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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (37630)	11/20/2001 8:48:31 AM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

You're confusing indecency with cowardice. This seems to be the reason you cannot see the obvious. Indecent acts are not necessarily cowardly. There needs to be fear in the face of danger. In the first place, taking advantage of the helpless is not generally a dangerous activity: at least, not directly so. Cowardice requires (at the least)fear in the face of danger. If these are not present there can be no cowardice. Again, OBL has chosen a lifestyle which places him at risk from all sides, including those near him. He has survived about adozen assassination attempts, yert continues to confront death. Nothing could be more obvious than that he is NOT afraid of death. By focusing on a cowardice which is not there, you detract from the despicabilty of his contemptible acts. Cowardice is not evil. It is weakness. Focus on what the man is: a cold-blooded murderer, and heartless fanatic.

To: Neocon who wrote (37630)	11/20/2001 8:53:38 AM
From: thames_sider	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

But a lack of compassion and respect for others are terrorist attributes, possibly even advantages. Attacks on less-defended targets - in what they avowedly see as a war, remember - make military sense: and, also, produce more outrage and publicity because we find them even more abhorrent. What we see as cowardice - because they do not attack strong targets, openly, announced, in uniform - they see as practical military effectiveness. Anything else would be suicidal stupidity, and not help their cause. It just isn't how guerilla armies work. They might claim we are cowards for not sending in ground troops to Afghanistan to fight them, man-for-man: instead we bomb them from a distance. Military effectiveness. They are virtually as defenceless against our attacks, as we against theirs. Or do you disagree with that? They're our enemies. They are murderous scum who attack our least-defended sites, areas which we could never have conceived as 'military targets'; they aim to maximise our grief, our horror - and hopefully sap our will to respond. It doesn't help us to see them as something they aren't - be it fools, cowards or bullies. If we label something incorrectly, we're likely to act against our (caricatured, stereotyped) prediction of how something with such a label would respond... One who shows ignoble fear in the face of danger or pain. I maintain that people living a poor existence, gone to a hostile land to train in destructive techniques, and ready, even eager to die for a holy cause worth more to them than their miserable lives are not best defined as cowards.

To: Neocon who wrote (37630)	11/20/2001 10:35:37 AM
From: Jorj X Mckie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Neo, I just used a similar example. Thanks, JXM

To: Neocon who wrote (37630)	11/20/2001 10:52:27 AM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

It is an article of faith with them that we are decadent; Clinton responded so ineffectually to terrorism in his terms that they grew complacent; I think that is the crux of it. They did so many things over his eight years -- the African embassies and the Cole are only two of the larger ones -- and he threatened them, but nothing ever came of it, that they began to think that America was, indeed, a paper tiger. But Bush, thank goodness, is not Clinton. He, and the vast numbers of Americans who support his response, showed the terrorists just how paper our tiger is.