WHAT HAPPENS TO THE "MERELY WOUNDED" THE RADIOLOGY OF SUICIDE BOMBING TERRORISM 31 August 2004 By Louis Rene Beres, Ph.D. and Michael L. Messing, M.D. There are times on this endlessly bleeding planet where the survivors of terror-violence must surely envy the dead. One such time is the recurring occasion of Palestinian suicide bombing. Finding heroism and sacredness in the exploded bodies of despised "infidels," the Palestinian suicide bomber absolutely abhors any sense of humane civilizational limits. For him or for her, "God's Will" is now easily discovered in the broken and charred corpses of "enemy" women and children. This morning Palestinian suicide bombers blew up two buses in Be'er Sheva, Israel. The intial count was 12 killed and 100 wounded. What "meanings" lie behind these twin bus attacks? The Palestinian terrorist wants, above all, to transform Israeli pain into Palestinian power. He reasons, carefully, that such pain must point recognizably toward the victim's death, but he always takes steps to ensure that even "survivors" will suffer terribly. Violating the inviolable, he also declares with unspeakable cruelty that no Jew can ever be or feel immune. Although he contends convincingly in the arena of world public opinion that the enemy is entirely political, that the enemy is the "Zionist," it is evident in all of his writings and holy teachings that the enemy is actually defined along religious lines. For him the enemy, at least the main enemy, is any and every Jew on the face of the earth. The cruelty is palpable. During the routine rotation of a radiologist in a busy city hospital, the variety of patient problems reveal just another difficult workday. But things are now very different in Be'er Sheva's hospital. In recent years, with the recurrent waves of suicide bombings, unique and hideous trauma, evident on radiographic images, has become a "regular" part of the Israeli physician's practice in many hospitals across the country. X-rays of suicide bombing victims often show hundreds of metallic fragments, ranging in size from millimeters to whole nails, grotesquely embedded in the victims' bodies - literally from head to foot. What had been created originally for constructive purposes has been transformed by Arab terrorists into the very deadliest of destructive projectiles. Nails, screws, nuts and ball-bearings are packed by the suicide bombers into their explosive vests to maximize lethal effects and to inflict unimaginable pain and suffering on Jewish bodies. These perversely transformed objects, usually after being dipped in rat poison or other available toxins, are propelled with the force of bullets, penetrating skin, flesh and bone with a furious indifference to all notions of minimal human decency. The nails fly head first, presenting themselves in a strangely surreal yet orderly arangement within the victims' bodies. Many are embedded "only" to the depth of their entrance sites. Others burrow their way in more deeply, and lodge under the skin where the examining physician can actually touch and feel their alien presence. Others must be removed after hours of meticulous exploration. Still others enter the body far deeper, perforating and lacerating vital organs at random. CT scans of these victims' heads show blood, air, metal and bone fragments displacing normal brain tissue. The "lucky" patient who survives the initial explosive insult may often require extensive surgery to repair damaged organs. Others may sustain fractures, burns, amputations, vascular injuries, paralysis, blindness or brain damage. A collapsed lung or perforated colon - what would ordinarily be considered a major injury - is now taken as a blessing for these merely "wounded" victims of Palestinian terrorism. Although some of the victims recover physically and return to a "normal" life, many more require a lifetime of ongoing rehabilitation. Some are assuredly impaired permanently. And all suffer serious psychological effects that need to be treated. Post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety affect not only the victims of the attack, but all of Israeli society. Anecdotal reports have indicated a dramatic rise in the use of prescription antidepressants and sedatives. How could it be otherwise, in a society living under constant attack by those who cry out: "When the martyr dies a martyr's death, he attains the height of bliss...." The Palestinian "martyr's" unheroic weapon has now literally and figuratively penetrated the hearts and souls as well as the bodies of an entire nation. Too often, unfortunately, television and print media are unable or unwilling to transmit the full human measure of such penetration to viewers and readers. The result is that too few people all over the world are able to understand the true horror of the Palestinian suicide bomber. For them, Israeli "wounded" are little more than an anesthetized statistic, an abstract list of numbers that elicits barely a nodding sigh of concern. It is already too late to transform those Arab terrorists who would blow themselves up to murder Jewish men, women and children, but their uniquely hideous methods must at last be acknowledged. For the Palestinian suicide bomber, violence and the sacred are unambiguously intertwined. This homicidal terrorist believes without hesitation that there can be no greater glory for a Muslim than inflicting measureless pain upon all Jews. With such a profane belief, even the most elementary standards of armed conflict are easily set aside in favor of purely sadistic violence and celebrations of mass murder. Hearing the lamentations of its citizens - agonized cries that no people should ever be made to utter - the State of Israel now has an undeniable obligation to listen closely and to defend itself. Here in the United States we should also pay close attention, for as we already know all too well, we are not immune to suicide terror attacks. ------------------------------ LOUIS RENE BERES, Ph.D., was educated at Princeton and is the author of ten books dealing with terrorism and international law. He is Professor of Political Science at Purdue University and Chair of "Project Daniel," a small group advising Israel's Prime Minister on nuclear war and nuclear terrorism. Prof. Beres is also the academic advisor to the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies. MICHAEL L. MESSING, M.D., is a radiologist trained at Cook County Hospital and Northwestern University in Chicago. He is currently studying the medical effects of terrorism, and has on several occasions volunteered in Israeli hospitals to aid victims of suicide bombings. Reply to: Louis Rene Beres Professor of International Law Department of Political Science Purdue University West Lafayette IN 47907 USA TEL 765/494-4189 FAX 765/494-0833 E MAIL BERES@POLSCI.PURDUE.EDU Michael L. Messing Department of Radiology Evanston Northwestern Healthcare Highland Park Hospital Highland Park, IL 60035 USA FREEMAN CENTER FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES |