Go after those who control them

By Carlos Alberto Montaner

The London terrorists were well-to-do youths of Pakistani origin, born and raised in England. They studied at good schools and showed no symptoms of social unfitness. In fact, they were unremarkable.

That's how almost all of these suicidal criminals are: prosperous, cheerful, educated and, to a certain degree, successful. It's ridiculous to try to picture them as avengers of awful grievances or as victims of Western society. Nor is it serious to link their savage acts to the Palestinian conflict. Hatred toward Israel and anti-Semitism do exist, but they're not the true causes; they are merely alibis.

Anyway, why do these youngsters who are not depressed, sick or desperate -- the three most frequent causes of suicide -- decide to bring their lives to an end in such a spectacularly bloody fashion?

To answer this question, we must ask others: What do these murderers achieve with their own deaths? If they are not trying to suppress a hurtful sorrow or to drastically eliminate a terrible physical pain, what emotional reward do they gain by taking their own lives?

The psychological gratifications are varied and very intense: the admiration of the circle of fanatics in which these people move; the sensation of superiority felt when one performs a heroic role; the paradoxical perception that life becomes meaningful if you die and kill for an allegedly noble religious ideal.

To these strong emotional factors we might add a selfish calculation based on the bluntest convenience: If one believes in Islam, and if one believes that there is a life after death, becoming a human bomb is an excellent deal.

That is why those terrorists chose to die, rather than detonate the bombs by remote control. Suddenly and painlessly, the soul of the ''martyr'' -- whose sins are expunged by the first drop of blood -- flies, accompanied by beautiful green birds, to the mansion of Allah and the prophet Mohammed, there to live happily and for all eternity in the company of 72 lovely houris.

In addition, to ensure the acquiescence of the forlorn family, an extraordinary reward is available: the ''martyr'' is granted permission to intercede on behalf of 70 of his relatives, so they may also enjoy the bounty of Islamic heaven forever.

That explains, in part, the proud satisfaction of many of the relatives of the terrorists who commit self-immolation. Within their system of beliefs and superstitions, everybody benefits from that violent death. Mohammed -- admit it -- thought about everything.

So much for the psychological and theological aspects of these macabre ritual ceremonies. However, they clarify only the individual motivations of the suicidal assassins. Still to define are the motivations of those who prompt them to perform those abominable acts: What's in it for those who seduce, indoctrinate, arm and sometimes pay them? What do the leaders of Hamas, of Islamic Jihad and al Qaeda hope to achieve with these sinister acts of butchery?

To them, it's just a strategy for struggle. They attempt to defeat their enemies by means of fear. The theory is that everyone in the West is an enemy. That's why they will just as coldly blow up a bus in Israel as in London or Madrid.

The West is not at war against these people. Bizarre though it may seem, it is they who propose to wipe out the infidels, no matter who they are (occasionally the victims, too, are Islamic). To exterminate the latter, it's enough for the terrorists to assume that they are temporary or accidental allies of the hated enemy.

The conclusion is inevitable: The main problem is not the ''martyrs,'' mystical assassins who potentially exist everywhere. The great adversary is the terrorist organizations that drive those people into crime. They are the ones who must be destroyed before it's too late.

When will it be too late? Tragically simple: When they have a tactical atomic bomb capable of destroying half of Paris or all of Brussels, like the two bombs that apparently disappeared from the Ukrainian arsenal after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

That type of bomb, which has existed for half a century, fits into a briefcase, and at least 30 countries have the technology needed to build one with some ease, provided they possess fissionable material. Among those enemies of the West are Iran, Syria, North Korea and Cuba.

The day that Islamic terrorist organizations allied to any of those rogue states place these weapons in the hands of suicidal assassins will be the beginning of an unmeasurable catastrophe. This much is known: They're already after that objective.

Source: Firmas Press