The power of politicians, much more than their ability to wield the coercive power of the State, lies in their skill at manipulating words so as to engineer a popular culture of acceptance of its feigned legitimacy. The Bush administration's broad use of the term 'unlawful enemy combatant' is a very instructive and disturbing example of this. Bush administration officials applied this term not only to members of Al Qaeda- an organization engaged in terrorist operations across international borders -but also to Iraqi resistance fighters, who can be argued to be legitimately fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation as defined in international law.

The notion that these fighters should be required to wear uniforms or identifiable insignia, operate within a traditional chain-of-command, or bear arms openly in order to be treated according to the standards of international law is absurd. This is the cynical logic of tyranny. No resistance fighter, in possession of the most primitive weapons relative to those of his adversary, would risk openly identifying himself in such a suicidal fashion. On the contrary, technologically inferior forces have always sought to use stealth and guile to defeat their enemies, from the American Revolution to the modern era. The violent struggle for national self-determination frequently dictates this. The Bush administration's attempts to categorize all practitioners of clandestine warfare against an imperial power as 'terrorists'- thereby justifying the use of torture -is contemptible and cowardly considering the United States' possession of weapons which have the ability to kill from 30,000 feet above the earth. Surely if we are going to call suicide bombing 'terrorism' we must apply the same term to this form of warfare, regardless of any attempt to avoid collateral damage. Why is suicide bombing viewed as an illegitimate tactic while the use of Predator drones, operated from thousands of miles away in a desert trailer, is not?

The politicization of the term 'terrorism' serves the purpose of precluding in the mind of the public the possibility that violence outside the auspices of the nation-state can be utilized for legitimate ends. But what if there is no nation-state or national army? What if that army is incapable of resisting foreign occupation without resorting to clandestine methods due to the overwhelming technological superiority of its opponent? What if the government is not recognized by the people, is effectively controlled by a foreign power, or represses its people? The use of this term serves a very simple but essential purpose: to preserve and expand the American empire.