Richard Pape's False Reasoning.

TigerHawk has a response to Richard Pape's book Dying to Win, in which the author seems to attempt a proof that suicide bombings are not the result of Islamic Fundamentalism but is driven by foreign occupation. I have not read the book yet, so I will dispense with any direct criticism of it, with one exception. In the article to which TigerHawk links, Pape is quoted thusly: 

Prior to the US-led invasion-turned-occupation of Iraq, Pape said, there was “never in Iraq's history a suicide terrorist attack” but since then they double every year.

The problem with this argument is that the premise is a solecism. Pape uses here the theory of coincidental correlation, better known as the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc. He seems to be saying that as suicide bombings started only after the US occupation, it follows that the occupation "caused" the bombings. But as we know, correlation does not prove causation.

It is indeed possible that the focus of suicide bombers has shifted to Iraq because that is where the Americans are. However, the attacks inside Iraq are increasingly targeting Iraqi citizens and security forces. What is the occupying force that Pape is referencing? Is he saying that those Iraqis that are being blown up are mere proxies for the  occupying armies? Is he also saying that the attacks of September 11 were a direct answer to US occupation in Muslim lands?

In making this argument, Pape has possibly accepted and aligned himself with the bin Ladenist view that attacks on innocent non-combatants are justified and will--and should--continue until the West retreats to its own lands. But as Islamists have unequivocally stated, they view Islam as ascendant and the conquest of the infidel to be a fait accompli.

The question then arises, which is the true occupying force? Western armies on traditional Muslim lands or Muslim immigrants in western countries?

Comments

[Brian Macker]

Why has he restricted his sample to a single war. There have been thousands of "foreign occupations" since the invention of gunpowder. How many of those resulted in suicide bombers? I imagine the correlation is very small.

On the other hand suicide bombings themselves are very highly correlated with certain ideologies. What other examples besides Islamic hatred do we have? Perhaps Tamil rebels and Japanese kamikazes. Certainly the kamikaze were not the result of an occupation. The Tamil rebels at least have the decency not to target innocent civilians directly. The same cannot be said of the Islamists.

[Daniel]

Yes, and this doesn't jibe with Pape's view of occupation vis-a-vis suicide bombings. Since I have not read the book yet, I won't comment on what I assume to be his arguments, even though he has been making the round of talk shows and whatever he has to say has been rung out of the three-and-a-half minutes they give him. What is becoming clear, however, is that this is just another pulp non-fiction in where the West (read: US) is made to bear the brunt of the world's depravity. It's sad and it's getting very old.

[Infinite Justice]

Your review based on not even reading the book and your lack of understanding of US policy over the course of the last 55 years is "getting very old". Do us all a favor read the US declassified record and form some judgements of your own. Your just another victim of government and business propaganda which sends a "Purpose of America" message that what we do and and are intentions are always right. Take some advice from Bertrand Russell "get rid of beliefs which depend solely upon the place and time of your education, and upon what your parents and schoolmasters told you" and you possibly will be able to look at the world in a truly objective manner this way you can save yourself being labled a hypocrite.

[Daniel]

I have not set out to review his book, merely to argue one of his points. That you fail to see that speaks to your own lack of understanding.

And if you would look around, you would see that I am not in the "America always right" camp. But that isn't your purpose, is it? I have no fear of being labeled anything, especially by a person who does not know the difference between "are" and "our" and "your" and "you're."