Freedom Fighters

While reading my current selection from our personal library, I ran across a provocative statement which started a convoluted thought process within my mind. While the statement was not new, it just happened to stir something inside of me the moment I read it. From the book “The Next World War” written by Grant R. Jeffrey, the statement goes like this, “One man’s terrorist, another’s freedom fighter.” Like most things in our lives, point of views change based upon the relationship to the event… context. However, I have a very simple delineation regarding the idea of equating a freedom fighter with a terrorist. The primary division revolves around the intended “targets.”

Targets can be a crude way to look at the results of “warfare,” but in reality, people are simply targets while at war. People are a portion of the infrastructure. Bridges, buildings, armaments, communication lines, and people… they are all targets from a military perspective. The United States and other NATO allies choose to separate civilians from military personnel. Our enemies however, do not. Civilian life from their perspective is just a part of the overall military target.

The enemy’s point of view concludes that civilians are at fault for paying taxes that support the war machine or they are by default born into an enemy society and therefore must pay for its transgressions against their way of life. No civilian is free from blame in their point of view. Therefore, suicide bombers who destroy civilian lives are in fact, freedom fighters in their mind. They have been taught this from birth. Their religion supports this and their history only strengthens their points of view.

From our perspective, killing innocent civilians is against our moral code. We believe the fight is with the military and the leadership, not the standard man, woman, child, and elderly person not taking up arms. From their perspective, the enemy is at fault because of their nationality or belief. They believe in killing anyone who does not believe what they believe by any means necessary.

Suicide bombers killing civilians are treated as heroes in their culture. Their families are “blessed” and they receive monetary rewards for such actions. They are in fact, the ultimate freedom fighter in their minds. How can a human being of any nationality or religion subscribe to this blatantly insane doctrine? Human nature involves sympathy for one another. We all have a mother and a father. We all experience relationships with other human beings in our lives. How can an entire culture simply lose sight of the fact that murdering innocent civilians, including women and children, is wrong no matter what you believe? Simply put, it is just morally wrong.

I believe the nations who support and promote suicide bombers as being freedom fighters have allowed their religion to be hijacked by terrorists who are using their faith against them for their own personal gain. Using their faith is the key. They are giving them the ultimate key to their spiritual safety by twisting religion into a radical “get out of jail free” card. Religion and faith is so deeply rooted within their society that they are blindly led by their maniacal leaders. They have simply lost focus on the fact that what they are doing and supporting is morally wrong.

Military action is one thing… destroying innocent civilian life, on purpose, is something insanely different. Terrorists rely upon their faith and religion to justify their actions against civilian life. How can you combat that? Generations upon generations have been led down this path and they continue to grow in size. Until the moderate and true leaders among their society come to the forefront, the radical terrorist spiritual leaders will continue to undermine their nations and the bloodshed will continue. Freedom fighter can never equal suicide bomber when civilians are the targets.