[Austin-ghetto-list] new yorker

[James Holland]

T
Susan Sontag wrote:

And if the word "cowardly" is to be used, it might be more aptly applied to
those who kill
from beyond the range of retaliation, high in the sky, than to those willing
to die themselves in order to kill others. In the matter of courage (a
morally neutral virtue): whatever may be said of the perpetrators of
Tuesday's slaughter, they were not cowards.


Obviously the word "cowardly" is immediately false with respect to the
suicide bombers.  "Cowardly" has come to modify "attack" by reflex, and
several commentators noted that from the beginning.  Whether the bombers had
the guts to ask themselves at any point whether they were doing the right
thing, however,  is a question Susan Sontag chooses not to address.  There
are people who are physical but not moral cowards, and vice versa.

But it's when she, and of course Maher, start primly making comparisons with
the overflights in Iraq that the remarks become totally ridiculous.  It's
another example of a presumably rigorous series of statements which really
beg the question.  She's saying that we have no business flying over Iraq at
all, because if we do have that right then we can obviously retaliate
against anti-aircraft missile sites (that's the "ongoing bombing") that
shoot at the planes.  In a military context to use the word "cowardly" in
this way is stupid.  I realize that quoting General Patton here is not
likely to warm the hearts of everyone, but where this is concerned he summed
it up: "your job is not to die for your country, your job is to make the
other son of a bitch die for his country."  Sontag and Maher seem to think
that it isn't sporting for the U.S. planes to fly so far up.  Just not fair.
They ought to at least fly within missile range.