Isn’t this a little like calling Gen. Patton a coward for not putting himself on the front lines?
Gabriel.
I don’t think it is accurate to call bin Laden a coward, afteral he has been living for almost a decade on the run from the US and living in caves. He believes in something and has taken extrordinary risks to realize his vision, whether you believe in his vision or not.
Contemporary accounts seem to indicate he did actually fight the Soviets in Afghanistan in the sense of picking up a rifle and shooting at them.
I certainly condemn terrorists (having been a few hundred feet away from an IRA bomb when it exploded in London), but I don’t think that making clumsy insults is helpful in understanding and dealing with these people.
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Major Hasan was despicable, but there’s no reason to call him a coward. He knew he was going to be shot eventually.
Similarly the evil 9/11 bombers were prepared to die for their beliefs. -
The USA has bombed many countries, killing civilians as well as military in the process.
The reasons for use of atomic weapons at the end of WW2 has been discussed many times, but it is not correct for you to say ‘our culture doesn’t think that way’.
And of course people object ‘if by accident some innocent people are killed in a war’.
This happens regularly even to US soldiers and allies:
- [A U.S. F4 Phantom aircraft dropped a 500 lb. bomb on the command post of the 2nd Battalion (Airborne) 503d Infantry, 173d Airborne Brigade while they were in heavy contact with a numerically superior NVA force on 19th of November 1967, at 1858 hours. At least 45 paratroopers were killed and another 45 wounded
- American A-10 during Operation Desert Storm attacks British armoured personnel carriers killing nine British soldiers.
- During the Battle of Khafji, 11 American Marines are killed in two major incidents when their light armored vehicles (LAV’s) are hit by American missiles fired by a USAF A-10
- In the Black Hawk Incident, two U.S. Air Force F-15Cs involved with Operation Provide Comfort shot down two U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawks over northern Iraq, killing 29 military and civilian personnel
- In the Tarnak Farm incident of April 18, 2002, four Canadian soldiers were killed and eight others injured when U.S. Air National Guard Major Harry Schmidt, dropped a laser-guided 227-kilogram (500 lb) bomb from his F-16 jet fighter on the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry conducting a night firing exercise near Kandahar
- American aircraft attacked a friendly Kurdish & U.S. Special Forces convoy, killing 15. BBC translator Kamaran Abdurazaq Muhamed was killed and BBC reporter Tom Giles and World Affairs Editor John Simpson were injured](Friendly fire - Wikipedia)
And to innocent civilians:
Ben Laden is fighting the most powerful country in the world ,with a small army, much weaker weapons . Yet he makes tapes thumbing his nose at us. That is not cowardly. He knows he can not defeat us, just outlast us. Then he will be a hero.
Osama bin Laden is probably dead already.
Seems like every time someone says that, another video pops up. When was the latest one, January?
I doubt he’s dead, for the simple reason that he’d be worth much more as a martyr than as a beardy guy decrying America and financing bomb plots. All they’d have to say is that he was assassinated by a Pakistani secularist in Waziristan, and that way they incite anger against non-Islamist forces in Pakistan and turn him into a martyr and make sure the US is seen to have failed, all at once.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/06/03/world/main5058482.shtml
Looks like May or June.
I haven’t had the internet for a few years, but when I did, it seemed like his tapes were very vague which made me think that he was dead and the tapes were made much earlier and then released when they seemed to fit the current situation best. However, with this one referencing Obama, which would have been pretty hard to predict in the early 2000’s, that idea is out the window. Until this, I would’ve guessed he died within a couple of years after 9/11.
Since Bin Laden is not the head of a government and hides, he is sure acting like a coward. If a person has some one else do their dirty work and hides because he doesn’t want people to know where he is, that is a cowardly act. To send someone else to kill a bunch of innocent people is the act of a coward. You can honor such actions but I do not!!
I am mainly referring to the Muslim women that have no choice. If they choose to wear Burkas and let their husbands keep them from expressing them selves that is their right, but the ones who are killed or beaten is a different story. In some instances such as the Taliban,etc. women have little rights and need to have a male escort to even go out. It doesn’t speak well of Muslim men who are afraid to trust their wives with out them, or to let another man see them. The one’s in the USA and some other countries can have some freedom, but the radicals in other countries,like Iraq, Packistan , and Afghanistan are pushing to have only their way accepted. That is what I am referring to, not the moderate Muslims who are for peace. Some in other countries are held back by fear.
A Christian in Iraq is not allowed by the radicals to even attend their services, there are many who were lucky enough to get to the USA and some of the more Moderate Muslim countries. Many in California fear the need to return to Iraq because there are no jobs for them here in the USA. At least that is what some of them were saying in a TV show I watched on Sunday.
You could give the same excuse to Hitler, he believed he was doing right for Germany and it’s people, tha tsure turned out good didn’t it?
No, he thumbs his nose at us on film, keeping himself out of harms way. And letting some poor snook do his dirty work.
It feels better to call Osama bin Laden a coward and a phony, but the story of his life is one of a man who has walked the walk. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi he ain’t.
:rolleyes: Engage your brain for a second here. Nobody is “honoring” bin Laden.
Soldiers wear camouflage during combat, and hide from the enemy. Does that make them cowards?
Bin Laden may not be doing any fighting himself at the moment, but neither does a military general - and bin Laden did plenty of fighting himself during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Is he a sick bastard? Absolutely. Do I hope he suffers? Certainly. Is he a coward? Not under any reasonable definition.
Reminiscent of a line heard many years ago…
“When you get to Viet Nam, you will meet some of the bravest, most determined, most resourceful people you are ever likely to meet. And you will be there to kill them.”
“The man in the black pajamas, Dude. Worthy fuckin’ adversary.” -Walter Sobchak.
Why this fascination with cowardice? Why is it so important to some to label these people as ‘cowards’? I don’t see what it matters or how it is relevant, not to mention you have to re-define the word with a pneumatic drill and a sledgehammer to make it fit. I’m sorry, but Osama has huge balls. Instead of living a life of luxury he has devoted himself to his ideals and has willingly become the most hunted man on the planet. Those ideals happen to be irrational and evil, but that doesn’t come into the equation as far as bravery goes.
The complaint is that he is hiding, and that he has people carry out his orders. Let’s take the second part first. Is any leader who doesn’t carry out his own work a coward? Sorry but that is just stupid and an unsustainable position.
Does hiding make you a coward? Anyone fighting a superior enemy does best in using guerilla tactics, and that’s just a pretty way of saying hide. Barack Obama isn’t out in the Pakistan mountains hunting Osama with a knife, does that make him a coward?
Just because you’re an evil, disgusting person with despicable ideas doesn’t make you a coward. Let’s not try to fit every negative lable in the dictionary on him, just stick with the ones that are true, they are enough.
I’m not sure what point you are trying to make. I am not talking about whether bin Laden’s goals or methodologies are “good.” I’m responding to the idea that he is a coward. He most demonstrably is not a coward. He has taken real risks to his safety to follow his beliefs, that is not cowardice.