Headline writers have been likening Islamic suicide bombers to kamikaze warriors. Interestingly enough, some of these warriors still live, and take issue with the characterization.
Suicide attacks are not some distinct quality that unites the 9/11 hijackers and the Japanese pilots. Warriors fight other warriors — even when defeat and death are certain. It is a story as old as Roncesvalles, as old as Thermopylae. The difference, as the silver-haired suicide pilots of 1945 instantly and correctly discern today, is that the kamikazes attacked military targets, but "the main purpose of a suicide bomber is to kill as many innocent civilians as they can." That, Hamazono said, "is just murder."
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