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I don't mean to start another thread on yesterday's tragic events in NYC, but I've been trying to piece together some sense to the President's second set of remarks. He made two separate references to cowardice, once referring to the perpetrator(s) as a "faceless coward", and later something about "cowardly acts". I get the rhetoric of the stab at manhood and all that, but I'm curious as to what you all would think about the literal designation of the concept of cowardice.
It's one of those philosophical nouns that I've always had trouble wrapping my head around in certain contexts ~ kind of like forgiveness. I'm capable of forgiving, but not always, and I've never been able to adequately define the concept...
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It seems to me that these people were not cowards, but fanatics. Would not a coward shrink back from harm's way? They certainly did not do that. Bush's speech writer used those words for their emotional, cathartic effect, not for any literal reason, I feel.
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If one of our guys were to sacrifice his life to strike a blow against the Great Evil he would be hailed as a hero. Of course, sacrificing the lives of unwilling innocents might take a little of the shine off, but in the minds of the perps, none of the unwilling were innocent.
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in the minds of the perps, none of the unwilling were innocent.
Admitting the difficult of "reading the mind of the perps", I must disagree.
In the minds of the perps, the unwilling were non-human, beneath their concern. A nazi mentality.
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Too bad the people on the plane did not know they were doomed, and have made a concerted attack on the hijackers. They might at least have made the plane crash short of its target.
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>They might at least have made the plane crash short of its target.
which is quite possibly what happened with the 4th aircraft.
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They might at least have made the the plane crash short of its target.
which is quite possibly what happened with the 4th aircraft.
I believe - from latest reports - that tsuwm's surmise is correct. LAte reports say at least two men aboard that plane that crashed in Pennsylvania made an effort to foil the hijackers. They both made cell or airphone calls to family and implied that was what they were going to try to do.
Re terrorists flying plane : Pilots say the type aircraft involved "are hell to take off and land but easy to fly." Further, flight instructions manuals in Arabic were discovered at Logan Airport, Boston.
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Good Grief Wordpeople, Define cowardice? The unspeakable acts of 911 are the stuff that extend the concept of cowardice to such levels that language fails and new words must be created in order to encompass the new depths to which mankind has descended. "Faceless cowards" is a man thing? I guess so, if in fact womankind finds that the murder of children and the helpless can be rationalized by a quirky need to be semantically and politically correct.
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Are we erring by analyzing these beasts in our own terms?
I don't think these beasts were cowards at all (each was willing to commit suicide), but rather fanatics with absolutely no regard for anyone but they and theirs.
And that psychotic coldness is, to me, much more frightening than mere "cowadice" could ever be.
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cowardice is the innate ability to murder a child and claim that this act will get the killer to heaven.
TEd
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"Dastardly" was given as a synonym for cowardly and the definition for dastardly was: 1 : COWARDLY 2 : characterized by underhandedness or treachery <a dastardly attack> <a dastardly villain> Obviously, 2 applies to the WTC tragedy. But I agree with fiberbabe - it's hard to get your head around the concept. Sounds right until you try to puzzle out the actual meaning, then it's hard to put it precisely into words.
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It was a sociopathic hit-and-run in which the pawns died but the fanatic political faction has run and is hiding. Remember which culture invented chess?
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cowardice is to murder a child and claim that this act will get the killer to heaven.
chutzpa
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Thank you Max. I wasn't sure myself but I knew it began in that general area of this planet.
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"Talieban, the extremist thugs sheltering Bin Laden."
I'm not sure it is fair to call the Afghanistans thugs. Remember the many years of horror they went through, and their entitlement to feel their religion pulled them through. Give them more time to recover, and they may mellow a bit.
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anad while we are at it, let's remember who trained Bin Liner - our friends in the good ol' CIA. Which reminds us all that in the complexities of realpolitik, truth and lies are merely expedient matters of timing.
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I have always understood the reference to cowardice to apply to the source of the horrific acts -- those who planned, organized and financed this attack and who hid behind the ones they sent to complete the plan; those who now still hide, and who will hide behind the bodies of children if prepared and armed adults come after them. Yes, they are COWARDS.
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TEd says...cowardice is the innate ability to murder a child and claim that this act will get the killer to heaven
and
Sparteye says...those who planned, organized and financed this attack and who hid behind the ones they sent to complete the plan; those who now still hide, and who will hide behind the bodies of children if prepared and armed adults come after them. Yes, they are COWARDS.
I have to agree with Sparteye on this one TEd. The guys who did the actual act, though heinous, had the courage of their convictions. What they did was evil and cruel but they cannot be called cowards as per the true definition of the word.
Having the courage of your convictions doesn't make you nice because your convictions can be bad just as easily as they can be good. We just generally hear it in a positive sense.
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I have always understood the reference to cowardice to apply to the source of the horrific acts -- those who planned, organized and financed this attack and who hid behind the ones they sent to complete the plan; those who now still hide, and who will hide behind the bodies of children if prepared and armed adults come after them. Yes, they are COWARDS.
Yes. What reasonable person coud disagree with you here Ann? But how much more complex it can be to acknowledge our own societal cowardice.
What attitude shoud we have to the gentlemen (sic) in the political and military and intelligence (sic) establishment of the USA who set bin Liner and his cohorts up with material and logistics support and who now walk away from responsibility for the misery created by fascist thugs of the Taliban?
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...those who planned, organized and financed this attack and who hid behind the ones they sent to complete the plan; those who now still hide, and who will hide behind the bodies of children if prepared and armed adults come after them...
Thanks Sparteye. I can get behind that answer.
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bel:
Let me try to marshal my thoughts a bit. The cowards are the ones who haven't the guts to openly declare war and come at you in a frontal assault for which you might prepare. Instead, they do things like plant bombs, use humans as shields, and fly planes into buildings. Cowardice on an individual level doesn't enter into the picture because these people care not one whit for their own lives let alone those of others.
The real heroes are those who fought back against such tactics, whether they were the ones on that one plane who may have stormed the cockpit to stop the hijackers or those who, knowing full well that they would not come back, walked up 80 flights of stairs carrying firefighting gear because they knew they were the only ones who COULD help. The real hero is the man who came down those sme 80 flights of the WTC carrying a paraplegic on his back. The true hero is the woman who slowed her descent of those many flights of stairs to guide a blind man to safety.
The true cowards were the Japanese leaders who perpetrated a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor at 7AM on a sleepy Sunday morning. The true cowards are those who coerce others into a suicide bombing mission against innocent men, women, and children (as well as the suicide bomber himself is a true coward). The true cowards are the Nazi bastards who herded millions of people into concrete showers then poured poison gas on their heads. The true coward is the person at work who bears false witness to your boss or who spreads baseless rumors about you.
TEd
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TEd, there has to be a different word to describe some of these people. I agree that the people who hide behind the suicide bombers, who deny being the leaders when they are, they are the cowards. But the word in its ture meaning cannot be applied to those bombers.
Look at the definition (from Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary)
Coward n. 1. a person who lacks courage in facing danger, difficulty, pain, etc.; a timid or easily intimidated person. – adj. 2. lacking courage; timid. 3. proceeding from or expressive of fear or timidity: a coward cry. 4. Heraldry. (of an animal) represented with its tail between its legs; coué: a greyhound coward.
We can call these men vile, fanatical, evil – any number of things but the guy who drove the plane into a tower cannot be termed timid or easily intimidated. If so, he would not have proceeded, but instead he would have tried to save his own skin.
I think the wrong term is being used for these guys, that’s all.
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The cowards are the ones who haven't the guts to openly declare war and come at you in a frontal assault for which you might prepare. Instead, they do things like plant bombs, use humans as shields, and fly planes into buildings.
Ted, I have to take exception to this. Coming by frontal assault may be the courageous way in your book--we have been taught that, I agree--but it may not be everybody's way of being courageous.
And aside from the value judgment, I would say that their actions reflect their priorities: do they want to put on a show whether they get the job done or not, or do they want to use the surest means to accomplish the task?
This goes for our current preparations as well, and fits a lot of the discussion both on the board and in my life here.
What is going to be the top priority of our decision-makers?
If it is to be the elimination of the planners of this attack, assassination may well be in the cards, and to hell with a show of "and justice to all". If the priority is going to be to uphold our standards of letting justice be meted out by the law, then I predict this will be a long,
drawn-out affair. Further, they may want or have to factor in how whatever course of action we take will affect the rest of the world, in a myriad of ways, and this may just be the deciding element in choosing their course.
Oh, dear, I just re-read that, and realized that I sound rather in favor of assassination. I am not, normally. I do believe that there are times when the end justifies the means. In this instance? I really can't say. I would have to know their motive before I could decide. If they truly believe they had accomplished something wonderful, no.
If I found they had done it for "kicks", hell yes.
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The cowards are the ones who haven't the guts to openly declare war and come at you in a frontal assault for which you might prepare. Instead, they do things like plant bombs, use humans as shields, and fly planes into buildings.
Ted, I have to take exception to this. Coming by frontal assault may be the courageous way in your book ... but it may not be everybody's way
Agreed Jackie, though perhaps on a different basis. "Courage" is not ignoring risk to one's life -- that is foolhardiness, or ignorance of the risk. Courage means that after taking all steps to keep one's skin intact, one is willing to proceed: one can face the risk or certainty of one's own death without being paralyzed by it.
Patton said, "War isn't about dying for your country. It's about making the other bastard die for his country." bin Ladin is taking steps to keep himself intact, to fight again another day. That is not "cowardice", it's tactical prudence.
The events of last Tuesday give us no basis for deciding whether he personally is a coward. My guess, based on the little I've read of his prior activity in Afghanistan, against the Russians) is that he is not a coward.
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If I might add a little nonsense to the stew--caught between a pig and a pasture oncet, and in need of open spaces, a farmer told me to walk "coward."
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Hmmm, I don't quite agree with some of your reasoning Keiva. The cowardice of bin Ladin is not in the fact that he is hiding out in Afghanistan; the cowardice is in the fact he will send someone else to do the dirty work and not have the courage to admit his part in the action.
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To me, Bel (and this may be only a personal distinction in use of words): If bin Ladin's cause would somehow be advanced by him opening proclaiming his responsibility, then I would say it is "cowardice" to forego that advantage for fear of his personal safety. But as best I can tell he would gain no benefit by announcing his role; for his purposes, it is tactically better for his cause to keep his exact role muddled and in question. That is, his open proclamation his role would perhaps be more emotionally satisfying to us (and perhaps to him too), but is not in the best interest of his own (warped) cause.
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Ah, I see what you mean. I think our interpretation varies because we are looking at the situation from different angles.
The way I see it, his cause would be greatly advanced if he stood up and proclaimed his responsibility. People need heroes. A mighty warrior for the cause, not afraid to take on the greatest military force on earth. Imagine how that would rally his people. And if he died, yelling out his "truth", the people would have a martyr - an even stronger rallying force.
Instead, to save his own skin, he disowns the people who died for the cause. He disavows his part in the actions. That is why I see him as a coward.
Evil deeds are often done out of cowardice.
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That said Ken, I realize that we are discussing this in Q&A which may not be the most appropriate forum.
How bout we shake hands, call it a good debate and mosey on down to the corner bar for a round? First one's on me.
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Hi, bel! On the substantive point, the conclusion in part depends on tactical military considerations that we're not qualified to fully evaluate -- but on reflection, I agree with you.
On your latter post: I'll drink to that! We could all use a good drink! Anyone care to join bel & me?
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Sorry, I just got back from an extended session of Mall Therapy. Too many lemons, flattened my checkbook!Ooops! I meant to ask, is Mall therapy a form of cowardice?
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Consuelo is practically dropping:
Her eyes and her purse are both popping.
“Do you think I am mad?
Is it really so bad?
Is it cowardice now to go shopping?”
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We all are aware of his running feud;
He's occasionally noted for punning too;
But now we see maverick
Penning a limerick!
What is this world of ours coming to?
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stick around, Ken - I have done one for several members of the board so far... [evil grin]
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Conseulo been to the shopping mall
going to shop, and to the stall
her money spent
with purchases, her arms are bent
Ah, shopping! a passtime i recall
Long hours i've spent in my car
Going interstate to work, it's too far
my money spent,
but my arms are unbent,
it all goes to gas and tolls and work on my car.
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A well tort young lawyer called Keiva,
Though just as sharp-tongued as a beaver,
Would score at a rhyme
Rather poorer than crime,
So a maverick’s advice is "just leave 'er!"
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TEd
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"Now, Walt," said June, "don't you think you're being too ..."
Nah. Too easy.
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"Now, Walt," said June...
Walt? Who is this Walt character and what is he doing with Ward's wife? Surely she hasn't been doing any funny stuff with her older son, Wally???
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Edited version:
"Now, Ward," said June, "don't you think you're being too ..."
Nothing is ever too-easy here. [embarassed emoticon]
Faldage, do you now feel suitably re-Ward-ed?
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Check The Beaver Papers : The Story of the Lost Season, a collection of scripts by such famous people as Ingmar Bergman (Cries and Beavers), D. H. Lawrence (Lady Cleaver's Beaver) and Franz Kafka (Beavermorphosis).
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Triolet to Maverick, our Ace of Tarts
[background music: flourish of strumpets]
[cross-thread: va-va-vroom]
Your mind is appealing;
You gave me a mauling.
But don't be revealing
What merits concealing.
Sweet-tart, I've the feeling
That tart's not your calling.
When you're a-peeling,
Are you appalling?
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veteran
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BRAVISSIMI Ken, Mav, TEd & Faldage. If youse guys all get together at the Wordapalooza, it will rival the Marx Brothers.
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Thanks, byb -- but oh, the pressure! Performance-anxiety is already setting in.
Aha! Here's the solution: I call dibs on the role of Harpo!
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Keiva just took us "full circle"...  ...anxious about what???
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