Whether bin Laden is a coward or not is a somewhat speculative question, at the moment. We can only gauge bravery by a person's behavior at moments of high risk or trouble. Those emergency workers who ran towards the World Trade Center to help were clearly brave, for example. Although it is reasonable enough not to undertake unnecessary risk, it does not speak to the issue of bravery.
The general inclination to call terrorists cowards derives from their sneakiness in choosing sporadic targets of opportunity, their failure to identify themselves clearly as combatants, and their propensity to target defenseless civilians, particularly women and children. Admittedly, the introduction of suicide missions complicates the picture. But even suicide is often referred to as "the coward's way out", if it is embraced in lieu of dealing forthrightly with one's problems and responsibilities, so it does not obviously contradict the pattern.
The presumption is that terrorists, like bullies, will not only seek a tactical advantage, which is merely prudent, but will solely pick on easy targets, and will cut and run if credibly challenged. Whether or not the paradigm is correct, surely there is plausibility to it: what kind of person deliberately blows up a school bus, for example? Any decent person would rather put himself in harm's way, by mounting an attack on a military target, than sink so low.
There is, of course, further reason to presume the cowardice of bin Laden and his associates. They denied responsibility at first, then jeered and dared us to come after them; they hid behind the Taliban, not even, so far as anyone can tell, fighting side by side; the Taliban itself collapsed pretty easily, despite its tough talk; and bin Laden appears to have been bluffing when he foretold some massive retaliation.
So far, there is no real evidence of bravery, only the attempt to counter the charge of cowardice. Overall, I would say that there is better reason to suppose him a coward......... |
