By Frank Erickson
“Commander, thank you for giving us another interview. The readers of The Alley Newspaper are very appreciative.”
“You”'re welcome, nice to be here.”
“Commander, let me start by commenting on the bombs that blew up during the Bostom Marathon”¦if the Tsarnaev brothers had attacked Boston with a military, and hit ”˜military targets”', they would have been free to maim and kill as many civilians as they wanted to, for as long as they wanted to, say, up to 8 years with over 100,000 killed, like the U.S. did in Iraq”¦Commander, who”'s guilty of the largest crimes?”
It is not that simple, you”'re making an unfair comparison. The terrorists in Boston were deliberately targeting civilians”
“But they didn”'t get close to 100,000 of them. I”'m just trying to find out how one gets the ticket ”˜in”', how you get yourself in.”
“The ticket into what?”
“Into a realm where you are free to kill civilians, a ticket that the Tsarnaev brothers obviously did not have. Maybe this will give us some insight—Leonard Peltier syas he never shot anyone at Wounded Knee, but for the sake of argument, let”'s say he did engage the FBI in armed conflict and did kill an agent, why is he in prison for life?”
“Because he murdered an FBI agent!”
“Yet it was armed conflict, and ”˜war”' is defined as armed conflict. Why do some people after killing and destroying during armed conflict get to go home to their families, and others like Peltier go to prison.”
“Well, the ”˜War Powers Resolution”' is the procedure to legally declare ”˜war”' that the U.S. government uses .”
“Well, maybe the Native Americans had their own ”˜War Powers Resolution”' to legally declare ”˜war”'on the U.S., and besides this resolution to legally declare ”˜war”' was not around when whites had the freedom to kill the British in the ”˜Revolutionary War”' during armed conflict, and they all got to go home. ”˜War”' is conveniently and opportunistically used to define only certain armed conflict situations that benefit the powers that be, wouldn”'t you agree?…”
“No, I will not agree. We can”'t just let every armed conflict situation be a ”˜war”', and then the participants get to go home after it is over.”
“Alright then, that is what we need to figure out, who decides when it is a ”˜war”', certainly not Leonard Peltier, he is not on the deciding committee. Well, Commander, I know you are a busy man, so I will let you run. But before you go, I just want to touch on what we will discuss the next time we meet”¦a local high school student from South High School , who is an avid history buff and student of ”˜war”', wants to ask you, how all the past conflicts that are defined as ”˜wars”' could be categorized as the same thing”¦she presents an interesting question.”
“Yes, I will have to think about that one.”
“Thank you, Commander.”
