The tail is only temporarily missing. Soon, the tailies will appear, from a different part of the island.
Count me as someone who considers brave anybody who kills himself for a cause, whether he’s a jihadist, a kamikaze pilot, or an airline passenger who decides that a farmfield in PA is better than the Capitol Building. “Nutty” may enter into it. “But I don’t agree with his cause,” may, too–it certainly does with the 9/11 conspirators. But damn, if it don’t take guts! And by denying that the 9/11 jihadists and Iraqi insurgents were brave we belittle them, and their supporters, as people, which reduces our ability to talk to them as people. People who are talking usually aren’t shooting.
While the conspiracy theory I don’t like is rare, as soon as I heard that 800 was flying with a nearly empty tank that had antique wiring running through it I knew what had happened. It was a flying bomb.
I very much agree with this. Dismissing actions as ‘cowardice’ is evasive, refusing to enter a discussion about why people do such things.
Tell me that’s not a coincidence…
:dubious:
Excuse me? Where is the bravery in hijacking a plane with no warning? Sorry, nothing brave about that at all.
Not at all actually. I am happy to enter into a discussion as to why people do what they do. However, to suggest that it is brave to hijack a plane of non-combatants and then crash said plane is intellectually untenable.
It is not brave to force your views, religious or otherwise, on someone via a hijacking. It is, by it’s very nature, the coward’s way out because you lack the courage of your convictions to either convince people through non-violent means or via attacks on combatants.
I was going to mention this book. The guy who is the subject of the chapter figured out where everyone on the plane had been sitting, and then analyzed the wounds on their corpses. Based on the location, type, and severity of their wounds, combined with data on the damage to the plane, he was able to figure out what likely happened. IIRC he ruled out a missile attack and concluded there was an explosion in the fuel tank. This is also what the NTSB concluded.
Actually, though this is the wrong place to say it, being neither the Pit nor GD, that is not true and is part of the demonizing propaganda that is standing in the way of proper discussions of the issues and that is, instead, hardening the positions of both sides and making resolution impossible. They lack the courage of their convictions because they didn’t become politicians or conventional soldiers? No, they are just people who took a different way to express their convictions, one you cannot accept. Yes, it would be better if they had learned to express their views verbally. Yes, it would be nice if non-combatants could be kept off the casualty lists, be they in New York, Bagdhad, or Hiroshima. But as long as both sides dehumanize the other and refuse to see that the other side has reasons for its actions discussion cannot take place and they are left with the only option: wiping out the other side, soldiers and civilians, to protect themselves. We don’t want jihadists taking that path and, I hope, we don’t want to take it, either.
You’re missing the point. It’s not about their point of view but exactly about their method of expressing their point of view. Quite frankly, it’s concerning when you equate hijacking and crashing a plane full of innocents with merely expressing ones point of view.
And one that the hundreds of innocent people who were murdered on board that plane had no choice but to accept. There are plenty of ways to express your convictions that don’t involve murder. Your effort to somehow tie in a hijacking with Hiroshima is the worst kind of intellectually justification.
Demonizing terrorists does not automatically mean that their point of view has been ignored. What it does mean, however, is that there are certain forms of “expressions” which will and should not be tolerated.
There is some bravery in the hijacking but where push came to shove was when they, both the passengers and the hijackers, proved themselves willing to die in order to stop the others. Like it or not, when someone is willing to die for his beliefs, I believe we should respect him for it, and I can respect his bravery without respecting his action. I guess you can’t. We differ like that.
The danger with respecting his bravery is that it can leak into respecting their actions. Given your other comments on this thread I can see that it is a very real danger for you.
And I am very, very glad that you and I differ on this issue.
I’m not belittling them as people; they did that all on their own. Think of the incalculable damage they did to all the nonviolent Muslims, worldwide. It doesn’t take courage to be a mass murderer. They gave up on rational debate and chose to further their ends via death and destruction. I lost two friends on 9/11, and it didn’t take any kind of bravery to snuff out the lives of those two women. The terrorists had a choice; my friends didn’t.
We have now moved from a General Question, which I think has been answered, to a Great Debate about what is bravery. Take it to Great Debates if you wish. Closed.
samclem GQ moderator
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=155114&highlight=twa+flight+800 A previous thread.
I’ll add more as I find them.