Who's The Coward?

On being fearful but calling others cowards

by Imran Anwar

---

Habshi wrote:
>> Talk big and run at the first chance seems to be the motto .

LEE J. BROCK in response wrote On Fri, 28 Sep 2001 6:04:02:
> Got that right. We Americans appear to be wussies, don't we. Once again,
> thank goodness most of the people in this newsgroup are not representative
> of the majority.

There have been liberal uses of the word "cowards" applied to the terrorists and to Afghans who are leaving their cities.

The counterpoint has led many people to either take affront, or for people like Bill Maher to get into trouble with the White House. At least four US journalists have been fired for asking the same question. (So much for freedom of press and speech). Bill Maher had pointed out (on Politically Incorrect) that the US was the coward for pressing a button and firing missiles from 2000 miles away. But we need to understand this silly debate over the word 'coward'.

Actually, I would like to come to the defence of the ordinary American people. They are reasonable, fair and just people (who just do not know what their own government does with their money and in their name....now we paid the price for it in our own backyard.

One, our calling the hijackers cowards does not make anyone jump up and say, "Hey, I am not a coward, let's take this outside." It just makes the media and the government help people here feel better.

Two, what a shame that we have several journalists FIRED from their jobs and Bill Maher's show Politically Incorrect being warned by the WHITE HOUSE to "watch what they say" is scary to me, because I thought in America we DO have
the right to say what we want and have opinions counter to any government or public sentiment, without getting fired or killed.

Three, yes, in America we have a track record of "running." 24 marines killed in a bombing in Beirut, we pulled out, one pilot shot down and killed in Somalia, we came home, etc. And we only fought countries FAR away and MUCH smaller than us....to fight the Russians we used Pakistan AND Afghanistan.

Thank God the USSR collapsed under its own ugly weight, I am not sure how we would have handled a real attack by them on Europe or other places.

Four, the Afghanis do not "run away" like cowards. Thinking that would be a fatal mistake. They even let the Soviets take over Afghanistan in about 8 HOURS.....it just took the drunk Russkies TEN YEARS to get their beaten butts out of there.

Five, cowards? As someone who is a Muslim AND American who believes in this country's PEOPLE and INSTITUTIONS (but not its governments' evil policies abroad ) I put my money into the stock market first thing MONDAY morning when the market opened....seems like native born Americans were busy pulling out.

Six, the Afghans are right there waiting to prove they can beat any superpower. They beat the Brits (yeah, they were a "superpower" once, not just a US lapdog as now) THREE times, the Russians, more recently, the one time they attacked. The Afghan rulers may be wrong, ignorant, uneducated but they are not cowards....I know so, because their tribal culture is more than even the British empire or even military governments in Pakistan could take on - because they are fiercely brave, loyal, simple-minded people.

Seven, it is we Americans who have stopped flying out of fear, now the buses were shut down because of one jerk causing an accident in TN. Even simpler, soon after the Sept 11 attacks, in midtown a car backfired, and you had to see the white expressions on people's faces. Are they all cowards?

No. It is natural to want to avoid a situation where you WILL be killed, whether you are a holy warrior, a mother of four, a US marine or a 6' 4" tattooed gun-toting redneck.

So, let us try to find the perps, without causing a World War to erupt, and let us see what the Israeli government does with our money and weapons so that the root cause can also be removed. Otherwise, without justice there is no peace, and without peace there is always fear.....We just tragically learnt that our GOVERNMENT's policies can get us killed living in the US.

God Bless the American people for taking this opportunity to make their government do what their ideals teach us....justice and liberty for ALL.

Kind regards

Imran Anwar

http://www.imran.com for opinions on what happened and why and what's next.