"Suiciders": Brain-Washed Or -Rinsed?

There seems to be more and more evidence that a substantial majority of those who are termed "suicide bombers" are merely dupes who really wanted to survive.

There seem to have been a lot more brain-rinsed pseudo-suiciders than brain-washed real suiciders.

They were told that the "button" started a timer and that they would have time to get clear of the package or vehicle before it exploded. Or only told to drive to a certain place and await instructions.

Or, in other cases, a minder attends the suicider until the last approach to the target. (And perhaps has a timed or wireless detonation backup.)

Terrorist chieftains do not only rely upon the efficacy of their brain washing to override a young person's will to live. Craftiness and deceit also play a part:

From: Sunday Telegraph interview with Walid Shoebat, onetime brain-washed real suicider.

It was an opportunity Walid embraced. After he was released from prison, he was given a bomb hidden inside a loaf of bread. "I was told to be at the door of the Leumi bank in Bethlehem, carrying the bomb, at 6pm. At five minutes to six, I was there. As I stood waiting for my contact on the steps of the bank, I saw a group of Arab children playing on the street. They were laughing and smiling. I thought: 'These children are going to get killed by my bomb.' And, all of a sudden, I just couldn't do it. I didn't want to kill those kids."

Walid threw the bomb on the roof of the bank and ran away. He heard the bomb explode. "It went off at 6pm - exactly the moment that, if I had obeyed my orders, I would have been holding it on the steps of the bank. I hadn't realised that I had volunteered for a suicide mission - that I would have been killed had it gone according to plan."

Did he feel angry that he had been duped? "No, not at all. I was willing to die. I wanted to kill Jews. I didn't trust the man who recruited me after that, though. And I was terribly relieved when I heard on the news later that evening that no one had been hurt or killed by my bomb."

Having seen both sides, Walid Shoebat, has a rather refreshing, clear eyed view of the best future for the people and land of his birth and his youth:

So how does he think the conflict between Israel and Palestine will be resolved? "There is no solution," he says gravely, "except a military one: the crushing defeat of all Palestinian military groups, and then the imposition of a new system, like that which was imposed by the Americans on Japan at the end of the Second World War. You see, the people I grew up with were not interested in achieving peace with Israel. They believe that God has given them the right to destroy Israel. They are searching for the power to do it. And my experience is that they cannot be negotiated with. They have to be defeated."

One of many articles expressing the view that ,the London perps were brain-rinsed pseudo-suiciders is cited below. This one is of special interest because of the references to brain-rinsed pseudo-suiciders in IRA and 9/11 atrocities.

From a Chicago Sun-Times article, Perhaps London bombers were dupes, not suicidal.

July 19, 2005 / BY JOHN O'SULLIVAN

[…] But the fact is that this question [London perps: rinsed or washed?] actually worries the British government, police, intelligence services and ''chattering classes'' even if most ordinary Brits take the attitude of the medieval pope who ordered ''Kill them all -- and let God decide.'' It is not too much to say that the elites desperately hope the bombers will turn out to be ordinary terrorists [rinsed, not washed] (or, as the BBC would put it, ''militants''). This hope does not rest on an easy confidence that Britain handled conventional terrorism before and knows how to do so. IRA terrorists murdered 2,200 people over 30 years, and as part of the Good Friday agreement, they were released to wander about the streets, intimidate their neighbors, kneecap dissenters, run rackets, and in general live like semi-retired Mafiosi in a lax witness protection program.

But the IRA faced one great difficulty: Its terrorists wanted to live. They wanted to plant bombs and get away. And if you want to get away, that complicates the difficulty of exploding the bomb. It has to be detonated either by a timer or by remote control; it has to be left lying around. These difficulties explain the IRA's ingenuity in inventing more and more ways of planting bombs without being caught. They explain why IRA ''experts'' are sought by less experienced terrorist groups like the Colombian FARC to train their operatives. It is no exaggeration to say the IRA pioneered almost all the modern methods of terrorist murder: car bombs, pub bombs, remote control detonators, even suicide bombers.

In the IRA's case, however, the suicide bomber was involuntary. They took a hostage, packed him with explosives, drove him to a British Army checkpoint, and threatened to murder his family unless he approached the soldiers. The poor man tried to warn the soldiers -- God rest his brave soul -- as he drew near and was blown up. Now, the fascinating theory has emerged in British intelligence circles that the four young Muslim [London] terrorists may have been ''suicide'' bombers of the same involuntary kind.

Here is the evidence: They bought return railway tickets. Their bombs were not strapped to their bodies but carried in knapsacks as if to be left behind on the trains. None of them was heard to shout the customary ''Allah Akhbar'' before the bombs exploded. Unusually for suicide bombers, they left identification on their bodies. And surveillance videotapes show them laughing and joking casually -- rather than grimly determined or prayerful -- as they caught the Underground train.

These little pieces of circumstantial evidence suggest the possibility the [London] bombers were duped. Maybe they were told by their controllers that the bombs were timed to go off five minutes after being detonated rather than immediately. It would not be the first time that al-Qaida had deceived its devotees: Osama bin Laden revealed that not all the 9/11 hijackers were aware that the planes were to be flown into buildings. And the bombers' ''suicide'' would protect the terrorist network against the chance that they might be caught and persuaded to talk. […] [my emphasis throughout]