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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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Carpal Tunnel
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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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Carpal Tunnel
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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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Carpal Tunnel
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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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