Michael Vlahos wrote in the LSS Newsletter of July 2, 2015:

Those who set about to sacrifice both themselves and others occupy a different niche. If saving others cannot be realized through martyrdom—then the agency of righteous change must pursue a dual path of sacrificial death—one in which our own are martyred, and another in which The Other is ritually slaughtered.

I wrote about Ruth Stein’s book, For Love of the Father:

Terroristic violence seeks to compel the Other to submit to the God to which one has oneself submitted. The terrorist seeks to transform Others into sacrificial victims (as the suicide bombers themselves are sacrificial victims). Violent acts are undertaken in the name Allah—to demonstrate the depth of one’s devotion, and punish those who are insufficiently devoted.

As the terrorist martyrs himself, so does he compel others to die for his god.

Similarly, Americans who landed on Omaha Beach (World War II, June 6, 1944) were asked to sacrifice their lives for Freedom and Democracy. General Eisenhower explained to soldiers before they attacked that they were “about to embark on the Great Crusade.”

Vlahos observes that

every American war movie ever made celebrates the passion of sacrifice and ritual killing of the enemy. These films are designed for the viewer to absorb the ritual passionately. Fulfilling sacrifice is the payoff in war, and in collective memory thereafter—and is intended, like church liturgy, to be celebrated forever.

American war movies (and documentaries) may be understood as elements of an endless sacrificial ritual—the repetition of righteous slaughter undertaken and achieved in the name of our god, Freedom and Democracy.

In terrorism and war, it is not a question of “one side” against “the other side.” There is always a “third,” an intervening variable: the sacred ideal that allows everything to happen. Thus, political violence is always submission.

Suicide bombers die for Allah, and ask Others to do the same.