War on Terror is a War on Reason and a War on Rights

A "War on Terror" is an abstraction. Terrorism is a tactic, not an entity, not an enemy. We use the word "terrorist" to brand people so that they can then be stripped of legal rights and safeguards. We do not have to condone what someone has done, while demanding that they still have the right to Due Process and legal safeguards. It doesn't matter that they abused the rights of others by their crimes; it only matters that we don't abuse theirs, even if they have committed crimes that abuse ours--because we are Americans, and we are better than that.

By branding certain people who commit crimes as terrorists--i.e. Muslims--or by branding certain crimes such as bombings as terrorism, and maintaining a fiction of a "War on Terror," we ensure that certain criminals will not be seen as criminals, but as enemy combatants, and as such, not entitled to the rights and protections that ALLcitizens are supposed to have.

If we allow this to continue, we will one day wake up to find that we have  all become "enemy combatants." I can terrorize by speeding in my car as well as I can setting off a bomb; I can terrorize with my words as well as with a gun; so any crime--and in the case of speech, any right--has the potential of being a terrorist act according to those in power, and those who would assert their rights as well as those who would commit crime become enemy combatants with no rights, no due process, no trial, no freedom.

We can prosecute terrorists like Americans--maintaining their rights and due process. Timothy McVeigh was a terrorist and he was not tried as an enemy combatant, he was tried as a criminal. A "War on Terror" is a war on a tactic--it is like a war on the backhand in tennis-- and it only serves to keep people afraid enough to overlook their rights being eroded by both the Republicans AND the Democrats, since they both work for the same corporations who own our country.

Reviews

[anartao]

Hear hear brother, its refreshing to read the words of one who see's through the illusion of western governments proclaimations of "freedom"and "democracy", when what we are really seing is the erosion of our rights, and like you said, the broad labelling of the term terrorist, a term which can be used against just about anyone. Keep up the good work !!