Why is it that when politicians have bombs explode in their country and the group who did it immediately claims responsibility they always say it was cowardly? What the hell does that mean? Would they have prefered 50 simultaneous stabbings-to-death?
And what's cowardly about that? it's not like they bombed people and then hid in a hole. They claimed it. It's rather like claiming a fart versus blaming it on the dog.
And while I'm on the subject, why is it cowardly when a terrorist group (or freedom fighters, if you wish) bomb somehting, but when the army does it it's heroic and patriotic?
It's not that I don't actually know the answers to these questions, but can't people disagree and even war without hypocricy?
The Army, usually, at least *tries* not to bomb civilians nowadays, even if that doesn't always quite work. Evil Terrorists, on the other hand, deliberately plant their bombs at supermarkets, cafes, railway stations, etc., in other words they go specifically for bombing civilians and they don't even *try* to get the police or the military.
That's a big enough distinguishing characteristic for me to call them cowards. Sure, it takes personal courage to get into a plastique vest and set it off (much less just to set bombs, though), but on the slightly larger scale, it's cowardly to go after my grandmother instead of a military checkpoint.
hmm . . . maybe. on the other hand, one might just call it more strategically sound. An army garrison is set up to handle this sort of thing, it's largely bomb resistant, and if we lose a few it's not that big a panic. if we lose ten grandmothers on a bys in south florida, that's a big deal. it hits us hard. We can lose soliders, but you never know who you'll get in a random bombing. it's like the terrorist lottery.
Yes, and that's the whole point. Over the years, there have been wars that were between two or more armies without affecting the local population (aside from the actual battlefields, and the Brave Young Men that didn't come home) very much (worst example there is WWI -- two miles outside the trenches was regular french countryside, farmers and all), and Total Wars where the general population was also targeted -- The Thirty Year War, the Eighty Year War, the Hundred Years War, WWII.. Even in those, though, the massacres of civilians were and are still regarded as atrocities. Magdeburg. Zutphen. Naarden.[1] More recently, Rotterdam. Dresden. Berlin. London. Tokyo. Hiroshima. Nagasaki.
When the troops of Count Tilly sacked Magdeburg, it killed his reputation forever. Tilly, the Butcher Of Magdeburg, as he is known, although he tried to stop the massacre. The Duke of Alva's actions in the Netherlands (Naarden: "Not a child escaped the sword", in his own report to the King of Spain) put the finishing touch on the Spanish reputation, already bad since Pizarro and Cortes.
Over the last decade or two, we are seeing a realignment of history to consider the firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo as similar atrocities (several times as many people died in Tokyo as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined). History rarely proves right the people who commit atrocities, even in a 'good' cause.
Terrorists are extortionists -- they aim to frighten us and in so doing make us give them what they want. The Palestinians at least have a clear idea of what they want -- their land back -- and a clear target -- Israel. The current crop of Al Qaida terrorists doesn't even do that, they just want us all dead. But since they can't achieve that, they'll settle for making us afraid, and thus proving to their own population that they should heed *them*, and not our culture.
[1] See the history books. That's just a few from the 17th century.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-17 08:01 pm (UTC)And what's cowardly about that? it's not like they bombed people and then hid in a hole. They claimed it. It's rather like claiming a fart versus blaming it on the dog.
And while I'm on the subject, why is it cowardly when a terrorist group (or freedom fighters, if you wish) bomb somehting, but when the army does it it's heroic and patriotic?
It's not that I don't actually know the answers to these questions, but can't people disagree and even war without hypocricy?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-17 08:36 pm (UTC)That's a big enough distinguishing characteristic for me to call them cowards. Sure, it takes personal courage to get into a plastique vest and set it off (much less just to set bombs, though), but on the slightly larger scale, it's cowardly to go after my grandmother instead of a military checkpoint.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-19 02:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-19 01:00 pm (UTC)When the troops of Count Tilly sacked Magdeburg, it killed his reputation forever. Tilly, the Butcher Of Magdeburg, as he is known, although he tried to stop the massacre. The Duke of Alva's actions in the Netherlands (Naarden: "Not a child escaped the sword", in his own report to the King of Spain) put the finishing touch on the Spanish reputation, already bad since Pizarro and Cortes.
Over the last decade or two, we are seeing a realignment of history to consider the firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo as similar atrocities (several times as many people died in Tokyo as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined). History rarely proves right the people who commit atrocities, even in a 'good' cause.
Terrorists are extortionists -- they aim to frighten us and in so doing make us give them what they want. The Palestinians at least have a clear idea of what they want -- their land back -- and a clear target -- Israel. The current crop of Al Qaida terrorists doesn't even do that, they just want us all dead. But since they can't achieve that, they'll settle for making us afraid, and thus proving to their own population that they should heed *them*, and not our culture.
[1] See the history books. That's just a few from the 17th century.