What Is A Terrorist? What To Do With Them!

In denoting the terrorist-prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay (And other places) as "enemy combatants" is misleading and contrary to the general thrust of the laws of war.

However, we do appear to lack a common and useful definition of "terrorists" to differentiate such from legitimate "enemy combatants". Combing the two would include, with actual terrorists, those uniformed military of recognized governments who wage war against us and our allies on the basis of the authority of their political superiors and generally in accordance with the laws-of-war. Real "enemy combatants", when captured, are protected by the Geneva Conventions, treated as POWs and are generally protected from prosecution as criminals (Except for such "war crimes" as many high-ranking Nazis and Japanese military leaders were held accountable).

This definition of "terrorists" might include some persons in "resistance movements" which the USA and its allies have favored in the past.

Therefore, I offer the following and "operational" definition of "terrorist": "An individual who, with or without the assistance of others, wages war against the USA, its allies and civilians under their protection, while not a uniformed member of a military unit belonging to a recognized government OR who is/are under arms with the obvious intent of doing so. This definition does NOT include those civilians who are forced to suddenly defend themselves against foreign or domestic terrorist or other criminal attacks in the absence of immediate and effective protection by the police or military of their recognized governments.".

I strongly recommend gemeral editorial acceptance and support of the above definition of "terrorist".

I also recommend that the Congress execute its Constitutional authority; to exclude the jurisdiction of the civilian Federal Courts over "terrorists" as defined above and leave them to the jurisdiction of such military commissions as were very properly used by President Abraham Lincoln (Claimed as a role model by Mr. Obama)..

Those terrorists now held by us in military prisons should be glad they are held in military custody as their transfer into the general populations of our maximum security prisons would place them in a living hell populated with men much tougher than they are and very much more evil.