Paphitis wrote:Talisker wrote:miltiades wrote:TALISKER , kindly see the distinction here . The Iraqi savage targets innocent civilians , not " oppressive military targets " How does one fight invaders by blowing himself up in a Mosque for fs ! They are barbarians unquestionably .
I do agree that they have been brainwashed by religious extremists who indoctrinated their minds and filled them up with the usual rubbish , paradise , virgins , rewards in afterlife etc etc. In fact many years ago I posted that for as long as the M.East nations have their God as their driving force there will always be killings , wars , famine , deceases and much more . The cancerous driving force is religion.
""""Compare this with the Iraqi suicide bomber. I can see that he (or she) believes they are fighting against the oppressive invaders or puppet government and authorities. The 'cause' is liberation from this regime, and the methods used can be brutal and indiscriminate as we have seen over the last few years (and therefore not dissimilar to bombing a city at night from a Lancaster bomber from a height of several thousand feet). This person has convinced themselves (or been convinced by others) that they are contributing to this cause by 'sacrificing' their own life and killing others.""""
In fact the article argues that religion is not the dominating force in persuading an individual to become a suicide bomber.It is easy to put a religious label on these individuals but religion has little to do with it or their motives for taking their own lives. If religion has any role in the entire chemistry, it is only to have been used as the perfect blackmailing element to distort the image of right from wrong in the psyche of the bomber. Fact of the matter is, had the notion of religion been clear in the minds of these individuals, they would never be suicide bombers at all. So religion can easily be set aside as the primary reason.
If I recall correctly many of the suicide bombings are targeted - many instances of queues of young men volunteering to join the Iraqi police force, etc. Where they are apparently indiscriminate then this is obviously a ploy to terrorise the populace, a common practice used by dissident groups fighting a repressive regime. Didn't EOKA kill more GCs than Brits in 1955-59? I consider this part of an overall plan to terrorise the population so there was complete compliance with the wishes and tactics of this ruthless dissident group. They could then claim to 'have the support of the people'.
Unfortunately, there were some GCs that collaborated with the British. Most collaborated for financial gain, a few left winged GCs collaborated with the Brits because they wanted to undermine Grivas, due to the role he played in the Greek Civil War. Many communists wanted to destroy Grivas for this reason. However, allow me to point out that most leftist GCs did support the EOKA struggle and some of the armed EOKA fighters were leftist. So as far as Grivas was concerned, the EOKA struggle was purely against British rule in Cyprus, and was not based on political ideology. As a result, they enjoyed the support of the overwhelming majority. There were many Auxiliaries that were supporting EOKA at the time. Students were recruited, older men would gather intelligence within the towns, priests and villagers would supply the Guerrillas with food, rations and even deliver weapons.
GCs were only targeted by EOKA if they were deemed to be collaborating with the British. This did send a very clear message to the population, and as a result all GCs resigned from the Police Force. Any collaboration with the British that led to the capture of any EOKA fighters or Auxiliaries was viewed as the ultimate betrayal to the struggle. It was also the biggest threat to the campaign itself.
Several months ago I read about incidents where British soldiers had captured active EOKA members, tortured them to obtain information which resulted in capture of others in EOKA, then released those they tortured (would have to search again for the links). These EOKA members were filled with remorse at the consequences of them breaking down under torture, and reported back to the EOKA leadership. Grivas insisted they were executed for colluding with the enemy. I would not consider these members of EOKA to be UK collaborators (and shame on the UK for the use of these methods!). I'd like to know more about Grivas himself - such stories (possibly British propaganda?) would make me think he might have been a psychopath - where was his empathy and compassion for these men, he certainly didn't seem to have much political nous, and given his fanatical desire for enosis, seems more like he was acting in the interests of Greece than of Cyprus. But I need to read more about him.
