Glenn Greenwald discusses the definition of “militant” with Amy Goodman:
Well we, of course don’t imply that the President of the United States believes that he has the power to order people to killed — assassinated — in total secrecy, without any due process, without transparency or oversight of any kind. I really do believe it’s literally the most radical power that a government and a President can seize, and yet the Obama administration has seized this power and exercised it aggressively with very little controversy. What the New York Times article does is it adds some important, though very disturbing details. Probably the most disturbing of which is that one of the reasons why the Obama administration runs around claiming that the casualties of civilians are so low from their drone attacks, which everyone knows is false, is because they have redefined what a militant is. A militant in the eyes of the Obama administration formally means any male of fighting age, presumably 18 to 40, who is in a strike zone of a missile. So, if the U.S. shoots a missile or detonates a bomb by drone or aircraft and kills eight or a dozen or two dozen people without even knowing whom they have killed or anything about them, they will immediately label any male of a certain age a militant by virtue of their proximity to that scene.
What the New York Times article said, was that the rationale for this is that they believe that anybody who is even near a terrorist or any terrorist activity is “Probably up to no good.” Ironically, that is, as Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News pointed out, the exact phrase that George Zimmerman used when describing Trayvon Martin to the 9-1-1 call, that he must be up to no good. The sort of suspicion, that even though we don’t know anything about somebody, the mere happenstance of where they are or what they’re doing entitles us not just to harbor a suspicion about them, but to kill them. And it is amazing that American media outlets continue to use the word “militant” to describe people are killed by American drones without knowing their identity, even though we now know that the Obama administration uses that word in a incredibly deceitful and propagandistic way. And the fact that Obama, himself, is sitting at the top of this pyramid, making decisions about life and death — issuing death sentences without a shred of oversight or transparency, really ought to be provoking widespread outrage, and yet with the exception of a few circles and factions it really isn’t.
. . . he’s has been embracing these radical theories of executive power that even George Bush’s former former CIA and NSA chief General Michael Haden has lavishly praised and other Bush officials are over the moon about in terms of President Obama endorsing them. So, we know his policies have been extremist and radical, but here you have one of the most controversial things that a president can do — ordering an American citizen assassinated by the CIA in total secrecy with no due process, never been charged with a crime, even though they could have charged him if they really had evidence as they claim, that he was guilty of plotting terrorist attacks. Instead of charging him, they simply secretly ordered his assassination, and it turns out there was no struggling in terms of the difficult constitutional and ethical and legal issues this a obviously presents. According to the President’s own aides, they’re boasting to the New York Times that he has declared that this was an “Easy” decision, not anything that he struggled with, something that he made quite easily. So, we find out that not only is exercising this radical power, he is not even having any struggles with conscience or constitutional questions or legal or intellectual quandaries about it. It’s something that his national-security adviser, Tom Donilon, also bragged to the New York Times about. It shows how “Comfortable” he is using force, even against American citizens. That I think reflects really on the type of person that occupies the Oval Office.
Glenn Greenwald gives today’s examples of how the media, acting as stenographer for the federal government, quickly and mindlessly turns dead people into “militants.” Follow this link for an illustration.
“There is, as usual, no indication that these media outlets have any idea whatsoever about who was killed in these strikes. All they know is that “officials” (whether American or Pakistani) told them that they were “militants,” so they blindly repeat that as fact.”
http://www.salon.com/2012/06/02/deliberate_media_propaganda/singleton/
One great difficulty in fighting insurgents or \”Millitants\” is that the definition of militant is \”a civilian who is currently holding a weapon\” If the Millitant drops or hides the weapon he is a civilian again. Faced with this problem the only pratical soloution is the \”Kill them all and let God sort them out\” response, however this is seen as moraly reprehensible as you may inadvertantly kill an innocent civilian (even in a place like Ank-Morpork). This creates situations like those seen in Vietnam where soldiers felt justified exterminating entire villages because the Vietcong wore the same clothes as the civilians but vere villified on their return for these acts. Being that a soldier in war time has 2 responsibliities,
1) kill the enemy!
2) stay alive so you can keep doing number 1
I have no idea how we can fight a war when the enemy won\’t wear uniforms. Of course some people will say \”Don\’t fight wars\” but war is a single player game, one side can start a war all by its self and the only satisfactory way to end it is to win, wether you want to fight or not. Peace is a multiplayer game, it only works when everyone plays by the same rules!
P.S.
Feel free to Flame away, but at least pretend to counter-argue my points!
Jekubl
I think you define war too narrowly. War can take on may forms, and boots on the ground personal combat is only one facet of many. The goal of war is for one government the force its opponent to give up its sovereignty over its people and resources. The best way to do this varies, and often a successful war can be conducted without open combat.
But the topic at hand it how do you define a militant? The denotative definitions of militants and insurgents are synonymous: proplr who take up arms in opposition of authority.
There was a time when “leader” was a literal term for a head of state. This was when the king, chieftain, or whatever actually lead his army into battle. Those days are long gone, as today’s “leaders” direct and manage the battles from safe location (a palace, a cave , an underground bunker. ) in another country or even a half world away.
Drone warfare has brought this safety to the combatants. The leaked video of the 2007 Apache gunship attack that killed several non-combatant civilians when a telephoto lens case was mistaken for a LAW or similar shoulder launch rocket. Rather than admit to the mistake, however, the massacre was covered up by claiming the victims as militants.
According to testimony by former service members, it is common for soldiers to carry a “drop gun”, a weapon that can be planted as evidence on civilians who are killed by mistakem to support labeling the victim as a militant or insurgent.
Militant = Terrorist.
http://dangerousintersection.org/2011/12/11/on-defining-terrorism/comment-page-1/#comment-120868