I have issue with the whole concept of trying "enemy combatants."

This just doesn't make sense to me.

What I am referring to is the fact that we are trying combatants that are captured on the battlefield fighting against our troops. Go ahead, capture them. But try them in court?

Seriously? Did why try all the soldiers we caught during WWII? Did we put the rankers on trial for fighting against us? No we didn't. As a matter of fact, many of those (surviving) German and Italian and Japanese soldiers are free. Free to travel to and in the US even.

But the fighters we capture in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't treated the same way. Why? Probably because they are Third Worlders, muslims and brown. The whole concept of trying an enemy combatant is just ridiculous.

And don't even try throwing out the word "terrorist." That word is a quagmire if you ask me. There are so many definitions of that word it is beyond reason.

One group will say a terrorist is somebody who uses terror as a political tool (hmmm...sounds like the Bush/Cheney administration always talking about "the smoking gun coming in the form of a mushroom cloud" ). Another will claim it is a person who takes violent actions against "soft targets" (non-military). I can buy that. That makes the people who bomb buses and cafes terrorists. As well as the people who hijack airplanes. But that definition also catches our own military: we sure as hell blew up plenty of soft targets when we bombed the shit out of Baghdad. And that definition would also catch the Israeli Defense Force (who have bombed residential neighbourhoods all over Lebanon, not to mention all the refugee camps the IDF has bombed). But that definition doesn't make the people who bombed the Marine barracks in Beirut back in 1983 terrorists: that is a military target. As is the Pentagon; thats another legitimate military target during a war (and we are definitely at war). That definition wouldn't make that whack-job Army officer down at Fort Hood a terrorist. Some try to define a terrorist as a militant who does not belong to a national army. Well then, the Reagan Administration supported terrorists (ie: the Contras) back in the 80s, and one of the lead guys in that treason is a celebrated hero to the right wing nuts in American (talking about the terrorist supporter known as Col. Oliver North).

So terrorist is a bad word to try to use. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. And the same can be said of "insurgents." Hell, America's heroes in the Revolutionary War were frakking insurgents! And the British army sure as hell could have defined out troops (many of whom were NOT uniformed soldiers for a long time) as terrorists when they would hide behind trees sniping red-coat officers. That was a major violation at the time of the "rules of war."

I do not agree with the motives nor the methods of al-Qaeda or the Taliban, but I understand them. They are fighting an overwhelming force the only way they have. That was part of the point that the producers of Battlestar Galactica was making during the whole storyline revolving around New Caprica. And they have a very real fear that American and the rest of the West is EVIL. I don't think we are, but from their standpoint, that view is understandable. Just as I don't think bin-Laden is EVIL, I do think he is COMPLETELY WRONG. He is doing what he sees as necesarry to protect his faith and serve his god they (wrong-headed) way he believes.

This is part of why the whole idea of a "Global War on Terror" is both stupid and un-winnable. Not to mention the fact that for every single person we kill in this "war" we only recruit MORE "terrorists" from their surviving friends and families. Our "War on Terror" makes more "terrorists."

Now, for another way to show you the fallacy of the term terrorist, I direct you to an amazing op/ed piece I read a few years ago. (Sure, it is about a piece of fictional work, but I think it might make you think a bit). Follow the link below to a thread I just started on this board.

Oh yeah, and I'm sure you've all seen this scene from "Clerks" between Randall and Dante:


So, who were the terrorists in Star Wars, eh?