I’ve heard the term dozens of times in the last week. What exactly is “cowardly” about what these hijackers did?
Thanks,
S
I’ve thought about the same thing. I can’t think of anything cowardly about taking your own life for what you beleive in. However, there are cowards here. Not the guys who flew the planes into the buildings, although I’m not sure if they were brave or gravely misguided. The real cowards are guys like osama bin laden who lay in hidding all the while getting others to do his bidding.
It is cowardly to attack innocent unarmed civilians, whether you yourself die in the attack or not.
It’s not at all cowardly to die for your beliefs.
It is cowardly as all hell to take several thousand other oblivious-to-what-you-are-doing people with you.
How, exactly, though?
It is cowardly to commit such a heinous crime to send the world a message, and then not admit to it or even tell the world what the point was. That is like sending an anonymous hate message crossed with a sucker-punch/run-&-hide combo. You can’t get much more cowardly than that.
If you want to make a statement, set yourself on fire in times sqaure. Blow you own fucking house up. If you want to make your cause known, then go out into Wall street and start punching all the business men and insulting America and all that, then die for your cause as you get stomped to death by a hundred PO’d New Yorkers.
Do you consider it cowardly to sucker punch someone?
So the cowardly comes from attacking innocents and not warriors or soldiers? Isn’t that a lot like “not fighting by the rules”? There is no way the people who did this could win against an army, so they are trying to find another way to wage the battle.
Put another way, wasn’t the American Revolutionary Army a bunch of cowards by not fighting the English Army the way they wanted?
The terrorists who died in these attacks weren’t exactly in a position to admit to it afterwards.
Sorry. To willingly take your own life for a cause, no matter how fucked up and evil that cause is, I just don’t see how the adjective “cowardly” applies. I can think of plenty of other adjectives for it, just not that one.
It is a cowardly act if you kill someone.because you are afraid that they might attack you back if they are alive. coward!
theretsof
I don’t think anyone is saying it wasn’t an effective way of sending a message. But “cowardly” and “effective” are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
Bingo.
Put another way, no. They were attacking an army, not civilans.
Cuz they attacked & then they hid. No one knows yet who is behind this whole thing. they are cowards for not coming out & saying who they are so we can bomb them to bits. Thus, they may be cowards but they sure arent dumb.
Dying is easy. It takes courage to live.
I dunno. Evil and insanely stupid, sure. Cowardly is just an odd word to use. Its use is certainly understandable though. It’s one of the greatest insults around. I guess it is gaining a new meaning.
Like saying a hideous waste of government money is obscene. The word “obscene” always used to refer to indecency, like being sexually offensive. Now it just means anything offensive. That’s just how language evolves, though. No point resisting the river.
A lot of people consider suicide to be the “coward’s way out” in general(ie it’s cowardly to intentionally die rather than to face your problems.) To commit such a crime, and kill yourself in the process rather than to own up to what you’ve done and the potenial consquences is cowardly.
Put yet ANOTHER way, Hell no. If you recall, the English came to the colonies to fight the Revolutionaries.
Defending yourself from attack can’t really be considered cowardly in that instance.
I think that’s it in a nutshell. Causing terror gives instant gratification to the terrorist (even a suicide bomber: he thinks he’s going to be serviced by 70 virgins or what have you). It takes more work to build than to destroy.
Because they kill innocent people.
I’ll just concur with a lot of the people in here.
It’s also considered cowardly because it’s so difficult to defend against. Something about it not being a fair fight. Japanese Kamakaze bombers during WW2 stuck terror into the hearts of the Pacific fleet.