that explains why you were trying to ask me out for a date.

It all makes sense to me now

"I don't see the difference in between the wrong and the wrong/
Soldiers emptying their clips at little kids and their moms/
Are just like a desperate mother(*)(*)(*)(*)er strapped to a bomb."

Immortal Technique? Anyone? "Revolutionary Vol. 2"? No...?

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Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under. – H.L. Mencken

I refuse to trade humanity for patriotism.

Immortal technique speaks the truth.

But I agree that cowardly shouldn't be the worst thing you can call someone. I guess I was trying to make the broader point that petty insults hurled at terrorist organisations obviates any possibility of meaningful dialogue. Lackluster, do you really think that we should wipe out anyone who wishes us ill because they are subhuman?

I think if that is the way we solve problems it would quickly degenerate into a war of all against all, and that's not what we want at all. I agree that the only valid way of voicing concerns is through diplomacy, and that terrorists are horrid people, but people nonetheless, and desperate ones at that. Just look at the progress that has been made with the IRA and their terrorism. That was done through inclusion and a commitment to negotiation.

Bingo. Completely rejecting the opposing party from negotiations is not diplomacy at all; it simply perpetuates the cycle of violence. Our goal should be the lessening of violence, not the escalation of warfare until the other side has been wiped out by attrition. Also, our focus should be at the roots of the terrorist problem: the poor villages and working towns in the Middle East that house the next-generation of suicide bombers.

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Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under. – H.L. Mencken

I refuse to trade humanity for patriotism.

Why are terrorists cowards?naw, I think it's because they have religion.

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When a true genius appears in the world, you may know them by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against them.
-Jonathan Swift

---"Thoughts On Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting."

Why would the media portray terrorists as brave? That's just... wrong?

Besides, they are deliberately targeting civilians. At least we accidentally target civilians! That's at least twice as moral.

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"It is a hard matter, my fellow citizens, to argue with the belly, since it has no ears." - Marcus Porcius Cato

“I am an extreme moderate... I believe anyone not in favor of moderation should be castrated." - Benjamin Franklin, HBO's "John Adams"

Ahh, Catonian, that's an assumption on your part. You don't know that. In fact, it is in our practice in warfare that we determine probable civilian deaths in a highly populated target area as "acceptable loss".

Terrorists are nothing but brainwashed, religious fanatics with no respect for life, including their own.

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Support Our Troops!
In God We Trust
McCain / Palin

Why do they need to be portrayed as brave or cowardly?

The issue isn't over morality. It's over "cowardice".

Frankly I'd think more poorly of someone for bad ethics than for being afraid. Why the big need to claim terrorists are "cowards"?

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"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside

Of course you wouldn't label 'em brave.

However, simply putting a label on them and not having an honest discussion about why they do what they do, bothers me.