Don't Tread on Me!

Apparently America agrees to abide by law, treaties and international conventions when they have encountered uniformed people serving in a military force they are fighting on a battlefield. Those they collect who were not serving in an enemy army or without uniforms are simply called “terrorists” and they become eligible to be secretly locked away forever or to simply “disappear”.

There are terrorists like Osama Bin Laden, al-Zarrquawi and al-Zawahiri and they have their following. Many others however appear to belong to other groups. Some appear to have just been “found” and captured, others are people who clearly feel they are simply fighting for their own homeland. More than a few appear to be totally confounded as to why they were ever "arrested" in the first place, claiming they had nothing to do with any fighting.

Thus invading foreign troops who preemptively invading another nation are deemed to be lawful, legal and protected, but the people whose country has been invaded - if they fight back - are deemed to be "terrorists". If captured they can be imprisoned for endless years, kept without charge or legal representation, tortured or disappeared.

I feel certain that if an invading army were to occupy the villages of western North Carolina (where I now live) they would be met with a ferocious blast of “instant terrorists” - or "freedom fighters". I feel the same way about the other 15 states in which I have lived. There would be snipers, bomb builders, and bridge destroyers. Those who had sided with that occupying force would be killed without compunction and none of the “patriots/terrorists” would ever think of wearing a uniform.

Some of these “patriots/terrorists” would be noble people, some would be wild and unruly people who had been permitted - and instructed how - to do horrible things. So they would not necesarilly be "nice" people, nor would they happen to be "bad" people. They would be whomever you might expect to encounter right now, here in America, if you were to just break into people's homes at random.


© John Womack, 2006. All Rights Reserved.