I once said, that suicide bombers would get a lot more mileage out of not killing others. Instead, calling TV cameras to be sited out of range. And watch while he duz hiz thang enroute to his bevy of babes in the sky.

The living breathing death machines do not pre anounce their arrival. Why the fug should we?

What a superb article. I love Warren when he doesn't talk about religion.

The problem with Elmo's idea is that it assumes suicide, and publicizing it, is the reason the bombers have for doing what they do. It is not. These are not Buddhist monks setting themselves on fire to protest the Vietnam War.

"Shaheed" has the same root meaning as "martyr" - "witness" - but translating the one as the other blunts the profound difference between these two concepts. Islam began its period of ascendancy as a warrior religion, and the shaheed is one who dies in jihad - in war in the path of Allah, war to destroy or subdue the infidel. A suicide bombing that didn't kill others would be utterly pointless. The whole point of the exercise is to kill people.