The New Reality: Martyrs With Nuclear Weapons

I gotta tell ya, my spine started quivering the more I considered what this article, basically about nuclear deterrence being moot to an enemy willing to die, is suggesting.

Here's a chunk:

"What makes suicide bombing especially relevant [as demonstrated in recent years by muslim extremists] to the nuclear question is that, by design, it unsettles the theory of deterrence. When the suicide bomber dies in an attack, he means to send the message "You cannot stop me, because I am already willing to die." To make the challenge to deterrence even more stark, a suicide bomber who blows up a market or a funeral gathering in Iraq or Afghanistan is willing to kill innocent bystanders, including fellow Muslims. According to the prevailing ideology of suicide bombing, these victims are subjected to an involuntary martyrdom that is no less glorious for being unintentional."

Nuclear holocaust: A risk too big even for martyrs?
-- International Herald Tribune - Fri, Oct 27, 2006

"The last two decades have seen a challenge to this Islamic tradition of warfare under law, a challenge driven mostly by the attempt to justify suicide bombing despite its evident inconsistency with Islamic tradition. On the subject of suicide, the Koran could hardly be clearer: "Do not kill yourselves; for surely God has been merciful to you." Faced with this explicit text, the solution of the militant Islamist ideologues has been to avoid the category of suicide altogether and to treat the bomber as a martyr rather than as one who has taken his own life. This interpretation is not very convincing in historical terms: martyrdom classically meant that another person killed the Muslim warrior, not that he pushed the button himself. Nevertheless, many Muslims now seem to find the argument convincing. Even among rather secular Muslims, it has become standard to refer to suicide bombers as martyrs."

Nuclear holocaust: A risk too big even for martyrs?
-- International Herald Tribune - Fri, Oct 27, 2006

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