The Only Commonality is Mass Killing

Temptation to compare acts of mass violence around the world is overwhelming.  But as Anat Berko points out, you have to be careful.

Aaron Alexis murdered 12 people and injured at least eight more at the Washington, D.C. Navy Yard before he was shot and killed by law enforcement professionals. It is tempting to compare Alexis to a suicide bomber, especially now that we have heard rumors he opened a website under the name "Mohammed Salem." However, clear thinking demands that temptation be resisted. Let me explain why.

As an Israeli criminologist who has studied suicide bombers for almost two decades—making extensive observations of and conducting numerous interviews with those who failed, as well as with those who dispatch the bombers, with family members of suicide bombers and decision makers and elites in their society— I can say with confidence that the differences between mass killers in the West such as Adam Lanza at Sandy Hook, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris at Columbine, and yes, Aaron Alexis at the D.C. Navy Yard, and suicide bombers are categorical and insurmountable.

Commenting on the comparison of events such as Sandy Hook and suicide bombers, she writes

The overriding distinction between the two is their native cultures: the suicide bomber's education and attack preparations are diametrically opposed to that of mass killers, as is their socialization. Suicide bombers are radical Islam's celebrated heroes, its darlings, whose acts are viewed by the larger culture as exemplary and heroic; in contrast, the West's mass killers are aberrant individuals isolated from their resolutely life-affirming culture.

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