Suicide?

As I said in the previous post, the New York Times has a piece debating whether the bombers actually meant to commit suicide (just type access for both username and password, if it asks) – which gives a lot of the resultant hysteria an interesting perspective.

Investigators raising doubts about the suicide assumption have cited evidence to support this theory. Each of the four men who died in the July 7 attacks purchased round-trip railway tickets from Luton to London. Germaine Lindsay’s rented car left in Luton had a seven-day parking sticker on the dashboard.

A large quantity of explosives were stored in the trunk of that car, perhaps for another attack. Another bomber had just spent a large sum to repair his car. The men carried driver’s licenses and other ID cards with them to their deaths, unusual for suicide bombers.

In addition, none left behind a note, videotape or Internet trail as suicide bombers have done in the past. And the bombers’ families were baffled by what seemed to be their decisions to kill themselves.

While some of these clues could be seen as the work of men intent on covering their trail, some investigators increasingly believe that the men may have been conned into carrying the bombs onto the trains and leaving them, thinking they were going to explode minutes later.
…
The suicide question has major implications not only for the investigation, but also for the assessment of the terrorist threat that London faces. If the attacks were a suicide mission, they would be the first suicide bombings on European soil, and signal a dangerous new threat. Suicide could indicate a higher level of commitment and point to the existence within Britain of extremists willing to die for a cause. If the men were not suicide bombers, some of the most basic assumptions of the investigation would change. On one level, the idea makes the plot less ominous. It is much easier to recruit “mules” who will carry and deposit explosives than people who are prepared to die

I must admit, I find a lot of the views given to be quite convincing.