War. War never changes.
I supposed it depends on your perspective. Are you willing to die by your own hand on your own terms instantly and pretty much painlessly, or are you willing to die while risking being burned alive, shot and in pain first with all of the psychological fear and anxiety of flying a rickety plane with minimal training into the teeth of an enemy bent on killing you and stopping you from fulfilling your mission? Or would it be better to walk into a mall and press a button and just be gone instantly?
And this leaves aside the difference between walking into a mall or a mosque or a crowded market and blowing up a bunch of random civilian men, women and children or trying to desperately stop the sailors and soldiers who are trying to destroy your country.
So then the crew of the Enola Gay (or any bomber crew for that matter) are cowards?
Velocity provided the response I would have. I do not see the point of your criticism of kamikazes.
psik
And I gave him my rebuttal to that. I’m not sure what part of that you didn’t get. Seems simple enough to me. Leaving aside the suicide bombers who are being coerced into doing what they do, your run of the mill suicide bomber type basically is walking into a civilian area and pressing a button…boom, they are dead. There is essentially no risk to them at all in terms of physical pain or discomfort…the bomb kills them before their brains can catch up to current events. The kamikaze, on the other hand had myriad things to worry about. The fear of being under trained and trying to fly an air craft they were only barely able to. Would they crash on take off? Might they survive the crash only to be burned to death? Once they got it in the air, would they actually be able to get to the target? Might they be shot up before they got there? Perhaps shot AND burned before they die? Maybe shot, burned and don’t even fulfill the mission? Maybe crash in the ocean, survive and be eaten by sharks? Perhaps be burned, shot AND survive a crash in the ocean only to be eaten by sharks?
Like I said, it’s the risk aspect that, IMHO, distinguishes the suicide bomber (the non-coerced suicide bomber) from someone like a kamikaze pilot. Death is a feather, duty a mountain and all that…but how you get to the death and the amount of risk piled on in getting to your target makes the difference, IMHO anyway. YMMV, but personally I think it takes a higher level of bravery to go after targets that fight back and might injure or hurt you BEFORE you die than to go after targets that are just haggling over the price of melons before you blow yourself and them up.
All this only makes sense if you assume that people fear pain more than they fear death. But in fact fear of death is pretty basic, and pretty instinctive, whereas lots of people have shown a willingness to risk pain, and often to risk *certain[/] pain, in pursuit of an objective that they consider worthwhile. Many of the fears that you (rightly, I think) ascribe to kamikaze pilots could equally be ascribed to many soldiers in many conflicts, going into battle in unfavourable conditions. But we regard kamikaze missions with particular horror precisely because they are suicidal. And the same is true of suicide bombers.
I think it’s a classic version of attacking people on their “strengths” - if you could call this one of those.
I think for a very long time people looked at suicide as something brave - so by constant;y calling it cowardice - they attempt to equate suicide with cowardice.
To me I see it as backfiring. People that are willing to do such a thing probably don’t see it that way - and calling it cowardice probably only strengthens their belief in that it further cements their mind in thinking the other side is the ones that are crazy.
I don’t get the point. Would Americans ever admit anything a terrorist does as being brave? How about people just don’t kill people whether it is brave or cowardly?
I certainly don’t see someone sitting in a shed in Nevada using a drone as particularly brave, but then again he or she probably doesn’t have much of a choice in where they serve and could easily be fighting on the front lines as well. So although sitting in a chair piloting a drone isn’t particularly brave - willing to serve ones country IMHO is.
Well Bill, if they Islamic in some way, then I wouldn’t* really *call that statement true. However committing suicide, chiefly Christians, Jews, and any other cults that are anti-suicidal, would take a lot of guts just to break the forbidden. Still, there is some cowardice in it, despite my proclamation, above all cults (religions) excluding the pro-suicidal cults, would be consider cowardice for some extent. For example: Some persons would commit such an act because undertaking there depressions, anger, and whatever they compassed do-wrong instead of facing their whatever.
So all in all it really counts on what perspective you taking on.
[Gotta point out that Islam condemns suicide in strong terms.]