NOTE: any bombing of people is bad in my book - i am a hopeless pacifist, i hope you are the same.
but if i had to choose between two people:
1/ so devoted to the cause that death is not a problem.
2/ prepared to kill, but not to die; wants to live to kill another day.
it is the type 2 killer who scares me the most.
my reasons are several :
type1 is obviously not flippant ... the cause is obviously heartfelt.
type1 is dead, and so will only do it once.
type2 may not care that much, and just figures that killing is easy and so no problem.
type2 is still alive and will probably kill again.
Originally posted by Amauroteif the body carrying the bomb is zombified ... and controlled by another ...
Zombie suicide bombers, thats my real fear. People say it can never happen, but that's what they said about Richard Madeley, electricity and psychic dog assassins.
... then it is this "other" that i fear.
(almost from wikipedia:
Figuratively, a zombie is a very apathetic person, who may have little awareness of thier surroundings, or may be easily manipulated by others. "Zombie" may also be used as a slightly more critical alternative to "couch potato" to describe someone in the thrall redhotpawn.)
What you say is quite right in terms of short-term fear, Flexmore, but I think long-term terrorist success depends less on their MO and more on their professionalism - these people seem more frightening because they were so unstable, but they were ludicrously unprofessional compared to the likes of Baader-Meinhof, the IRA and even the PFLP: has anyone seen this -
http://images.thetimes.co.uk/TGD/picture/0,,216890,00.jpg
- ?
I ask you - if the IRA had ever stooped so low as to exchange nailbombs for semtex, would they have been stupid enough to individually superglue all the nails outwards? If I was in a cell this gormless, I'd be so embarrassed I'd probably blow myself up...in fact, that was probably their motivation.