2006/10/17

Revolutionary terrorists: Benjamin Franklin?

Regarding Luis Posada Carriles, Cuban former C.I.A. operative and free-lance assassin and mass murderer (he planted the explosive toothpaste tupe that blew up a Cuban airline in 1976, killing all its 76 occupants):

"How can you call someone a terrorist who allegedly committed acts on your behalf?" asked Felipe D. J. Millan, Mr. Posada's El Paso-based lawyer. "This would be the equivalent of calling Patrick Henry or Paul Revere or Benjamin Franklin a terrorist." Castro Foe With C.I.A. Ties Puts U.S. in an Awkward Spot - New York Times

No, Mr. Millan, not those guys. Henry was an orator, Revere a silversmith famous for a midnight ride warning of an attack, and Franklin -- well, Franklin was many things, printer, author, diplomat, inventor. Not one of them was an assassin or, as far as I can tell, ever fired a shot at a human being. Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys would be better examples of terrorists among the American revolutionaries, if we apply the Bush standards. In fact, by those standards (the ones applied in Afghanistan, that fighters without regular uniforms or with authorization of a recognized state are not "soldiers"), the entire Continental Army should have been sent to Guantánamo. But not Franklin, Revere or Henry. Though if they had fallen into British hands they would have been hanged as abettors of terrorism, or insurrection as it was then called.

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