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If I had the power to have one statement of fact be universally
recognized in our political discussions, it would be this one:

The fact that the Government labels Person X a “Terrorist” is
not proof that Person X is, in fact, a Terrorist.

That proposition should be intrinsically understood by any American
who completed sixth grade civics and was thus taught that a central
prong of our political system is that government officials often abuse
their power and/or err and therefore must prove accusations to be true
(with tested evidence) before they’re assumed to be true and the person
punished accordingly. In particular, the fact that the U.S. Government,
over and over, has falsely accused numerous people of being Terrorists —
only for it to turn out that they did nothing wrong — by itself should
compel a recognition of this truth. But it doesn’t.

All throughout the Bush years, no matter what one objected to —
illegal eavesdropping, torture, rendition, indefinite detention, denial
of civilian trials — the response from Bush followers was the same:
“But these are Terrorists, and Terrorists have no rights, so who cares
what is done to them?” What they actually meant was: ”the Government
has claimed they are Terrorists,” but in their minds, that was the same
thing as: “they are Terrorists.” They recognized no distinctio... >>>