Suicide Bombing Makes Sick Sense in ‘Halo 3′
I’m an adult, with a job and wife and kid, so I get maybe an hour with Halo on a good day. I wind up sucking far, far more than most other Halo 3 players, and despite the best attempts of Xbox Live to match me up with similarly lame players, I usually wind up at the bottom of my group’s rankings — stumbling haplessly about while getting slaughtered over and over again.
So after a few weeks of this ritual humiliation, I got sick of it. And I devised a simple technique for revenge.
Whenever I find myself under attack by a wildly superior player, I stop trying to duck and avoid their fire. Instead, I turn around and run straight at them.
[...]
But at the last second, before I die, I’ll whip out a sticky plasma grenade — and throw it at them. Because I’ve run up so close, I almost always hit my opponent successfully. I’ll die — but he’ll die too, a few seconds later when the grenade goes off.
[...]
It was after pulling this maneuver a couple of dozen times that it suddenly hit me: I had, quite unconsciously, adopted the tactics of a suicide bomber — or a kamikaze pilot.It’s not just that I’m willing to sacrifice my life to kill someone else. It’s that I’m exploiting the psychology of asymmetrical warfare.
If this was Barren Realms Elite.. I’d still be wondering why the USa stopped buying jets and tanks… to buy turrets
and why fuck with the interest rate.. investments are up.. don’t be afraid to trade
#7, Thomas,
But the indiscriminate (often purposeful) killing of innocents is where the “suicide bomber” stops being a soldier fighting for a cause and starts being a murderer.
That would condemn every army that has ever marched. It would also refute the Pentagon’s “Collateral Damage” excuse.
You also missed the key term here, asymmetrical warfare. . When one side does not have the power to to meet the other side in equal combat, they must improvise. Whether that involves guerrilla warfare, using the terrain to your advantage, surprise attacks, or even suicide attacks is irrelevant. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
But, when you are winning or on top, it is so much easier to deride your opponent as unsportsmanlike for wanting to win.
#22
I did not miss the idea of asymmetric warfare. I agree that generally what is considered “indiscriminate” is actually meant as a psychological attack. When one side is substantially more powerful militarily, psychological warfare through guerilla warfare is one of the few recourses left.
That said there are times when attacks truly appear “indiscriminate” such as when an Iraqi suicide bombs a bus of other Iraqis. The strategic value in such a maneuver is at best questionable.
I suppose most people would consider “indiscriminate” killing as killing with no apparent strategic goal. The catch of course is that “apparent” is based on available information which may not provide enough insight into the reasons for a given attack.
as last as islam is still in minority in the world, the number of potential suicide bombers will alwyas be much lower than number of potential victims, so whats the problem? Let’em all blow themselves (and unffortunately some of us) and be gone / be done with it, for the sake of our offspring…
Also, hypocrisy aside, I have a question: if some non-muslim kills potential muslim “martyr” before he blows himself up, isn’t he giving him a favor by sending him to heaven?
Any muslim here care to explain?
#24 Islam is not a minority. It comprises is number two worldwide. There are 1.5 billion adherents to christianity’s 2.1 billion.
Further the terrorists and the suicide bombers re not muslim. They are atheists who masquerade as pious. Just as any abortion clinic bomber here in the US is NOT christian by the religion’s rules.
This is again why propaganda is more effective than even violence. This is why people are like sheep and will believe anything like the lie that there were communist governments and these said governments were coming after the US so we need CD and rings of missle defense and more nukes that we have earths to bear them all. Every leader from the dawn if civilisation has pulled the “The enemy wants to destroy our way of life” card!
It was ignorance back then that aloowed people to be duped, it is ignorance now.
When you actually take the time to LEARN about people other than your own and those in your town… you realise we are not at all unlike one another.
It is mindless fear that is the true enemy of the world.
Cursor_
#25 I beg to differ.
Yourself you say “There are 1.5 billion adherents to christianity’s 2.1 billion.”. THAT IS minority (although not as small as i.e. Hare Krishna believers).
Furthermore: I never heard of christian *suicide* bombers attacking abortion clinic, and yes, its a big difference: it takes strong beliefs, religiousness on the verge of fanatism actually, to kill yourself in the name of ______ (insert whatever). And for this exactly same reason I don’t believe that the muslim suicide bombers are “atheists who masquerade as pious”. Atheists believe there is nothing after this life they have, thus they generally value their own lives (at least) way too much to ‘sacrifice’ themselves. So I’m sorry, but I don’t buy your wicked thesis about “atheists pretending to be muslim fuckups and blowing themselves” LOL It is preposterus LOL
99 virgins awaits in heaven… That, and financial support to their families, explains mostly why so many young muslim dudes are so eager to blow up themselves in the name of allah.
Well said, Cursor_