Since when do we reason with terrorists?

The  first thing that pops to mind in the wake of this change in terms, i.e. our government-mandated change from terrorists or enemy combatants to prisoners (assuming, of course, there is enough to link them to a major terrorist, er, wanna make a man-made disaster group  – otherwise, they’re free to go about the business of “bein’ bad’) is simple: who are we trying to please?

Maybe the, uh, prisoners sent out a blanket email, saying, “We are NOT terrorists or enemy combatants!! Don’t you know how that makes us feel? Why can’t you just call us prisoners!”

One can almost feel their tears through such a statement. Can you hear the terrorists screaming, “No FAIR!”

I feel better already, don’t you?

But the really fuzzy feelings are yet to come. Because apparently, these prisoners can be reasoned with through nothing more than “dialogue.”

I have a real problem with that.

My understanding is that there aren’t levels of terrorism (oops! prisoners who engage in Man-made disasters), only methods of approach.

For purposes of sheer clarity, let’s take a look at a few of these, uh,  prisoners.

Prisoner One sets up a pressure detonated 155 round. A car, a van or even a humvee, property of the  United States Military runs over the pressure valve. For our purposes, let’s say it was a garden hose. The pressure gathers and releases under the front left seat. One to six (minimum) are dead.

Prisoner Two plants several 155 rounds (each with a killing radius of roughly 50 meters) within a building. Let’s say they paid a nine-year-old kid to gauge when the building looked full. Paid him $10 bucks, told him he’d be a martyr and all. So the kid stands across the street, with a broken, rigged-up remote in hand. He sees men and women and children go in, and decides now is the time and presses the button.

Don’t forget Prisoner Four, though. He’s the guy that killed his daughter, stuffed her lifeless body with explosives, then set her body alongside a well travelled road in Iraq or Afghanistan. It’s the perfect decoy, because these prisoners know American soldiers have hearts. They’ll see the girl’s body on the side of the road and stop to help, not knowing they’re about to stare death in the face. Her father, set up several hundred feet away and out of sight, remote detonates the bombs in his daughter’s body by depressing the “call” button on an old cell phone.

Prisoner Five loads up his family in a small sedan – along with enough explosives to wipe out everything within 1,000 feet, and drives to a security checkpoint. Or the gate of a forward operating base, where he kills as many Americans as possible, along with himself, his wife (OK, one of them) and several of his children.

Yet it is assumed that somewhere within these groups of terrorists, there is one faction that can be reasoned with.

NO. They’re busy praying to God/Allah, to bless them, to help them kill the American Infidels, and send them to Heaven on the quickest bus, because the virgins are a’waiting. (And you thought we had disagreements with religion in America…)

What about these five prisoners makes them reasonable? They are terrorists. (If you’re wondering about “prisoner” #3, he’s the one still out there. Methods yet to be determined.)

Regardless of the spin that the media or government puts on any of it, these are not prisoners. Whether this is some new terminology brought about to placate or put at ease the conscious of Americans, or a way to cradle Americans into a sense of security, every American is dis-serviced by thinking that those we fight in the Global War on Terror are anything less than terrorists, who chomp at the bit to see every American lying in a pool of their own blood.

In their minds, Americans are the evil ones.

If there is one thing I have learned from my conversations with soldiers, it would be the need to know – even respect – the enemy. Which I believe essentially breaks down to a need to never underestimate their capabilities, strengths, or the lengths to which they will go.

As Americans, many assume blindly that talking to a terrorist is akin to talking to the boy down the street who’s just skipped school or stolen a piece of candy. That reason can be drilled into their heads.

Terrorists  hate Americans probably as much for that reason as any other. They look at our weaknesses and talk-things-over attitude and laugh. They look at our money that reads: “In God We Trust” while watching, observing the fact that as a nation, we put our trust in money – and more of it. Not God.

Within the terrorist/prisoner/American lover of money might lay the biggest snafu of them all. Americans have a problem with problems – problems that can’t be reasoned with, bought, talked through, or bullied away.

It is in the naivety of our culture that I find myself most proud of our men and women in uniform.  They know the naivety and the threat, the capacity and results of both. Should they cease to exist – or even be cut in numbers, God help us.

If we don’t take a stand now, we will be the ultimate prisoners. And no amount of talking, threats, bullying, or buying off will save us.