The young man was a product of his upbringing. His commanders, whom he trusted implicitly, had perverted the codes of his religion and the customs of his ancestors into bizarre parodies. As is usual in these cases, though, the young man knew none of this. People whom he trusted had told him it was true and thus, it was so. He had been raised and educated, brainwashed some would say - to believe the orders he was given came straight from the deity himself. And the deity was demanding that he die.

The young man strapped himself into a machine loaded with explosives and set out on his final journey. Nobody recorded his thoughts as he traveled, and his superiors cared not a whit. His commanders lived in relative comfort, deluding themselves that they were warrior-commanders in a holy war and theirs was a noble cause. In their delusion, they had convinced themselves that what they were ordering the young man and others like him to do, though normally deemed sinful, was justified. Pliant religious leaders had given the whole bloody mess a patina of religious legitimacy. A culture of peace, life and beauty became a suicide cult.

The commanders believed they had been put in position by the deity and he would smile on their handiwork. The very nature of their handiwork, though, made them deeply cynical. They came to regard the young people they sent out to immolate themselves, and as many foreign devils as possible, as just so many rounds of ammunition.

The commanders and their clerical accomplices made some concessions to humanity. The teenagers were plied with promises of eternal reward for themselves and honor for their families. Dark suggestions were made as well, that if they did not submit to the will of the deity, quite opposite would occur. The people were under attack and these young people were told they were to be ?spirit-warriors? in a holy cause, sacrificing themselves to stop the hated foe. All this was done to re-enforce years of schooling and training that made submission to such lunacy as natural as breathing.

The young man steered his vehicle through the enemy defenses and past their sophisticated sensors. He sighted his target and attacked successfully. The results of the attack were quite pleasing to the commanders. News reports clearly showed the spectacular results of the young man?s efforts. The arrogant barbarians were again shown that they could never defeat The Chosen People. Surely, the deity would smile on the commanders and grant them further victories.

The year was 1945.

The young man?s name was Tomai Zai. We know this from the only mortal remains found at the scene: his boot with a foot still inside. Zai had flown his A6M Zero fighter carrying a 500-lb bomb into the flight deck of the USS Enterprise. A Navy photographer caught the resulting explosion on film, snapping his shot just as the ?Big E?s? forward elevator was blown 500 feet into the air.

Zai?s ultimate sacrifice was in vain. The Kamikazes did not stop the Americans. Japan surrendered. None of his commanders were ever brought up on war-crimes charges pertaining to the suicide attacks (some were on other charges) and only one chose to follow his example. Admiral Ugaki, an early proponent of the ?Special Attack? idea, led a small group of planes out to find and attack the U.S. fleet as it approached Tokyo Bay. He never made it.

Nobody at that time ever imagined that some sixty years later, the armed forces of the United States would face another cynical enemy ordering teenagers to kill themselves to satisfy cynical commanders, the commanders perverted belief in the desires of deity and their own demented appetites for mindless killing. Osama bin Laden, and his colleagues in Hamas and other Islamo-fascist death cults have embraced suicide as a legitimate tactic. Their soulless cynicism has now expanded the target list to include their fellow Muslims. The new ?spirit-warriors,? these teenagers turned precision-guided weapons, are killing the very same people they are supposedly defending. This is cynicism on a breathtaking scale.

It would be as though Tomai Zai and his squadron mates had been ordered to attack downtown Tokyo.

Hatred + Cynicism = Hatred + Cynicism (ad infinitum, ad nauseum)