Tuesday, March 20, 2007

"Special Delivery!"

I used to think that suicide bombers were gutsy. It would take a lot of guts to strap a bomb to your chest and blow yourself up. I can't even bring myself to put broccoli in my mouth because I think it tastes bad. Recently however, I've changed my mind.

It seems to me that being a suicide bomber is actually very cowardly. See, when a person kills another, they have to live with the guilt that comes from taking another life. They have to live with all the moral, religious, and criminal consequences of that action. They have to live knowing that they can make no restitution for their crime. They may see grieving families and friends. On the other hand, a suicide bomber conveniently gets out from under all of that. By killing themselves at the same time as their victims, they dodge the need to face the consequences of their own actions. I'm no hero - to quote Maverick, "He who fights and runs away, lives to run away another day", but even to me, killing yourself is the coward's way out. The same thing applies to murder-suicides and people who count on the police killing them (like the Trolley Square shooter). Wusses and cowards all.

1 comment:

Allen said...

I agree with your conclusion that suicide bombers are cowards. They lack the morals like courage that other suicide warfare of say, the Kamikaze pilots of WWII. Those pilots only targeted military targets to try to take out as many enemies as possible. A suicide bomber targets military unit and innocent women and children with no discrimination of either. If the end action of a suicide bomber is to, lets say, hurt an invading army, then that is a reasonable action. However the end does not justify the means. Attacking the invading army is good, if it doesn’t unmusically harm innocent bystanders unrelated to the conflict. This is where the Kamikaze and suicide bombers differ. Both had the same end intended, but the mean chosen, and the end achieved very greatly. Acting in a couragasly moral way requires more than just killing one’s self for a cause. The cause has to be just. The means chosen must be reasonable. And the end result must be morally responsible. Otherwise “the end does not justify the means.”