re: Why do we call terrorists cowards?

I'm going to try just one more:

A LIAR is someone who lies. Probably even a LOT. But, he doesn't lie every time he opens his mouth. That I can identify times when the dude is truthful. Hell, suppose I can demonstrate that he is truthful 65% of the time. Does THAT remove the "Liar" tag? Does that make the tag erroneous? No. Dude is a LIAR



Now. Just because I can show some "non-cowardly" aspects of these goat-arse-frickers...that does NOT render moot the point that I can show demonstrable, important methods that are COWARDLY. Thus, if a liar is a liar when he sometimes isn't lying...so, a coward is a coward even when he is not acting cowardly

We should call them criminals because thats what they are.

quote:

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Why do we call terrorists cowards?

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Because instead of being man enough to actually fight the people they think are oppressing them, they make sneak attacks against the weak and innocent. Then, instead of facing the consequences of their actions, they either die in the attack on purpose (suicide, the coward's way out), or return to their villages to use the women and children there as human shields, hiding behind them like the cowards they are.

I agree that calling terrorists "cowards" is stupid. It is invalid by definition. You wouldn't say that Japanese Kamikazees were "cowards".

My grandpa, who died last year, was a WWII Marine. He had an issue with Kamikazees.

I remember the first time I watched the movie Independence Day. Near the end when the alcoholic cropduster dude uses his plane as a weapon (because he has no other) to fly up the arse of the enemy ship to destroy it. One of my first thoughts was of the Kamikazee.

I don't know if it was intentional or not, but there are some marked parallels between that movie and the plight of the Japanese in 1944/1945. (And I don't know that others have noticed it, though I'm sure that people in Japan have). We were that unstoppable force descending on their homeland. That they had started the war is notwithstanding. What that dude did in the movie was the right thing to do. Few if any who see it think, "Well that was suicide. He shouldn't have done it." He commits suicide to save humanity. I can totally dig what the Kamikazee did. Right or wrong they almost certainly believed that we were going to rape and plunder Japan to beyond recognition.

As I read his mindset, we should fear ISIS more because of what its members believe in. That makes them strong/er. Correct? Sorry. Just because they believe it's morally ok to line up children & run them over with tanks, that does not make them any stronger to me. Or to bury children alive. Or to put innocent civilians in a locked barn & burn them alive. That makes them ........ ( use your own word/s) in my opinion, but definitely not more stronger.

Because they target innocent civilians rather than confront military assets.

If that is the definition of cowardly, then just about every military force on the planet prior to the 17th century was cowardly. Until the English and French popularized "proper" war conduct, destroying civilian targets and demoralizing the opposition was just part of war.

I do think this is an interesting question that automatically gets dismissed because of the group you are talking about.

First off, I think the lot of these radical jihadi leader types are assholes and would not defend them. As many have pointed out, hiding behind/killing civilians is extremely cowardly.

Much like America though, the common foot soldier is the one caught in the middle for each sides' ideology. I absolutely think that many of the terrorists fighting are doing it for money with a side of religious duty. Now, I'm sure there are many other moving parts to that, but I noticed in Iraq the ones who planted IEDs, etc. just to put food on their table because there were no jobs. Many times those are the ones you see taking a JDAM to the forehead, but thats how desperate things were with no real jobs.

I think the claims that they're pussies because they won't fight the US head on are laughable. You're talking about a country (US) that spends more on defense spending than most countries GDP...I think it is pretty smart not to take that on. We also use drones and ride in up armored vehicles, wear body armor, etc. I think many of our service members are extremely brave and am just making a comparison...not denigrating our service members.

Military speaking, objectives are different. We call them cowards for their brutality and the fact they won't fight us head on. They drag innocents into it unnecessary and wage war in a manner where we think they're cowards. Truth is, they know a straight head on fight we would crush them like a beer can so they rely on the absence of a conscience and psychological warfare to reach their objectives and weaken our resolve. Religion is their backbone and that shouldn't surprise us. Religion has been hand-stamped on countless wars in the histories of the world but it surprised us nevertheless because most religions in America are Christian based thus instilling us with a strong sense of morality that views their actions as barbaric and cowardly. They know what they're doing.

When they bomb a market, plant an IED, kidnap and kill, it seems senseless but there is usually an objective behind it whether it may be a show of power, a target from the west, or an ally to the west. It could be simply to punish....But it's usually never senseless to them. The sooner we can understand that reasoning, the better off we will be. That's why I commend George Bush for not wavering during the Middle east stuff. He understood this, nevermind that his administration did bungle up the process pretty badly. And people like Cindy Sheehan can go die in a fire. To leave them alone and thinking the world is gonna be fluffy bunnies is a huge mistake. Time will tell.