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Vonnegut sheds light, again

Reader comment on item: Kurt Vonnegut, "Peace Activist," Lauds Suicide Bombers

Submitted by lonesome moderate (United States), Jun 19, 2006 at 09:11

I don't agree with Kurt Vonnegut's value judgments, about terrorism and many other things. But his statements explain the dynamic behind the creation of suicide bombers better than anything else I have read on the subject. My local newspaper just came out with three long opinion pieces purporting to explain the reasons behind suicide bombing, and none explained it half as well as Vonnegut did in a few provocative lines.

So long as the Arab world is churning out millions of barely educated young men with little hope of accomplishing anything that would give them self-respect by any means other than a suicide bombing, then there will be more suicide bombers. And, yes, the reasons they are held in high regard on the Arab street are universal. People who show physical courage in dying for a cause are always held in high regard by others who believe in the same cause. I have no doubt that our refusal to honestly look at simple truths like this is crippling the war on terror, and we will continue to shed a lot of blood unnecessarily because of this.

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Reader comments (4) on this item

Title Commenter Date Thread
Vonnegut sheds light, again [186 words]lonesome moderateJun 19, 2006 09:1147890
The greatest humanist of all [146 words]BradJun 15, 2006 13:3247721
POINT clarification [243 words]Adam TateJan 27, 2006 23:4332870
Vonnegut goes down [78 words]Mike Smith, M.A., of Kelly's Cove, San FranciscoDec 8, 2005 02:3629630

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