Suicide Terrorism

As you probably know, I am reading a book about suicide terrorism/bombings called, "The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism."

The thesis of this book is that despite what we want to admit, suicide bombings work. They tend to force a country (predominantly democracies) to withdraw their troops from the questioned territory. This happened to the United States, France and Israel from Lebanon, it mostly worked on India from Sri Lanka, and the Sinhalese from Tamil, also in Sri Lanka, and it is working in Palestine. And of course, this seems to be working in Iraq (the jury is still out).

Regardless of what we want to believe, suicide terrorism works because we allow it to work. Despite this, it is important to understand that organizations commit themselves to suicide terrorism because a power (i.e. America) occupy their country. The one proven way to prevent this from ocurring is to withdraw troops. Promoting democracy will not stop suicide terrorism. Is this the appropriate exit strategy from Iraq/Afghanistan/the gulf states?

This is a question for our politicians.

I believe there is one other way to defeat this without allowing the jihadis to win. This way requires us to convince the Muslim world that suicide, despite its reasons, is a violation of Muslim law. This of course is true. All who commit suicide go to hell. However, beginning in Lebanon in the early 1980's, certain political clerics began to convince the largely uneducated populace that martyrdom is ok. In other words, despite the Koran, and even the prophet Muhammed saying that suicide is the ultimate sin, certain clerics have exempted so called, martyrdom. Obviously this is a red herring. Their own religious scriptures prohibit suicide. But, despite this, jihadis are still comitting suicide. Why is this? And further, do they realize they are sending their victims straight to heaven (i.e. the Jews) and themselves to hell? There are no virgins in the seventh layer of hell, guys. If we don't want to withdraw our troops, this is the way out.