A question:

So, you have a person, someone who intends to blow themselves up. A person who is willing to take their own life at the expense of others. The purpose being to extract the highest possible cost they can, meaning to inflict as much pain and suffering on the largest number of people they can. Deliberately putting pieces of metal into an explosive device so there is the additional result of non lethal shrapnel injuring those not already injured by the blast. Planning on staggering the timing of multiple explosions so as to not only injure innocents but, also the people who dedicate their lives to aiding others.

How do you punish someone like this?

When we discover a bomb before it goes off, we take it out somewhere where it will do little damage and we detonate it so it will not do any harm. It will never get a chance to hurt someone again. We don’t take the bomb and keep it somewhere, leaving it armed and dangerous because it would be foolish and we know one day it might in fact detonate hurting innocent people.

So, when someone decides to give themselves over to becoming a human bomb, a bomb directed by the intelligence and malice a person has to offer should we do any different? I keep seeing these instances of suicide bombers (or homicide bomber depending on your spin delivery source) and I can’t help but think when they capture one of these idiots before they have a chance to do what they are intending to do, well they should take them out somewhere and blow them up.

Better still, film that... and broadcast it.

You’re probably thinking about how harsh that is right about now, aren’t you?

But, think about it this way, if you show the world what a violent, painful and abrupt act it is to blow oneself up - if you make sure people can see what a horrible way to die it is - maybe the next time some group of terrorists, some ideologs try to recruit some idiot to do this, it will be all the more difficult for them to manage it. The instinct of self-preservation will set in, the fear of pain we all have will prevent someone from being so easily convinced they are doing something noble to further their cause.

No, they are doing something which is a violent, senseless act and even if they are not successful in their endeavor, they will suffer the ignominy of dying in a horrible painful fashion nonetheless.

Just something to think about regarding this person:

“We went into the hotel. He [my husband] took a corner and I took another. There was a wedding in the hotel. There were women and children. My husband executed the attack.”

“I tried to detonate and it failed. People fled running and I left running with them.”

...Mr Muasher said the bomb strapped to the man was packed with the powerful explosive RDX and ball bearings, and was designed to kill as many people as possible. “It is clear from the way she was dressed and the explosive belts with ball bearings that they wanted to target innocent civilians, and also wanted to inflict the biggest number of casualties and victims.”

There’s been a further news story, attempting to reason out the behavior by pointing out that the women had three brothers and a brother-in-law killed in the fighting in Iraq. Of course the blame being laid at the hands of US forces but, the rub of all this is there wasn’t much in the way of Americans as casualties as a result of this act - no, they just managed to kill mainly Jordanian and Palestinians. Got to appreciate the logic in that (not).