Commentaries

Suicide terrorism in today's world began with an attack by Hezbollah against the U.S. marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983. That attack drove Israel, France, and the United States out of Lebanon and convinced many groups, including the PLO, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda, and the Tamil Tigers, among others, that suicide missions can be an effective tool to achieve their goals. (1) As suicide attacks proliferated, millions puzzled over what prompts a person to become a suicide terrorist.

A team of reporters and an editor from The Boston Globe have published a book entitled Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy which gives us a thorough, objective study of Joseph and Rose Kennedy's youngest child. (1)

John F. Haught is a Roman Catholic theologian who specializes in religion and science and who has served on the faculty at Georgetown University for most of his career. His new book, God and the New Atheism, is a reply to recent assaults on religion by three popular religious skeptics - Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. (1) Let's focus on three of the many issues which Haught raises.

Suppose a child in the United States dies from a medically treatable condition because her parents prayed over her but did not take her to a doctor. Will criminal charges be filed against the parents? In most cases, no. American prosecutors have found it difficult to obtain convictions in such cases because the laws in most states exempt parents from prosecution for child neglect, child abuse, and manslaughter if their religion mandates spiritual healing. The statute in Wisconsin is typical.