Does Suicide Bombing Have a Moral Equivalence?

Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, a 39-year-old Arlington-born psychiatrist, who shot and killed at least 13 and wounded a number of military personnel at Fort Hood last week, seems to think that suicide bombing and soldiering are morally equivalent. In one of his web postings, he argued that suicide bombers are no different from a soldier who throws himself on a grenade to save the lives of others:

To say that this soldier committed suicide is inappropriate. It’s more appropriate to say he is a brave hero that sacrificed his life for a more noble cause," said the Internet posting. "Scholars have paralled (sic) this to suicide bombers whose intention, by sacrificing their lives, is to help save Muslims by killing enemy soldiers.

Whether this was what motivated him to engage in this shooting rampage is yet to be determined. Newspaper reports said that he did not like the idea of getting deployed to Afghanistan and fighting a war that to him is a war against his religion.

Juxtapose this thinking against the thinking of Maj. L. Eduardo Caraveo, an army psychologist from Woodbridge, who was one of those killed. A native of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, the Washington Post reports that he came to America with little knowledge of English, sold newspapers to get by, and went on to get a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Arizona. (I don’t think it is by accident that the WP posted these two stories side by side on its front page today). One of his friends said that while he was happy being at home, he understood “what it meant to serve his country.” And so on the day after he arrived at Fort Hood, as he was filling out paper works and getting ready to step into a “life devoted to helping people through their most stressful times,” he lost his life in the hands of Hasan.

Both have a moral argument to offer.

To Hasan’s thinking, a suicide bomber embraces martyrdom for God and religion. He sacrifices his life to protect his faith against those who do not believe in it.
To Caraveo, a soldier embraces martyrdom for God and country. He sacrifices his life to protect his country and defend the innocent from its enemies. He offers his life so that others may live. In his worldview, he has a duty to preserve a certain kind of order where people are able to live in dignity, peace, and prosperity.

The former wants to defend his religion against infidels so that he can build a City of God on earth and preserve pure worship. As if God needs us to defend Himself from unbelievers! This sense of self-righteousness leads to a moral indignation that can only lead to fanaticism, intolerance, and blind prejudices that justify the use of violence. The latter seeks only to preserve the social order, to make life in the City of Man peaceful and orderly. There are bad regimes, however, that put their soldiers to ill-use.

At a minimum, all of us humans only desire to live peaceably with one another, go through this life the best way we can. We educate ourselves, send our children to school, and contribute our talents towards the progress of our community. With our sense of inventiveness and creativity, we have succeeded in taming the harsh forces of nature. We build industries and engage in commerce, knowing that maximizing our potentials is what is expected of us. The City of Man is not in opposition to the City of God; it leads to it, and that indeed through right reason, all societies – Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. – can appreciate common standards of good and justice.

Aren’t the opposite of all of the above – intolerance, hatred, injustice, ignorance, violence – inhuman and ungodly? So I pose this question again: is there really a moral equivalence to suicide bombing?