A refreshingly insightful look at suicide bombers -- from a Japanese former kamikaze pilot. From the LA Times, with thanks to Anthony:
The survivors bitterly resent the world's appropriation of the term "kamikaze" — meaning "divine wind" and originally coined to describe the unexpected typhoons that saved 13th century Japan from invading Mongol ships — as shorthand for suicide bombers of every stripe.There are the "Al Qaeda kamikazes" who flew passenger planes into office towers, "Palestinian kamikazes" who blow up pizza parlors filled with teenagers in Jerusalem, and "female Chechen kamikazes" willing to detonate explosive girdles in the middle of school gymnasiums crammed with children.
Japan's originals are insulted to be mentioned in the same breath.
"When I hear the comparison, I feel so sorry for my friends who died, because our mission was totally different from suicide bombers," Hamazono says as he strolls through the Peace Museum for Kamikaze Pilots in Chiran, a former air base on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu.
The kamikazes attacked military targets. In contrast, "the main purpose of a suicide bomber is to kill as many innocent civilians as they can," Hamazono says. That, he says, "is just murder."
The same distinction is made by other survivors of the Tokkotai, or Special Attack Force, conventionally known as the kamikaze. Its survivors tick off the reasons their goal-line stand against an American invasion was different from the blind lashing-out of suicide bombers today:
• They were ready to die out of love for their country, they say; suicide bombers are driven by hatred and revenge.
• The Shinto religion offers no reward of life after death. Islamic suicide bombers are promised a place in an afterlife.
• They were volunteers, motivated solely by patriotism. Suicide bombers often are recruited by militia leaders who offer money to their families.
Yet the arguments can't prevent those who use suicide tactics today from claiming Japanese kamikazes as an inspiration.
Naoto Amaki, Japan's former ambassador to Lebanon, recalled delivering a polite lecture to Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Shiite Islamist militia Hezbollah, in 2001. Amaki said he told Nasrallah that Japan's experience was a lesson in the ultimate futility of violence.
Not so, replied the sheik.
"He told me: 'We learned how to do suicide missions from the kamikazes,' " Amaki recalled. "Nasrallah said the Shiites all commend the Japanese samurai spirit."
Amaki says the analogy is faulty. "We Japanese are not a religious people; we just obey instructions. But the Arab world is looking for support wherever they can get it, so they seek out every excuse to legitimize their actions."
And kamikaze survivors resent it.
"We did what we did for military purposes," says Takeo Tagata, 88, a kamikaze instructor who was ordered to fly a mission the day before Japan surrendered. "No matter what supreme ideas they talk about, suicide bombers are just killing innocent civilians, people who don't have anything to do with their war."
In fact, reprehensible as Japan's wartime record was, the al-Qaeda types are worse. Japan attacked a military target at Pearl Harbor, and Takeo Tagata's statements on what Japan's kamikaze strategy was are essentially correct. The Islamofascists, however, seem determined to bring their jihad to the civilian populations of the states against which they war, and seem to prefer civilian targets.
Not only are Islamofacist "suicide bombers" paid recruits, often they are not choosing suicide. If so, why would it be necessary to strap them in or tape their feet to the accelerator. What real choice do women have when told that they will be killed for "dishonoring their families," bomb or be executed? What about using children and the mentally challenged? How can they choose? No, the murder contractors that pay and coerce, or use feebleminded or the very young are a disgrace to the world, vile and base.
Not only the kamikazes but every honor-loving military entitiy in the world would be insulted if in any way linked to the Al-Qaeda. (The Nazis, the REAL inspiration are an exception of course, but then who said they were honor-loving?).
I've tremendous respect for the Japs, who've emerged the world's 2nd largest economy after being beaten soundly in WWII, being nuked and what not. Like Israel, they too had no natural or mineral resources at home to exploit, both relied on the benevolent US umbrella and both today have emerged as the nations with the highest tech and per capita incomes in their regions precisely becauise they were forced to rely on their people - their only real resource.
Quick tell the liberals!!!
i quite agree with the expressions of the japanese war veteran. it is wrong that the kamikazees are contrasted so closely with the human bombers of al qaeda, hamas, etc. however, not only does such religiously motivated groups endorse the 'suicide' tactic as their modus operandi, other sectarian groups do too. the tamil tigers of sri lanka also use the action, and their bombing reasons are totally secular.
hamas' operations do involve a reasonable sum of money on certain occassions, but this is by no means always the case. the homes of the shahid are usually demolished by the israelis, forcing their palestinian families to flee. from a western perspective actions of such terrorists are repulsive, but from the deep banks of a ghetto habitat, where life often seems useless, such strategies are helpful and inspiring. would you lie down and except defeat if you were in the same situation? or would you fight for what you believe in? remember - one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter.
as for al qaeda, their operations are conducted in a well orchestrated fashion, far different from fellow terrorist groups. the training and the financing is deeper and more professional, which is why their attacks usually prove to be so devestating. the majority of suicide bombers are well-educated, coming from a stable background, with no previous criminal experience. recruitment is obviously necessary but with the way the east and west have divided, there is a score of would be martyrs waiting in the pipeline, apparently 50 alone in britain.
dont get me wrong, in no way am i sideing with the terrorists, im just trying to offer a balanced point of view.
The reasons why the palistinians are in poor getthos is because of terrorism. No one can get any money in palestine unless they support the terrorist groups (which control all of the aid money going into the area). In many areas no one works. They support terrorism and death because that's what they have been raised to believe is just and good according to their religion. Their hate for Jews is so great that they see killing and death as inspiring...it has nothing to do with poverty there (which is caused by the hate, death, terrorism, taking no responsibility for their own actions, ect).
On a similar note, naming al-Qaeda and thousands of other islamic suicide bombers as terrorists, is an insult to terrorists such the IRA. The IRA and other political terrorists had a political goal but the Jihadis have no political goal. There main motive is to kill as many civilised humans as possible to gain entry to an orgiastic paradise.
It is impossible to understand this concept of the islamic paradise from the human point of view; only a muslim seems to make sense of it.