As I write this, we still don't know who was responsible for the horrific bombing attack in Boston. Perhaps it will turn out to be the work of home grown rightwing nuts; perhaps it's the act of foreign terrorists. But, whatever the source, what strikes me is the number of times the barbaric assault is being denounced as "cowardly".
As in Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis's
warning that "This cowardly act will not be taken in stride."
Indeed, "Cowardly" is the epithet being used by political figures across the United States; it was
used by an editorial writer in
Kansas City Star and a
spokesman for the United Maryland Muslim Council in Baltimore.
"Cowardly" is the term being used in messages of support from abroad, from the Prime Minister of
India to the Prime Minister of
Italy.
After all, what could be more cowardly than for some unknown, unseen, unannounced killer to blow apart and maim innocent men women and children, without any risk to himself.
But, if that be the definition of cowardice,
what could be more cowardly, than the now cliché image of the button-down CIA officer agent driving to work in Las Vegas to assume his shift at the controls of a drone circling high over some dusty village on the other side of the world?
Comment: Given that the FBI practically has a hand in all U.S. 'terror plots', it is doubtful in the extreme that the Boston Bombings deviated from that rule:
FBI Organizes Almost All Terror Plots in the U.S.