's soubring though I try
to run a single mile on pavement, I don't need to.
(01:49):
There's no TVs on pavement, you know, much different. During
one of these ventures, UM, I was watching CNN and um,
this weird It was Wolf Blitzer and this weird segment
came on where one of wolf Blitzer's journalists was in
Libya meeting with the family of a man who had
(02:13):
blown himself up in a car full of explosives to
um gain entry for Libyan rebel fighters into this city.
It's very disputed city. I can't remember which one. And
the guy was sitting down with the family, the two
daughters and the wife, who were grieving but holding a
(02:33):
picture of the man talked to his best friend, who
picked up the pieces of the guy and I realized
that it took me a minute, but it was dawning
on me that this is exactly what say um Afghani
or Talibani um State Television would do with one of
their suicide bombers. It was just like the embargo on
(02:57):
discussed over suicide bombing as a general rule was lifted
because someone CNN was rooting for blew himself up and
suddenly it was okay. But I mean, like step for step,
it was like a celebration of this man's heroism for
blowing himself up. And I just thought it was really nuts.
And I guess it's probably as unobjective as I should
(03:21):
be throughout this podcast, but it struck me as really,
really strange. I wrote a blog post on it called
um CNN oddly celebrates suicide bombers hero or remember like that.
But it was just so weird, And there's in the
blog post there's video. Somebody found it and posted it.
So there's a video of this weird segment that just
sticks out like a sore thumb. And um, I guess that.
(03:44):
What I learned is that my personal opinion is suicide
bombing is wrong no matter what side is doing it.
I think I would agree with that. All right. So
this is a relatively new thing, right, suicide bombing it's
new because there bombs are fairly new, right, Yeah, But
it's far far more ancient than that. It is the
(04:06):
concept of killing yourself or dying in the name of
religion is pretty ancient. Oh yeah, you want to go
all the way back to martyrdom in general, might as well. Okay,
start at the beginning. Martyrdom is what we're talking about, obviously,
when you talk about suicide bombing, it's forsaking your own
life for a higher cause, for a principle, for your faith,
anything that is not for your direct like earthly benefit,
(04:30):
but maybe benefit later on to elevate your cause, but
benefits for you in the afterlife. And so generally that's
what we suspect make suicide bombers tick. That's what is martyrdom.
And it's because although it is like a very deep
there's a deep religious afiliation between martyrdom and um suicide
(04:52):
like this suicide bombing. It doesn't necessarily have to be religious.
It can be sure your side, your cause, like the
forty one year old oil worker who is Libyan Um
was for the rebel faction. It had nothing to do
with religion. He was just willing to die for his cause,
as all suicide bombers are. Religion kicks it up a
(05:13):
little notch though so well. The and the reason why
is because it's so ingretened. The two are so entangled
from such an ancient place, right like our lamb who
did this article? Who did this? He wrote it? Um
he he he traces martyrdom back to um the second
or third century BC. Right. What with King Nebuchadnezzar. Yeah, yeah,
(05:39):
the famous story in uh in Bible history, the Book
of Daniel. We all know King Nebuchadnezzar gave as the
best boys called them, shad rack mishak the bed nig. Yeah.
I can't, I can't see this three names together without
thinking about that too. Well, these boys were three Jewish guys.
That's probably why they called themselves at in the song,
(06:01):
and they in the in the Bible story, he never
cand as gave him the choice, you can renounce your
Jewish faith or you can burn alive. And they said,
you know what, we're the Beastie boys and we don't
give in to anybody, and so we're gonna not renounce
our faith. They were thrown into the fiery furnace and
they lived, which the lesson there was an early lesson
(06:23):
in martyrdom, which was, hey, you know what, God's gonna
protect those who die in his name. Doesn't it make
you wonder? Like, don't you don't you tend to think
that in stories like that? Somewhere eons ago, something happened,
possibly with these three people. What happened and eventually got
translated into they were thrown into this furnace and they
(06:45):
walked out unscathed, like did somebody like lose their grip
on them? And they skirted across like a camp fire,
you know, and like their robes didn't catch and everybody
was like, oh my god, you know, and and then
it just to just to make it more easily died
juestable for the masses. It was transformed into this larger thing.
My feeling when it comes to parables like this, where uh,
(07:08):
to me, it's obvious that someone wasn't unscathed and a
burning fire was that maybe someone was burned like they
were being tortured and saying renounced religion, being burned with
like fiery torches or something, and they refused and refused,
and they couldn't be broken, and so they were set free.
And that becomes a parable in the way of something
(07:29):
miraculous like this. That makes that makes sense. It's good analysis.
I probably get killed for that, But the point is, Um.
The the idea was that if that God's God's got
your back, if you're willing to die for him, right, yes,
But that eventually transformed into what we what people still
believe today that toil on this planet leads to bounty
(07:53):
in the next life. The Big three. I'll believe that,
and you can trace that back to the early the
early Church, early Jewish faith, early Christian faith, and the
early Muslim faith. UM, and martyrdom goes back just as
far and comes from the same tree. The idea that
if you sacrifice yourself, you're going to gain reward after this.
(08:18):
So what's a few minutes of pain for a lifetime
of happiness and pleasure? Yeah? Right, Well, and the non
suicide version, where you're actually killing other people in the
name of your God goes back to maybe not the
first time, but one good example Robert Use was in
d rather than surrendering to the Roman authorities, a rebel
(08:41):
group basically killed their own themselves and every last man
and woman. This one I think was probably literal, Yeah, probably,
so does like do you think about how that would
be treated today though? Yeah, like the authorities are coming
and you kill every man, woman and child inside and
(09:04):
sounds like a standoff at at Waco or something. Um. So,
but your your point is, I think the larger point
is is that people were willing to kill themselves, kill
those close to them, um, and kill others eventually and
in the name of God, and expected some sort of
(09:25):
reward for it. So you were talking about the rise
of Islam, right, So it was a D six ten
when the prophet Muhammad received his first vision right and
basically was set about going forth to found um Islam,
and within fourteen years, uh, he had amassed something of
of an army and was taking on other people in
(09:49):
in the in the area. Right. It was pretty successful
at it, Right, So what I gained from this, And
I'm certainly not a scholar in Islam at all. I'm
not a scholar in any religion. It um the Islam
came out of a place of strife and battle, and
(10:10):
so thustly this concept of jihad came about fairly early on. Yeah,
there's two two parts to jihad. If you've never you've
heard that word a lot used, probably for the second part,
which was a righteous battle in the physical world. But
the first part of jihad means it's an inward struggle
of the soul uh in Arabic. So it's a two
(10:30):
pronged thing there in the Kuran, basically vindicated defense and
compact in the name of protecting the faithful as well
as retaliation. So it's traced back to the Koran as
far as probably the birth of the notion of something
like a suicide bombing, even though it certainly doesn't say
that anything about that anywhere in the Kuran. So jihad
(10:54):
played a big role in the Crusades, which was the
Christian version of the Holy War right um, and that
was taking it to the Muslim's doorstep, basically invading the
Middle East. Right, Europeans invading the Middle East. It was
the Crusades UM. And so from these conflicts UM, during
(11:16):
the the Dark Ages, the Medieval ages UM, the Crusades uh,
and after the birth of Islam UM, this this idea
of taking a single person and going and doing as
much damage as you possibly could came about. So do
you remember in the Sniper podcast we talked about sniper's
being considered militarily forced multipliers. So are suicide assassins. And
(11:42):
the term assassin actually comes out of this era and
from the Middle East. UM, from the word hashishan Persian word, Uh,
the name of a radical Shiite sect. Didn't know that, Yeah,
So hashish An assassin are one of the same Hashian
Hashihan assassin. Right the the you may recognize the word
(12:08):
hashish as a type of pot residue. So if if
you find it odd that the word hashish pops up,
um be advised that the sect, the Hashihan um smoked
hash as part of their religious ritual. Yeah. They were
(12:28):
also the ones though who would go out and Um.
There they were tasked with um killing like public officials
in very public places to basically terrorize the population. Like
like if you kill somebody like that, you cut someone's
head off in a crowded square, you're gonna die. But
the leaders had just got cut off in front of me,
(12:50):
and now I'm really freaked out. It was the first
early versions, ancient versions that would later become suicide bombings.
But that sect was wiped out by Mongol in twelve
fifty seven, and there was kind of a break on
this activity for a while as far as world history goes.
And then you get to World War Two and the
Japanese Kamakazi pilots who are most essentially suicide bombers except
(13:16):
by way of a plane. Yeah, through the Bushido code. Yeah,
But usually think suicide bombing is someone on foot, but
it can really, you know, you can do. There's been boats,
there's been cars and trucks, humans walking, and then obviously
planes flying into aircraft carriers. Really a male cart filled
with explosives, you're gonna get the same. You're a suicide bomber. Well,
(13:39):
Robert Lamb puts the first modern suicide attack in Lebanon
in nine during War between civil war between Christian and
Muslim militants, and there was a loan suicide bomber Shiite
hit in Iraqi embassy in Beirut, and the US entered
the conflict the next year, and so a side bomber
(14:00):
drove into the U. S embassy I remember that, actually,
killing sixty three people. Yeah, that was in April, and
most folks say this is like the beginning of the
modern suicide mission, right. And then in October two truck
bombs drove into the marine barracks in Beirut and killed
two people French and American I think two D forty
(14:21):
one Marines. So, like you said, that's the birth of
the modern suicide bomber. And unfortunately it's just basically been
gaining momentum ever since. This whole concept of I'm going
to strap a bunch of explosions to myself and walk
into a crowd and blow myself up and kill as
many other people as I possibly can. Yeah, let's poke
around inside the mind because people have been curious what
(14:42):
kind of person does this um? Because obviously, if you
look at UM just from a straight physical standpoint, they
did find between the ages of eighteen and twenty four
is your average age of a suicide bomber. Apparently Israel
conducted studies in the late nineties to figure out what
they you know, who sus eye bombers were, right. So,
so the sense of despondency and teens is playing a
(15:03):
part here. The whole world is against them teens. How
many teens feel that way? I know I did, uh,
and it's no different in other countries. UM combine these
feelings with tyranny. You're oppressed, you're angry. Uh. And then
the final center here is usually and I think they
even have a study that there's some sort of personal
(15:26):
loss attached to the person that ends up being picked
to carry out the mission. Right, their parents were killed
or wounded or put in prison. Yeah, yeah, I'll do it. Yeah.
It wasn't a study, but it said it is readlarly
psychiatrist UM sifted through the lives is how Robert put it.
And they did discover and almost all cases connections to
(15:47):
like slain their wounded family members or friends. And for
the most part they were males. But as times worn on, women, children,
older people have UM all joined the echelons of UM
suicide bombers, right, they're usually very poor. Yeah, um, there was.
Did you hear about the woman from UM I guess
(16:08):
she was a chechen extremist in um Moscow on New
Year's Eve. She had a suicide belt and was getting
ready to walk out into Red Square to blow herself
up and take just tons of people with her, and
she decided it didn't match her purse. She didn't make
it out of the apartment because she got a spam
text from her cell phone provider saying Happy New Year,
(16:33):
and it blew her up really, you know, in her room. Yeah,
in her apartment. She didn't have her cell phone off,
which apparently is standard procedure. Like she they went out
and bought a cell phone just for that purpose. The
provider sent a spam text to everybody, because you know,
cellphone providers have been thinking, like, we're providing service to
(16:56):
somebody who's going to blow up a bunch of people
as a terrorist, the same we want to tell don't
happy New here exactly. Wow, I didn't hear about that.
It's true. So uh. One other common trait is that
they obviously are willing to die for their cause, but
they are also willing to kill for their cause. UM
most terrorists don't have, you know, they have no empathy
(17:18):
for the suffering of other people. And it helps that, uh,
in the case of US versus them, that the them
is very very different from themselves, which is certainly the
case with the Middle East and the United States. It
couldn't be any more different as far as countries go,
and people go, yeah, yeah, there's definitely a whole sentiment
that UM occupation and invasion fans the flames of suicide bombing. Well, yeah,
(17:44):
because that you see your you see Americans as an
invader and an occupier and a savage and a nonbeliever,
which is a big part that that part about jihad
in the Koran says basically like this is what happens
to nonbeliever. This is what you do to nonbelievers. To
an extent, Robert points out that if suicide bombers were
(18:05):
left just completely alone, they might want to back out
or think twice. So that's why they surround them toward
go time with the social network of supporters to say,
you know, you're doing the right thing. They isolate you
from your family and friends and UM show you videos
martyrdom videos to reinforce that what you're doing is you know,
(18:26):
you make a martyrdom video, you make your own saying
like I'm about to blow a bunch of people up
and I can't wait to get to the afterlife. And
I'm like a true UM believer. You're right, I read
that wrong and um and so that that is it's
not only inspiring, it's also like, you can't back out
now you've made your video, like you you this is
(18:47):
your point of no return. Well, because yeah, that'd be
probably even more shameful. But I think people, you know,
that survival instinct is very strong. So there's these people
that are handling them. Usually one of them will go
with the suicide bomber to the target area and we'll
basically keep them encouraged and um on on track and um,
(19:10):
I imagine will blow them up if they decide that
they want to back out. Yeah, well, and beyond that,
sometimes it's planned that way. Sometimes the the assistant is
has the detonator to prevent any kind of backout. I
think that there's probably a backup detonator, Yeah you think, yeah, Okay,
that's my suspicion. So we're talking about the nuts and
(19:34):
bolts of it all A sudden then let's go ahead.
And with that you mean the shrapnel. Yeah, suicide bomber,
it's not a very elaborate, expensive operation that costs about
a hundred and fifty bucks probably worth of explosives and
one human life willing to do so. And you've got
yourself a suicide bomber, whether it's a duffel bag full
of stuff or something you strap on your chest. Uh.
(19:56):
Like you said, they've used trucks and boats. Well, deffel
bags are um apparently out a vogue because you will
get shot in the head if you look like you
are dropping remotely Middle Eastern and you have a duffel
bag at least if you're in London in two thousand
five in your Brazilian right. Yeah. Um, but you were
saying this, it's just one person with a duffel bag
(20:18):
or a vest or a belt. And uh, the the
attack of um a suicide bomber is threefold, right. One,
it kills a bunch of people, so it's terroristic. Two,
it draws a lot of attention to this cause that
at least one person is willing to die for. And
then three it's it's a force multiplier because it has
(20:41):
like a huge effect on morale in the psyche of
the population. But it can also go the other way.
Um has pointed out with World War Two, Um, it
can either Like it's happened both ways in America because
when two forty one Marines were killed in the truck
bombing in nineteen eight for UH, President Reagan said in
(21:03):
his in his memoir that that had a big deal
with his pulling out of that region. Like he was like,
now you know what, forget that these people are willing
to do this. I'm getting my guys out of there.
Or in the case of World War Two with the Japanese,
let's drop two bombs on their country that they won't
be able to recover from because they're willing to fly
(21:24):
their planes into our aircraft carrier. You know, that's not
how the Japanese tell it. How they tell They tell
it like they were starting to make moves that they
were willing to surrender, and the Americans had so much
money invested in this research that they basically needed and
wanted to see what happened. It certainly doesn't surprise me.
There are two versions of that story. That's the way
(21:45):
history works. So Chuck, yes, Um, what I guess what
are these things made up? You said you can fill
a truck belt all this stuff, what is it? Well,
it varies, of course between what your resources are. I
think in the early days they would just re jigger
land mines and I use those. But now it's everything
(22:08):
from T and T too, something called t a TP
triacetone triper oxide and then other plastic explosives stuff. They
can do a lot of damage. And they found too
that uh, the more people around the suicide bomber the better.
Obviously not for those people close in proximity, but if
(22:29):
you hear that there's a suicide bomber suspect and all
of a sudden the crowd disperses, it's gonna have a
blast zone that's much greater and cover a much more
area because the thick, massive people around that person create
basically a human shield, which is pretty serious stuff. And uh,
in London two thousand five, you want to I've talked
(22:50):
about that. Remember, Oh is that when you meant by
shot in the head. Yeah, he got shot in the
head seven times. And he's not a suicide bomber. No,
he's just some guy from Brazil the staken identity. Yeah,
that was a pretty jumpy time, if I remember correctly, Yes,
it was you got anything else? M m oh. I
thought the very end had a very interesting um. The
(23:13):
thing that Israeli settlers were trying was they proposed burying
suicide bombers in pig skin body bags as a way
of discouraging suicide bombers from because I guess if they think,
if I'm gonna be buried in pigskin, that's not the
afterlife that I'm that I'm looking for. But the problem is,
(23:35):
and Robert does a good job pointing, that's how I
think when you the suicide bombing is capable of dehumanizing
on both levels, right, that would have not only um,
I guess, to dehumanize the suicide bomber, but it dehumanized
the Israelis Right. So part of the the whole um
(23:59):
feedback machanism for suicide bombings is that one side doesn't
see the other's human any longer. Right, you're willing to
die for your cause, so you're crazy or um, you
are worth dying to kill because I don't see you
as a person any longer, and so that that would
have been counterproductive. I'm sure, good job. This is a
(24:20):
tough one. Yeah it was. I'm glad we got through it. Man. Okay, yeah,
it's a tough topic. I hope we explained like how
it works in the history and was it good? Maybe
I was? Okay, Okay. If you want to learn more
about suicide bombers, you can type in suicide bombers, um terrorism.
There's another article on how terrorism works. Um. Just type
(24:43):
whatever you want in the search bar at how stuff
works dot com and you will be pleasantly surprised. We
virtually guarantee it, um, I said, handy search bar. So
what do you want to do? No listener mail today?
All right, in lieu of listener mail, because I was
(25:03):
just reading listener mail itist not enough. I saw that
you made a face and kind of like way and
don't have another one ready, So let's just say, how
about just to thank you for for listening? Is that good?
That's what we're doing? Yeah? All right, thank you for listening, everybody? Yeah?
Something simple? That was it? Keep it pure? Okay? All right? Uh,
(25:26):
if you want to say thank you back, we always
appreciate that. You can send us an email to Stuff
Podcast how stuff Works dot com. Be sure to check
out our new video podcast Stuff from the Future. Join
how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising
(25:47):
and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. Brought to you by the
reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
Charles W. Chuck Bryant looking as spry as ever. Have
(00:23):
you ever seen Bad Santa? Yeah? Remember the kid? He's like,
you're granny? Is she spry? And it is. He's putting
on a ski mask and they come in the door
and he goes, Granny, are you spry? Really? Yeah? And
she's like, I'll make you some sandwiches. Now you're looking
very sprited it. Chuck, you've done something that you've never
done in me before. What man? What's going You literally
put a video on your laptop and just turned it
(00:45):
around and then started the podcast. And I'm waiting to
see what happens because I think it might have something
to do with the podcast. Did you see it? Did
it happen? It happened. It's pretty awesome and and it
has nothing to do with what we're podcasting, does it.
I just wanted you to see it. Putty General Interest.
I will be putting that on the Facebook page okay,
because ain't no party like our Facebook pages party. Yeah,
(01:06):
you're into people getting flung off of things. Apparently I'm
in a little a little bit of that mood right now. Yeah,
how how are you doing? I'm great? Well good. We
should probably tone it down a little bit because this
is a grim, grim subject we're about to talk about. Yeah.
That was the first minute, was about all the fun
we're gonna have here. Yeah, so chuck, Um, I got
(01:27):
an intro for you. I was, um jogging you mean?
And I were jogging on tread mills, as is our
want usually, and um, I prefer tread mills because I
can watch TV while I do and just totally forget
that I'm running. Right, the guy kills me, but it
works so well. Like I'm up to like five miles
each time, right, you know what's soubring though I try
to run a single mile on pavement, I don't need to.
(01:49):
There's no TVs on pavement, you know, much different. During
one of these ventures, UM, I was watching CNN and um,
this weird It was Wolf Blitzer and this weird segment
came on where one of wolf Blitzer's journalists was in
Libya meeting with the family of a man who had
(02:13):
blown himself up in a car full of explosives to
um gain entry for Libyan rebel fighters into this city.
It's very disputed city. I can't remember which one. And
the guy was sitting down with the family, the two
daughters and the wife, who were grieving but holding a
(02:33):
picture of the man talked to his best friend, who
picked up the pieces of the guy and I realized
that it took me a minute, but it was dawning
on me that this is exactly what say um Afghani
or Talibani um State Television would do with one of
their suicide bombers. It was just like the embargo on
(02:57):
discussed over suicide bombing as a general rule was lifted
because someone CNN was rooting for blew himself up and
suddenly it was okay. But I mean, like step for step,
it was like a celebration of this man's heroism for
blowing himself up. And I just thought it was really nuts.
And I guess it's probably as unobjective as I should
(03:21):
be throughout this podcast, but it struck me as really,
really strange. I wrote a blog post on it called
um CNN oddly celebrates suicide bombers hero or remember like that.
But it was just so weird, And there's in the
blog post there's video. Somebody found it and posted it.
So there's a video of this weird segment that just
sticks out like a sore thumb. And um, I guess that.
(03:44):
What I learned is that my personal opinion is suicide
bombing is wrong no matter what side is doing it.
I think I would agree with that. All right. So
this is a relatively new thing, right, suicide bombing it's
new because there bombs are fairly new, right, Yeah, But
it's far far more ancient than that. It is the
(04:06):
concept of killing yourself or dying in the name of
religion is pretty ancient. Oh yeah, you want to go
all the way back to martyrdom in general, might as well. Okay,
start at the beginning. Martyrdom is what we're talking about, obviously,
when you talk about suicide bombing, it's forsaking your own
life for a higher cause, for a principle, for your faith,
anything that is not for your direct like earthly benefit,
(04:30):
but maybe benefit later on to elevate your cause, but
benefits for you in the afterlife. And so generally that's
what we suspect make suicide bombers tick. That's what is martyrdom.
And it's because although it is like a very deep
there's a deep religious afiliation between martyrdom and um suicide
(04:52):
like this suicide bombing. It doesn't necessarily have to be religious.
It can be sure your side, your cause, like the
forty one year old oil worker who is Libyan Um
was for the rebel faction. It had nothing to do
with religion. He was just willing to die for his cause,
as all suicide bombers are. Religion kicks it up a
(05:13):
little notch though so well. The and the reason why
is because it's so ingretened. The two are so entangled
from such an ancient place, right like our lamb who
did this article? Who did this? He wrote it? Um
he he he traces martyrdom back to um the second
or third century BC. Right. What with King Nebuchadnezzar. Yeah, yeah,
(05:39):
the famous story in uh in Bible history, the Book
of Daniel. We all know King Nebuchadnezzar gave as the
best boys called them, shad rack mishak the bed nig. Yeah.
I can't, I can't see this three names together without
thinking about that too. Well, these boys were three Jewish guys.
That's probably why they called themselves at in the song,
(06:01):
and they in the in the Bible story, he never
cand as gave him the choice, you can renounce your
Jewish faith or you can burn alive. And they said,
you know what, we're the Beastie boys and we don't
give in to anybody, and so we're gonna not renounce
our faith. They were thrown into the fiery furnace and
they lived, which the lesson there was an early lesson
(06:23):
in martyrdom, which was, hey, you know what, God's gonna
protect those who die in his name. Doesn't it make
you wonder? Like, don't you don't you tend to think
that in stories like that? Somewhere eons ago, something happened,
possibly with these three people. What happened and eventually got
translated into they were thrown into this furnace and they
(06:45):
walked out unscathed, like did somebody like lose their grip
on them? And they skirted across like a camp fire,
you know, and like their robes didn't catch and everybody
was like, oh my god, you know, and and then
it just to just to make it more easily died
juestable for the masses. It was transformed into this larger thing.
My feeling when it comes to parables like this, where uh,
(07:08):
to me, it's obvious that someone wasn't unscathed and a
burning fire was that maybe someone was burned like they
were being tortured and saying renounced religion, being burned with
like fiery torches or something, and they refused and refused,
and they couldn't be broken, and so they were set free.
And that becomes a parable in the way of something
(07:29):
miraculous like this. That makes that makes sense. It's good analysis.
I probably get killed for that, But the point is, Um.
The the idea was that if that God's God's got
your back, if you're willing to die for him, right, yes,
But that eventually transformed into what we what people still
believe today that toil on this planet leads to bounty
(07:53):
in the next life. The Big three. I'll believe that,
and you can trace that back to the early the
early Church, early Jewish faith, early Christian faith, and the
early Muslim faith. UM, and martyrdom goes back just as
far and comes from the same tree. The idea that
if you sacrifice yourself, you're going to gain reward after this.
(08:18):
So what's a few minutes of pain for a lifetime
of happiness and pleasure? Yeah? Right, Well, and the non
suicide version, where you're actually killing other people in the
name of your God goes back to maybe not the
first time, but one good example Robert Use was in
d rather than surrendering to the Roman authorities, a rebel
(08:41):
group basically killed their own themselves and every last man
and woman. This one I think was probably literal, Yeah, probably,
so does like do you think about how that would
be treated today though? Yeah, like the authorities are coming
and you kill every man, woman and child inside and
(09:04):
sounds like a standoff at at Waco or something. Um. So,
but your your point is, I think the larger point
is is that people were willing to kill themselves, kill
those close to them, um, and kill others eventually and
in the name of God, and expected some sort of
(09:25):
reward for it. So you were talking about the rise
of Islam, right, So it was a D six ten
when the prophet Muhammad received his first vision right and
basically was set about going forth to found um Islam,
and within fourteen years, uh, he had amassed something of
of an army and was taking on other people in
(09:49):
in the in the area. Right. It was pretty successful
at it, Right, So what I gained from this, And
I'm certainly not a scholar in Islam at all. I'm
not a scholar in any religion. It um the Islam
came out of a place of strife and battle, and
(10:10):
so thustly this concept of jihad came about fairly early on. Yeah,
there's two two parts to jihad. If you've never you've
heard that word a lot used, probably for the second part,
which was a righteous battle in the physical world. But
the first part of jihad means it's an inward struggle
of the soul uh in Arabic. So it's a two
(10:30):
pronged thing there in the Kuran, basically vindicated defense and
compact in the name of protecting the faithful as well
as retaliation. So it's traced back to the Koran as
far as probably the birth of the notion of something
like a suicide bombing, even though it certainly doesn't say
that anything about that anywhere in the Kuran. So jihad
(10:54):
played a big role in the Crusades, which was the
Christian version of the Holy War right um, and that
was taking it to the Muslim's doorstep, basically invading the
Middle East. Right, Europeans invading the Middle East. It was
the Crusades UM. And so from these conflicts UM, during
(11:16):
the the Dark Ages, the Medieval ages UM, the Crusades uh,
and after the birth of Islam UM, this this idea
of taking a single person and going and doing as
much damage as you possibly could came about. So do
you remember in the Sniper podcast we talked about sniper's
being considered militarily forced multipliers. So are suicide assassins. And
(11:42):
the term assassin actually comes out of this era and
from the Middle East. UM, from the word hashishan Persian word, Uh,
the name of a radical Shiite sect. Didn't know that, Yeah,
So hashish An assassin are one of the same Hashian
Hashihan assassin. Right the the you may recognize the word
(12:08):
hashish as a type of pot residue. So if if
you find it odd that the word hashish pops up,
um be advised that the sect, the Hashihan um smoked
hash as part of their religious ritual. Yeah. They were
(12:28):
also the ones though who would go out and Um.
There they were tasked with um killing like public officials
in very public places to basically terrorize the population. Like
like if you kill somebody like that, you cut someone's
head off in a crowded square, you're gonna die. But
the leaders had just got cut off in front of me,
(12:50):
and now I'm really freaked out. It was the first
early versions, ancient versions that would later become suicide bombings.
But that sect was wiped out by Mongol in twelve
fifty seven, and there was kind of a break on
this activity for a while as far as world history goes.
And then you get to World War Two and the
Japanese Kamakazi pilots who are most essentially suicide bombers except
(13:16):
by way of a plane. Yeah, through the Bushido code. Yeah,
But usually think suicide bombing is someone on foot, but
it can really, you know, you can do. There's been boats,
there's been cars and trucks, humans walking, and then obviously
planes flying into aircraft carriers. Really a male cart filled
with explosives, you're gonna get the same. You're a suicide bomber. Well,
(13:39):
Robert Lamb puts the first modern suicide attack in Lebanon
in nine during War between civil war between Christian and
Muslim militants, and there was a loan suicide bomber Shiite
hit in Iraqi embassy in Beirut, and the US entered
the conflict the next year, and so a side bomber
(14:00):
drove into the U. S embassy I remember that, actually,
killing sixty three people. Yeah, that was in April, and
most folks say this is like the beginning of the
modern suicide mission, right. And then in October two truck
bombs drove into the marine barracks in Beirut and killed
two people French and American I think two D forty
(14:21):
one Marines. So, like you said, that's the birth of
the modern suicide bomber. And unfortunately it's just basically been
gaining momentum ever since. This whole concept of I'm going
to strap a bunch of explosions to myself and walk
into a crowd and blow myself up and kill as
many other people as I possibly can. Yeah, let's poke
around inside the mind because people have been curious what
(14:42):
kind of person does this um? Because obviously, if you
look at UM just from a straight physical standpoint, they
did find between the ages of eighteen and twenty four
is your average age of a suicide bomber. Apparently Israel
conducted studies in the late nineties to figure out what
they you know, who sus eye bombers were, right. So,
so the sense of despondency and teens is playing a
(15:03):
part here. The whole world is against them teens. How
many teens feel that way? I know I did, uh,
and it's no different in other countries. UM combine these
feelings with tyranny. You're oppressed, you're angry. Uh. And then
the final center here is usually and I think they
even have a study that there's some sort of personal
(15:26):
loss attached to the person that ends up being picked
to carry out the mission. Right, their parents were killed
or wounded or put in prison. Yeah, yeah, I'll do it. Yeah.
It wasn't a study, but it said it is readlarly
psychiatrist UM sifted through the lives is how Robert put it.
And they did discover and almost all cases connections to
(15:47):
like slain their wounded family members or friends. And for
the most part they were males. But as times worn on, women, children,
older people have UM all joined the echelons of UM
suicide bombers, right, they're usually very poor. Yeah, um, there was.
Did you hear about the woman from UM I guess
(16:08):
she was a chechen extremist in um Moscow on New
Year's Eve. She had a suicide belt and was getting
ready to walk out into Red Square to blow herself
up and take just tons of people with her, and
she decided it didn't match her purse. She didn't make
it out of the apartment because she got a spam
text from her cell phone provider saying Happy New Year,
(16:33):
and it blew her up really, you know, in her room. Yeah,
in her apartment. She didn't have her cell phone off,
which apparently is standard procedure. Like she they went out
and bought a cell phone just for that purpose. The
provider sent a spam text to everybody, because you know,
cellphone providers have been thinking, like, we're providing service to
(16:56):
somebody who's going to blow up a bunch of people
as a terrorist, the same we want to tell don't
happy New here exactly. Wow, I didn't hear about that.
It's true. So uh. One other common trait is that
they obviously are willing to die for their cause, but
they are also willing to kill for their cause. UM
most terrorists don't have, you know, they have no empathy
(17:18):
for the suffering of other people. And it helps that, uh,
in the case of US versus them, that the them
is very very different from themselves, which is certainly the
case with the Middle East and the United States. It
couldn't be any more different as far as countries go,
and people go, yeah, yeah, there's definitely a whole sentiment
that UM occupation and invasion fans the flames of suicide bombing. Well, yeah,
(17:44):
because that you see your you see Americans as an
invader and an occupier and a savage and a nonbeliever,
which is a big part that that part about jihad
in the Koran says basically like this is what happens
to nonbeliever. This is what you do to nonbelievers. To
an extent, Robert points out that if suicide bombers were
(18:05):
left just completely alone, they might want to back out
or think twice. So that's why they surround them toward
go time with the social network of supporters to say,
you know, you're doing the right thing. They isolate you
from your family and friends and UM show you videos
martyrdom videos to reinforce that what you're doing is you know,
(18:26):
you make a martyrdom video, you make your own saying
like I'm about to blow a bunch of people up
and I can't wait to get to the afterlife. And
I'm like a true UM believer. You're right, I read
that wrong and um and so that that is it's
not only inspiring, it's also like, you can't back out
now you've made your video, like you you this is
(18:47):
your point of no return. Well, because yeah, that'd be
probably even more shameful. But I think people, you know,
that survival instinct is very strong. So there's these people
that are handling them. Usually one of them will go
with the suicide bomber to the target area and we'll
basically keep them encouraged and um on on track and um,
(19:10):
I imagine will blow them up if they decide that
they want to back out. Yeah, well, and beyond that,
sometimes it's planned that way. Sometimes the the assistant is
has the detonator to prevent any kind of backout. I
think that there's probably a backup detonator, Yeah you think, yeah, Okay,
that's my suspicion. So we're talking about the nuts and
(19:34):
bolts of it all A sudden then let's go ahead.
And with that you mean the shrapnel. Yeah, suicide bomber,
it's not a very elaborate, expensive operation that costs about
a hundred and fifty bucks probably worth of explosives and
one human life willing to do so. And you've got
yourself a suicide bomber, whether it's a duffel bag full
of stuff or something you strap on your chest. Uh.
(19:56):
Like you said, they've used trucks and boats. Well, deffel
bags are um apparently out a vogue because you will
get shot in the head if you look like you
are dropping remotely Middle Eastern and you have a duffel
bag at least if you're in London in two thousand
five in your Brazilian right. Yeah. Um, but you were
saying this, it's just one person with a duffel bag
(20:18):
or a vest or a belt. And uh, the the
attack of um a suicide bomber is threefold, right. One,
it kills a bunch of people, so it's terroristic. Two,
it draws a lot of attention to this cause that
at least one person is willing to die for. And
then three it's it's a force multiplier because it has
(20:41):
like a huge effect on morale in the psyche of
the population. But it can also go the other way.
Um has pointed out with World War Two, Um, it
can either Like it's happened both ways in America because
when two forty one Marines were killed in the truck
bombing in nineteen eight for UH, President Reagan said in
(21:03):
his in his memoir that that had a big deal
with his pulling out of that region. Like he was like,
now you know what, forget that these people are willing
to do this. I'm getting my guys out of there.
Or in the case of World War Two with the Japanese,
let's drop two bombs on their country that they won't
be able to recover from because they're willing to fly
(21:24):
their planes into our aircraft carrier. You know, that's not
how the Japanese tell it. How they tell They tell
it like they were starting to make moves that they
were willing to surrender, and the Americans had so much
money invested in this research that they basically needed and
wanted to see what happened. It certainly doesn't surprise me.
There are two versions of that story. That's the way
(21:45):
history works. So Chuck, yes, Um, what I guess what
are these things made up? You said you can fill
a truck belt all this stuff, what is it? Well,
it varies, of course between what your resources are. I
think in the early days they would just re jigger
land mines and I use those. But now it's everything
(22:08):
from T and T too, something called t a TP
triacetone triper oxide and then other plastic explosives stuff. They
can do a lot of damage. And they found too
that uh, the more people around the suicide bomber the better.
Obviously not for those people close in proximity, but if
(22:29):
you hear that there's a suicide bomber suspect and all
of a sudden the crowd disperses, it's gonna have a
blast zone that's much greater and cover a much more
area because the thick, massive people around that person create
basically a human shield, which is pretty serious stuff. And uh,
in London two thousand five, you want to I've talked
(22:50):
about that. Remember, Oh is that when you meant by
shot in the head. Yeah, he got shot in the
head seven times. And he's not a suicide bomber. No,
he's just some guy from Brazil the staken identity. Yeah,
that was a pretty jumpy time, if I remember correctly, Yes,
it was you got anything else? M m oh. I
thought the very end had a very interesting um. The
(23:13):
thing that Israeli settlers were trying was they proposed burying
suicide bombers in pig skin body bags as a way
of discouraging suicide bombers from because I guess if they think,
if I'm gonna be buried in pigskin, that's not the
afterlife that I'm that I'm looking for. But the problem is,
(23:35):
and Robert does a good job pointing, that's how I
think when you the suicide bombing is capable of dehumanizing
on both levels, right, that would have not only um,
I guess, to dehumanize the suicide bomber, but it dehumanized
the Israelis Right. So part of the the whole um
(23:59):
feedback machanism for suicide bombings is that one side doesn't
see the other's human any longer. Right, you're willing to
die for your cause, so you're crazy or um, you
are worth dying to kill because I don't see you
as a person any longer, and so that that would
have been counterproductive. I'm sure, good job. This is a
(24:20):
tough one. Yeah it was. I'm glad we got through it. Man. Okay, yeah,
it's a tough topic. I hope we explained like how
it works in the history and was it good? Maybe
I was? Okay, Okay. If you want to learn more
about suicide bombers, you can type in suicide bombers, um terrorism.
There's another article on how terrorism works. Um. Just type
(24:43):
whatever you want in the search bar at how stuff
works dot com and you will be pleasantly surprised. We
virtually guarantee it, um, I said, handy search bar. So
what do you want to do? No listener mail today?
All right, in lieu of listener mail, because I was
(25:03):
just reading listener mail itist not enough. I saw that
you made a face and kind of like way and
don't have another one ready, So let's just say, how
about just to thank you for for listening? Is that good?
That's what we're doing? Yeah? All right, thank you for listening, everybody? Yeah?
Something simple? That was it? Keep it pure? Okay? All right? Uh,
(25:26):
if you want to say thank you back, we always
appreciate that. You can send us an email to Stuff
Podcast how stuff Works dot com. Be sure to check
out our new video podcast Stuff from the Future. Join
how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising
(25:47):
and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. Brought to you by the
reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
Show Links
AboutOrder Our BookStoreSYSK ArmyRSSPopular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.