I would say as noble, altruistic and brave as those actions you mention of soldiers saving their comrades are, they are not always direct suicide attempts. They are a protective split second reaction and therefore not really rational. Also I would point out being in a war zone is incredibly traumatic and most soldiers mental health is suffering and in a perilous state, so for a split second making that choice to jump onto a grenade whilst courageous, is a pretty mad thing to do as you are very likely going to die, although you may think you will survive. They are also pretty rare actions.
You don't know what you're talking about. The whole whole ethos you're inculcated with in the military, especially in the infantry, is that of the collective good. Self-sacrifice isn't a "split second reaction", it's a rational choice - the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one, to quote ol' Pointy-ears.
You could apply that same principle to the person jumping in the road or the person who jumps into the sea to save someone else, yet dying themselves, its a split second decision and isn't made with the intent of dying yourself, the decision is made in trying to stop someone dying. A suicide bomber is completely different to these examples you have given, a suicide bomber knows he or she is going to die, the person jumping onto the grenade or into the path of the car or into the frozen lake doesn't necessarily think they are going to die. They certainly don't want to die. It is fundamentally different.
So, a plethora of psychological researchers who've established that this sort of altruistic act of placing oneself in danger isn't the result of a "split second decision" on the part of individuals, but something some people inhere in themselves, that's bollocks because you know better.
Kamikaze or dying for a cause is a form of brainwashing if not by others then by ones self. I would say to blow yourself up for any cause makes you a fruit loop as you put it. We are never going agree on this VP!
So, if Iain Dunked-in Shit starts interring disabled people/shipping them to special "treatment centres", and I decide that for the good of fellow crips,I'm going to go shake his hand while packing a pipe bomb up my arse, I'm a fruitloop rather than someone looking to ensure the safety of the wider disabled population; and the fictional guy with the opportunity to kill Hitler or Stalin at the cost of his own life (neither of these things, note, are "split second decisions"), he's a fruitloop too.
You know why we're never going to agree? Because you think that your personal knowledge of mental illness makes you qualified to judge, whereas I see my personal experience of mental illness as only qualifying me to speak for myself, but see my military experience as well as my postgraduate academic experience as making me qualified to advance points of fact.
Most suicide bombings are as Pape states well planned in advance they are not a split second decisions. My grandfather hanging himself was not a split second decision he had planned it for some time, he was depressed he didn't hang himself because he was happy any more than suicide bombers blow themselves up because they are happy, they are unhappy. Depression is classified as a mental health issue, isn't it?
As I keep saying it is the definition of madness that is very subjective, at what point do we go from being simply fed up to being depressed It is difficult to measure Pape has no background clinical information on the mental health of all the suicide bombers that he took into consideration and for this alone he cannot claim to be right.
You haven't persuaded me to think different VP.
You can't be persuaded to think different, because you
"know" (without actual knowledge) that you're right.
