You are so right.
I think people are being so glib and disingenuous when they claim our Moslem enemies are “cowards”. Like hell! I wish they were.
As for the Booth example, or snipers (sharpshooters), or the typical MO of Moslems, it is SMART to “hide” and sneak up. Otherwise, the cause is likely lost.
I wonder if this has stuck in our minds with the British view (often) that American rebels were cowardly for “hiding behind trees” around the RevWar. Are they cowards for trying this? No, smart. They also got more into trench warfare, which was EXTENSIVELY used in the so-called Civil War. Cowardly? Or smart? (And BTW, no, not nearly most of the rebel fighting under Washington was “hiding” - most was typical of the day, mass front volleys/charges. Not stupid, just adapting to the technology of the day.)
Thank. I have found in general that this is not a popular position. Lots of people like to think suicide bombers are cowards because they don’t stand up to and fight their enemies “man to man.”
As you point out, this is just untrue. ISIS is, more or less, attempting to do that now. Whenever we get sufficiently tired of them, they will find out why it does not work.
Which is not to say that certain tactics used by terrorists aren’t cowardly. I would put using women and children as shields at the head of that particular list.
Terrorists of course can be and probably often are cowards. My point is just that terrorists are not necessarily and always cowards. As you say, they’d be much easier to defeat if they were.