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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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Carpal Tunnel
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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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old hand
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OP
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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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Carpal Tunnel
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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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Pooh-Bah
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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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