I remember watching a debate on this subject on Swedish television in 2002. It was preceded by a broadcast of Swedish/Iranian director Reza Parsa's
Möte med ondskan (Meeting Evil), a short movie suggesting (among other things) that there are rationales even for the most monstrous of deeds, implying that suicide bombers are not ‘evil’, but rather the desperate voice of the repressed and maligned. Naturally, the subsequent debate focused on the West's possible, implicit, complicity in the suicide bombings in Israel and elsewhere, in the course touching on the concept of evil and its usefulness.
My vivid memory of this debate largely stems from how time-bound it seems in retrospect: it would never take on the same form if it was arranged today. If the gratuitous suicide bombings in Iraq have learned us anything it is that suicide bombers do not need a tangible catalyst beyond the brainwash to commit their atrocities (e.g. maybe the main reason why a Palestinian kid blows himself up is not the Israeli oppression but the unhealthy leverage of a few dubious Qur’an school teachers).
With this last thing in mind, I wonder, Gek-Opel, how the actions of hundreds and again hundreds of suicide bombers in Iraq can be interpreted beyond the ‘they are more or less brain-washed’ explanation. I wonder because I think many of those ghastly acts are ‘inexplicable to rational consideration or causation.’ That is to say, I wonder how much useful insight can come out of trying to analyse their actions using cold, rational, scientific, measurements.