Where the law is What it needs to be.

The very idea that a law may or may not apply in certain cases because of the nature of the crime the perpertrator is alleged to have committed implies that that law in question is not a law but a “punishment favor” which must be earned, or an “award” which must be granted by someone whose power is greater than the law.
Thus we now see the treatment by the United States of people they have collected in various places. This treatment apparently includes torture, humiliation, physical and emotional maltreatment, kidnapping, and permanent incarcaration without resort to habeus corpus, access to legal aid, or even any need to ever have evidence presented to them or against them. It may well be that there are many who have been collected and never acknowledged - they were simply “disappeared”.
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 “disappear”.
There are terrorists like OBL and (recently killed) 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.
Thus invading foreign troops preemptively invading a nation are lawful and legal and protected, but the people whose country has been invaded - if they fight back - are terrorists. If captured they can be imprisoned for endless years, kept without charge or legal representation, tortured or disappeared.
I feel certain that the place where I live would become filled with “terrorists” if some invading army were to occupy the villages of western North Carolina. I feel the same way about everywhere I have ever lived. In such a case there would be snipers, bomb builders, and disrupters. Those who had sided with that occupying force would be killed without concern and none of these “patriots/terrorists” would ever think of wearing a uniform. Some of these would be noble people, many would be just wild and unruly people turned free to do as they wish

© Juhn Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.