Attention Unprivileged Belligerents

And now, ladies and gentlemen, from the people who gave us “unlawful combatants” comes the new and improved “unprivileged belligerents.”

Unprivileged!?
What are the privileges? Who are the privileged?
It’s a euphemism, Dorothy, a nice-sounding name to hide a nasty reality. Their “privileges” mean laws, rights and rules. The unprivileged, like the unlawful, cannot appeal to these privileges or to justice. Justice doesn’t belong to their privileges.

Belligerents!?
The American Heritage Dictionary defines belligerent:
“One that is hostile or aggressive, especially one that is engaged in war.”

Note the “or” in “hostile or aggressive”! Note that it is not an “and”. This means that anyone suspected of being hostile is “Against us!” and cannot count on any of the privileges of rights and rules offered to ordinary privileged people.

A journalist can become the victim of unprivileged belligerency for saying or writing something that can be interpreted as hostile to the American government. Truth has been known to support hostilities. Why shouldn’t it? It is always the first victim of aggression and consequently often among the first things all the resistance combatants have in common.

This rather lengthy explanation could be summerized:
Foreign resistance fighters were designated “unlawful combatants.”
The battle has come home. Homeland citizens can now find themselves victims of “unprivileged belligerency” for minor crimes of criticism as well as major crimes of truth telling.
The battle has come home.

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“We get our privileges from life.
No one can remove our privilege of struggling to unite for the strength
to enforce truth, justice, peace, prosperity, health, happiness and love.”
Dartwill Aquila

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