Jumping in late to the party, but I thought I'd through in a couple of pennies into the mix.

First, while Pape is cited, his message and his material wasn't contextualized very well. The most notable example is the references to LTTE in this discussion, including by TROUFION. If we're talking about Islamic terrorism, suicide or otherwise, we must explicitly exclude LTTE. They are virtually agnostic.

Also, if you cite Pape, know that he finds suicide terrorism is directly related to military occupation or location. Messages from OBL/UBL, for example, LTTE, and the 7/7 bombers etc all make specific references to placement of military combat forces in a region. This is the foundation of Pape's argument for off-shore balancing.

It is also worthy of noting that while "Civilizied peoples deplore, condemn and disdain suicide and suicide warfare", to quote TROUFION in the opening of this thread, this does not discount the Islamic, or otherwise, populations the suicide act is performed for. These populations may not entirely support the means but they support the ends, a scenario seen in Palestine.

If you don't want to buy his book, which is a good book, or you don't want to download the paper, you can watch or listen (via iPod if you want) his JHU APL Rethinking War series seminar.