In both Lebanon and to a lesser extent in Sri Lanka, the terrorist organizations took advantage of religious beliefs that honored extreme sacrifice. Added to this was exploitation of economic and political grievances, thus making the suicide attackers into heroic characters. In addition, families of the suicide volunteers received generous (by local standards) economic rewards. Until in 2003 families of Palestinian suicide bombers receive up to $33,000 (from various sources, mainly Iraq and Saudi Arabia). Financial incentives like this have become common and the Palestinian government now pays them out of foreign aid cash.Assuming that's true (and I've found StrategyPage to be a reliable source), this is simply appalling. The vast majority of foreign aid that Palestine receives comes from the U.S., either directly or indirectly through the U.N. and other aid organizations. So ... U.S. tax dollars are paying rewards to the families of suicide bombers.
You'd think I'd be cynical enough to be unsurprised by this, but I guess I need to work on my cynicism some more because this did surprise me. As I sat here and festered, I started thinking about all the things our government does that anger me, and ... I understood a little better what a powerful current Trump is tying into. I don't like the idea of Trump-as-President, but I absolutely love the idea of tipping over the apple-cart on the current people running the government...
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