Destruindo uma Tese

Excelente resenha de Max Boot do livro de Robert A. Pape, James K. Feldman Cutting the Fuse The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It. Boot simplesmente massacra o principal argumento do livro:
Surely the answer is that Hezbollah was (and is) a fanatical Shiite movement that was inspired by the Iranian revolution, which itself became known for the use of suicidal tactics. During the Iran-Iraq war, tens of thousands of Iranian boys, some as young as 10, were sent to run through minefields in human-wave attacks. They were even given plastic keys to ensure their entry into heaven. Only a political science Ph.D. could doubt that it was religious zeal which inspired them to sacrifice their lives.
While suicide bombing started with Hezbollah, it soon spread to other organizations, including a few secular groups, such as the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. Pape makes much of the Tigers’ record of suicide attacks to deny any Islamic orientation to this tactic. But by his own count the Tigers killed 1,501 people in suicide attacks over 21 years (1987-2008). That works out to an average of 71 victims a year. The only other major campaign of suicide terrorism mounted by a secular group that Pape cites is the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which killed all of 43 people in Turkey between 1996 and 2008. Contrast this with the far bloodier record of Islamic suicide bombers from Chechnya to Israel. Pape’s database reveals that, since 1981, Muslim groups (not counting the PKK) have accounted for 93.7 percent of all deaths caused by suicide bombers—24,631 out of 26,277. This statistic isn’t cited in Pape and Feldman’s book, presumably because it is so at odds with their main argument.