I am sure there is some good reason that politicians and public figures uniformly refer to acts of terrorism as “cowardly”, but I don’t understand it. It doesn’t seem like the right word. I would say “horrific”, “terrible”, “dastardly”, “evil”, whatever. But “cowardly”? It seems like it must be in a “Politicians Handbook” somewhere.
“If people are killed through terrorism, if a bomb explodes, we have found that the most effective word to describe such a horror is ‘cowardly’.”
Do they think that calling the terrorists the name “cowardly” will insult them? Like: “Ooooh, you’re think you’re such a big brave terrorist, but y’know what? You’re just a coward.”
Driving a car into a building and blowing yourself up is a lot of things, I would call it a lot of things, but I would not call it cowardly.
