Big difference in targeting a military facility and murdering 5000 men,women and children in cold blood.
I didn't see the show, but I've seen it many times and the guy (Maher) is not stupid. "We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away,'' he said. "That's cowardly.'' Maher contrasted the U.S. military actions to those taken by attackers who flew hijacked commercial airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last week. President Bush has called the attacks "cowardly acts''. What he should've said is that they were just as smart as we are, but didn't have the same technical resources. Lob several thousand pounds of HE or jet fuel at a large, densely populated target, and lotsa people are gonna die. The only real difference is that the stuff we throw doesn't have suicide pilots, because we can put computers in them instead. That's just smart, since most people don't want to die. The principle is the same, though. Sounds like he shoulda made a distinction, for correctness' sake...
treeman, It's very simple, he called our actions cowardly and terrorists' brave. Our armed forces fought a ground war only 10 years ago...when we needed to. Although the cruise missile strike he refers to was horribly counter-effective (since they hit the wrong targets), I see nothing the matter with preserving the lives of our military for a few million dollars (assuming we hit MILITARY targets). That is NOT cowardly. Maher may not be dumb, but he certainly was stupid. Before he opened his mouth, he should have considered what the men and women in uniform have done to make certain he has the right to spew faux paus, and realized that we should do whatever we can to protect THEM. Discussing how 'brave' the terrorists were makes me sick. If you believe you will be rewarded in the afterlife, then dying in a flash is no big deal (and taking a bunch of innocents with you is heinous). Put these guys up against some Seals with box cutters and lets see how brave they are.
The other horrible aspect of this is that he said it with Barbara Olsen's empty chair sitting there. She was on her way to be on his show.
Maher is an idiot. The formula for his show is get 3 liberals and 1 conservative on a "panel", make fun of the conservative, and call it "Politically Incorrect". If the guy disagrees with you, he makes fun of you. What a schmuck.
Yeah, I know. The guys who took down the flight in PA, no big deal. They knew they were gonna die in a flash, save some lives, get rewarded. No biggie.
After the airplane incident in China earlier this year Maher was on the Tonight Show. He was making fun of the Chinese pilot and of Orientals in general (sterotyping their names/accents). The audience did not find it funny and a number of them were booing him.
If you take out the idea of innocents, what he was saying makes sense -- even though it should never have been said. Essentially, what he tried to say was that these terrorists were willing to risk their lives (or in this case, definitely lose their lives) for a cause they believed in, while Americans were not willing to do that [in the past]. As a result, the terrorists were able to accomplish their goals while we did not in most of our cruise missile attacks. That's all he was saying -- not that the terrorists were heroes or good or smart or anything. Just that they were willing to "do what had to be done" to accomplish what they believed in. Yes, what they believed in was stupid. And yes, targetting innocents was moronic. But if you look at "courage of conviction" instead of "honorable courage", you can see his point. All of that said, I agree that Bill Maher is an arrogant, annoying snot.
Terrorism is a weapon of the weak. Cruise missiles are a weapon of the strong. I actually don't oppose terrorism against military targets, ethically speaking... although it makes me squeamish. At that point, I think it's "guerilla warfare." The problem with the attack was it's indiscrimance. The people who committed it were intelligent and brave. They were also religious fanatics. I don't see a problem with Maher's comments.
Hey, haven, we halfway agree on something. There is no doubt in my mind that those terrorist warriors were brave to do what they did. They were also immoral which is why people want to call them cowards. However, I don't agree with Maher's contrasting their bravery with what he observes as our cowardice. If there is a better way to do the job, you do it that way. We fight safely because it is an option for us. I am just shocked, though, that he said it with Barbara Olsen's empty chair facing him.
Whatever you think of the ones who flew the planes, doesn't matter.When Bush was speaking about faceless cowards he was talking about the people behind the attack.Bin Laden and people like him are the true cowards.
I think it's funny that those who normally argue against political correctness are now arguing that Maher shouldn't say these things, especially when someone who died was supposed to be sitting right there. For the record, I can't stand the show either.
<B>However, I don't agree with Maher's contrasting their bravery with what he observes as our cowardice. If there is a better way to do the job, you do it that way. We fight safely because it is an option for us. </B> I think his point (I don't agree with it) was that it wasn't an option for us -- we didn't accomplish our objective (stopping bin Laden) this way. If we had gone in and risked lives and killed him after the USS Cole, this wouldn't have happened. Thus, our "cowardice" was that we weren't willing to risk the lives needed to get him earlier, instead launching missiles that did no real damage. I think that is silly, hindsight commentary, but I think that's what he was trying to say. He's big on hindsight -- another reason why he's so annoying
Actually, I suppose we totally agree on this, although I'm sure you find it more objectionabe. I don't think cruise missiles are particularly cowardly. Instead, I consider them smart. In war, minimizing your own casualties is always smart. I don't want US Servicemen jeopardized for some idiotic machismo. I agree with Maher insofar as his refutation of the cowardice of the terrorists. I also think that cruise missiles are somewhat analogous to terrorism, just not this kind. As I said: if bin Laden blows up army targets, I think he's wrong on SUBSTANCE, but I don't agree that the form itself is wrong. If a fascist coup in the US occurred tomorrow, I wouldn't object to blowing up military targets.
Shanna, As you said, hindsight is great. We use cruise missiles exclusively on one occasion to achieve a goal, and they miss because bin laden moved the night before. If it had worked, and we had taken bin laden out without losing American lives, would he still have complained? If its cowardly, its cowardly whether it was successful or not. He implied that we should have sent poeple in, but he had already moved so that would not have helped. I still say that what the terrorists did was cowardly. They essentially attacked a bunch of unarmed civilians. You must understand that they do not see death as a big deal, but how they die could be very relevant to their decisions. They may have decided differently if they had to fight trained military. If they did that, I would admit that they were brave. But I will never know that now, and I refuse to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Generally, folks have been referring to the ACT as cowardly. Regardless of your feeling as to whether or not the murdering terrorists were cowards or not, the ACT was cowardly.
