Wow, the 'coward' word comes out a lot these days with the terrorists.
I recall John Stewart remarking on his show once (I believe arguing a Republican policy-maker?) about this term. Stewart claimed (so shoot him if you don't like it, not me) that it takes a lot more 'courage' to suicide fly a plane into an office-building than to fly an F-15 and drop a bomb on a wedding cerimony from beyond visual range (or nearly).
I think terrorist actions are reprehensible and wrong. Any taking of life by anyone not in self-defense is wrong. Killing for political/economic/cultural objectives is wrong. However, emotionally ascribing names to 'our enemies', like 'coward', seems to be injecting a lot of partisanship into the equation.
It kind of reminds me of Bugs and Daffy killing 'Japs' in the 1940's, with their huge buck teeth, intensely slanted eyes, and such. We create an image of this enemy as being exactly what we want them to be (in this case, cowardly).
Are the terrorists evil people? Probably definitely. Are they 'cowards'? I guess that's an emotional judgement call each of us makes for ourselves. It sounds like rhetoric to me (hopefully that doesn't mean I love them, but I'm sure I'll get roasted as such).
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