OT: Brussels attacks

Not a lot. That would make their families glorious martyr's too. The families might not think much of the idea, but the terrorists themselves would probably see it as a plus.

Being a "good soldier" may sometimes be the least bad of the available options, but it's never a good option.

I think the Japanese in World War 2 had similar ideas. But they eventually capitulated as well.

"We'll fight to the last man, we'll sacrifice the whole nation!" Yeah, they all say that. Until it's actually happening.

Avoiding targeting civilians in warfare absolves the enemy of a great deal of responsibility for their actions. Humans are sort of Pavlovian in nature, and while I don't believe that humans _always_ make choices rationally, one of the best ways to engage the "rational choice theorem" is to demonstrate that there will always be severe negative consequences for making the "wrong" choices.

I would think they would increase enormously, as millions of previously moderate people are radicalized.

Collective punishment is also a war crime, but don't let that bother you.

milies might not think much of the idea, but the terrorists themselves woul d probably see it as a plus.

options, but it's never a good option.

I don't think that terrorists are making rational choices. The people who a re directing the terrorists may think that they are, but their reasoning is based on some extremely dubious assumptions, and the whole thing would be better looked at as a giant mental health problem. Quite how we might lock up Putin and Assad (and Trump) until we coud get their thinking back on the rails escapes me, but lunatics at the top are definitely part of the probl em.

I expect that there would be more suicide attacks and fewer opportunistic attacks.

If you believe it to be a fact that you're going to heaven as a hero with all sorts of benefits, then blowing yourself up is perfectly rational and desirable.

Part of the problem is people believing such stuff. Another part is that you can't persuade people that their beliefs are wrong when you have equally ridiculous - if less destructive - beliefs of your own, which most of our leaders do.

There is no room for moral relativism, religion is just silly nonsense. Grow up, mankind.

Cheers

In UK experience, they would increase.

The ambivalent would be converted to radicalism.

Torturing and executing the innocent (families) is what terrorists do.

Unfortunately being a suicide bomber /is/ rational.

You become a martyr and go straight to heaven (Christian or Muslim as appropriate).

Your family is lifted out of poverty by the financiers that give money to the relatives of suicide bombers.

From the way you change the discussion around to the 'evils' of Assad, Putin and Trump, is it fair to assume you feel that these Islamic terror attacks on Western capitals are a small price - and one well worth paying

- for your idealistic dream of a multicultural, borderless world?

Bizarre chain of logic. Why do you imagine that a multicultural borderless world - which is not something we've got - would generate the same Islamic terrorists that the current tightly-bordered middle East is currently spawn ing?

Europe is now more nearly border-free than it used to be and the former Bas que and Irish terrorists are now members of or more or less legitimate poli tical parties.

If Assad hadn't been running Syria as a Baath Party fiefdom, there might ha ve been fewer disgruntled Syrians interested in starting a civil war.

If Dubbya hadn't been a simple-minded half-wit, who thought that the soluti on to the similar problem in Irak was a military invasion, someone might ha ve worked out a way of bribing and threatening Baath political elites into running their countries more equitably. The US wouldn't be the best place t o work out that kind of solution - they don't run their country all that eq uitably, even if they do better than Assad and Saddam Hussein.

I think what he was getting at is that war is a war crime. Anyway, supposedly you can only commit "war crimes" against people who obey the "laws of war" to begin with.

The hapless citizens who happen to be relatives of the terrorist - the ones you propose hunting down, torturing and executing - they have not disobeyed any "laws of war".

Yep, one of the unfortunate truths about this life is that often when you make the wrong choices, you end up not only hurting yourself, but everyone around you, even the innocent.

The weird thing about people is that some don't seem to care much about themselves, but they do care somewhat about those around them. What's the reason so many alcoholics and drug addicts give for finally getting clean and living straight? "I did it for my family."

If left to their own devices without that pressure, they might all be in early graves.

Well, this is the way Israel handles the situation, so you can look there how it works out in practice...

milies might not think much of the idea, but the terrorists themselves woul d probably see it as a plus.

That's not true, the Japanese fought to the death in thousands of battles, they never surrendered. And it was not Japan that surrendered, it was the e mperor. Initially this caused a small revolt within the military leading to an actual attack on the imperial palace to free the emperor, who they thou ght must have been kidnapped and coerced into capitulation. Hirohito was ac tually a scientist by training, and I'm pretty sure he didn't believe himse lf to be descended from God for one minute. So when the whole surrender iss ue came down to preserving the emperor's status he called the game.

Probably not much. But we can't do that.

I haven't seen much discussion of the psychology of suicide attackers. The press and academia seem to deliberately avoid that subject. It would lead to some politically-incorrect observations.

Aren't most suicide killers batchelors?

Dunno what a "batchelor" is? Where did you get your batchalaureate degree again?

What is the correlation of bachelor and fanaticism? Maybe wiki has an article on it.

I haven't seen that, and in some places there are a significant number of women. A surprising number have children.

Apparently engineers /are/ over-represented. My guess, without evidence, is that they want to "solve problems" and "do good", become frustrated in low-level jobs, and that is distorted by the recruiters and financiers.

A little bias there ?? ...Jim Thompson

The evidence suggests that they greatly curtail their activities. The Soviets practiced this. Few f***ed with them.