Enemies: A Love Story

Hunting Taliban,
Manny Francisco (Manila)

Mothers of river city,
heed the warning before it's too late
watch for the telltale signs of corruption!
--Ya Got Trouble, Music Man

Limbo lower now
Limbo lower now
How low can you go
--Limbo Rock, Chubby Checker

In their behavior toward creatures,
all men are Nazis.
Human beings see oppression vividly
when they're the victims.
Otherwise they victimize blindly
and without a thought
--Isaac Bashevis Singer
_________________

Nine years into the Phony Wars on Terror (PWOTs ©), and still the terms we use to define the mission are vague and confused. Ranger is not hopping on a bandwagon here -- we were the bandwagon when everyone else was cheering on the fight against Terrorism.

To the bedrock: "Enemy". While most pundits and politicians believe this to be coincident with "al-Qaeda", al-Qaeda is not an enemy by any standard definition. Al-Qaeda operatives are not covered by the Geneva Conventions (just ask Alberto Gonzales), and are therefore, not combatants.

Al-Qaeda members are criminals, by any definition of the word. Soldiers kill, but they are not (should not be) murderers, and cannot be held accountable in a court of law for killing other combatants in accordance with the rules of land warfare. In contrast, Al-Qaeda targets and kills soft civilian targets, making them criminals in every civilized nation.

So why do we still read daily that al-Qaeda's terrorists are the enemy? This assertion only adds validity and lends justification to their criminality. The reason for legitimizing the illegitimate is clear: So the U.S. can have an enemy, thereby justifying its campaign in Afghanistan.

In fact, the war is simply a war of oppression being waged against a geographical landmass and its people. Little if any of the fighting is aimed at the tiny organization called al-Qaeda. The bulk of the aggression has been an effort to defeat the Taliban, which is not exactly a terror organization. The Taliban is not listed on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations, though Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) was just listed in September as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the State Department.

The Taliban has no external agenda beyond the expulsion of U.S./NATO forces from the theatre of operations. Killing Taliban is not a war against terror, but violence designed to force foreign goals upon the Afghan people. This is not a news flash.

Ditto the war in Iraq, which was another imposition of the terror of war upon the Iraqi nation sans benefit to either the U.S. or to them. When Ranger said this in 2005 we were lambasted, but this view is becoming mainstream.

The Phony Wars have achieved no military objectives, yet legal concepts have been compromised and contravened, creating a delegitimization of the United States.

It is bizarre that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is still in Gitmo and still hasn't faced swift legal action. KSM is not a prisoner of war and is not on any court docket, leading to the conclusion that the War on Terror (PWOT) violates the concept of criminal culpability. While this is surely not the only offense wrought by the PWOT, it is a shining example.

Enemy -- still undefined, nine years into a global war. It's what's for supper, and it taste's a lot like chicken.