In this final segment we investigate a few more rules that dictate the Geneva Convention's "prisoners of war" definition, we compare terrorism by Hamas, Hizb'allah to the Minutemen and Sons of Liberty. We also follow the money trail and discover who was financially supporting our founding fathers, not unlike Iran and Syria backing Hizb'allah. There's an old saying of "those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it", and we desperately are ignorant of our own "terrorist" roots.
There is another interesting point that can stand a little whacking around like a cheap golf ball under Article 4A, subsection 2C , which states there must be a “fixed distinctive sign” for identification. I think this is rather a humorous moot point because every military in the world has at least one secret base or facility that would be unmarked. For the longest time, the best example was always the famed Area 51 ; this has been replaced with the secret CIA prisons . Are they clearly marked with “fixed distinctive signs”? I doubt it, so why should the U.S. government expect others to play by a rule they clearly ignore on the basis of “national security”?
Now if you want to modify this a little bit and one interprets “distinctive signs” as being a logo, then we've got something to play with. Do you realize that Hamas , Hizb'allah , Al-Qaeda , the Sons of Liberty , and the Continental Navy all have a specific identifying logo? I'm sure it was fixed somewhere, and on occasion, out in the open. Due to security concerns, I don't suspect they were prominently displayed. Remember, what's good for the goose is good for the gander or else you're hypocritical. This is not a “do as I say and not as I do” form of an international empire.
I need to remind you of something Article 4 said and hammer on it a little bit at this point. “ Prisoners of war , in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories…” As you can read, all the person has to do is belong to one of the categories, and I've demonstrated on multiple fronts that “unlawful combatant” is a moot point for a detained “terrorist”.
“Yeah, but our founding fathers never caused destruction such as blowing up market places like you see in Iraq!” I don't recall any bombings by the Sons of Liberty, but they did burn houses down and terrorize residents. Their best-known act of destruction would of course be the Boston Tea Party. There were nearly four hundred crates of tea dumped into Boston Harbor , and I bet the sugar (which was as heavily taxed as the tea and stamps were) sweetened the harbor, too. An economic loss is an economic loss no matter the specifics of the incident, and considering those products were staples of the average person, the loss would've been expensive by today's standards.
I can recall having a wonderfully polite conversation with an elderly Arab man over a small glass of tea. I said to him, “Islam is the first religion, and tea is the second in Jordan .” He was briefly taken aback and then smiled. “You are wrong. Tea is the first religion, because everybody drinks tea, but not everyone practices Islam.” Life still stops for tea in many places of the world, and I bet this was the case for our colonial fathers.
“It's not valid to compare the militias that roam around Iraq to the Minutemen!” Why isn't it? Iraq is having a huge problem keeping alive a regular police force in order to obtain peace, and their military isn't in much better shape. On any given day, a standing headline for the violence in Iraq unfortunately is about a police station or a recruiting center having been viciously attacked. As much help as Iraq 's neighbor, Jordan, provides in the training of new recruits, it is never enough when compared to the level of violence. It's hard to build a military when you're furiously struggling to establish a first line of civil law. There's also documented history in which criminals actively extorted cash from people in the streets, threatening them as a member of the Sons of Liberty.
The militias of the American Revolution were of great value to the fight because the Continental Army had not been created when hostilities started back in 1765. For all intense purposes, the Sons of Liberty had taken not only the role as militia, but earlier in this article showed they kept the peace when the British militia in early days could not calm angry mobs. Let's face it – they were the fuel source to whip up crowd frenzy on a dime as “terrorists”, which theoretically means they also commanded the “off” switch is when it was time to go home.
“The terrorists are funded by Syria and Iran , so they're not at all like the Sons of Liberty!” Oops! Wrong again . Taking a walk through American history you meet General Lafayette, a Frenchman who helped to train American troops to fight against the British regulars. Taking into consideration most recruits had little fighting experience, would it be a stretch to say he was the “Osama Bin Laden” of his day?
The French officially came to America 's aid with the Treaty of Alliance in 1778. It turns out the Spanish came to the aid of France with the renewal of the Bourbon Family Compact agreement in 1779. The Dutch also joined in the fight as of 1780. So at the time of the war, three major powers were providing material and financial support to the American “patriots” in hopes they would deal a humbling blow against their common, powerful thorn: Britain. If you haven't noticed what I'm driving home, I'll spell it out: someone funded our “terrorists”, too.
There's an old saying: “Those who do not know history are bound to repeat it”. There's also another old saying: “You can fool some of the people, some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people, all of the time.” To believe America was a country full of patriots is fine and noble, however, what makes them noble in our eyes? If those same traits can be applied to groups we traditionally demonize through the media, we have to change the way we think.
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, and Britain used to view the colonies as a bunch of rabble rousing, rag tag terrorists that with a little force, they could control. So why are Hamas, Hizb'allah, and Al-Qaeda any different than our founding father terrorists were?
Is it because we are European white and they are Middle Eastern brown, or we're in power like the British were, and the “enemy” are exactly the emboldened spirit of our founding fathers? “No they're not!” Are you sure, or are you a propaganda victim of the last five years?
Other quazen.com articles by this writer can be found here , relijournal.com articles here , and picable.com images here . If you enjoyed this article, consider digging it with others
