Collegiate Times

The mid-2000?s are not good times for terrorists. Everything seems to have been going downhill for a while. It used to be you could terrorize, attack and kill whomever you wanted as long as you could rely on a dictator or religious zealot to defend your actions as just and or holy. You could always depend on his or her ? scratch that, just his ? shrewd diplomatic relations and bullying to keep you in business. But nowadays, almost all of that strength is gone.

All the big dogs of the good ?ol days are either facing trial, in hiding or dead. Bummer. As a terrorist, you are on your own; You have to operate independent from your peers throughout the land in puny little ?cells.? What happened to all the foreign funding for supplies and weapons? Where are the armies to back you up? It seems as if everybody is deserting you.

Your public support is dwindling, too. People in your own country, who once feared and even praised your regime, now refer to you as ?the insurgency,? and call you spineless cowards. Everyone in your hometown is trying out this ?democracy? thing and actually liking it. They?re even going so far as choosing their own leaders. What is your world coming to?

It was so much easier when the righteous and all-powerful ruler made the decision for you; He always got 100 percent of the vote, and his opponents always ended up dead. Voting was a no-brainer. You?re not sure you know how to make those kinds of decisions on your own. Now you?re forced to pout around the countryside with your other frustrated friends, throwing violent little tantrums whenever you feel like it.

Speaking of friends, you have probably started to notice that there are less and less of them around lately. The weekly poker game you throw in your cave started with more than 10 of your buddies a few years ago, but now that everyone?s getting big into suicide bombing, you?re down to just two. And even those guys are starting to ask you when you were thinking about ?making the ultimate sacrifice.? That is certainly not what you wanted when you decided to become a terrorist.

Job security in terrorism is in the negatives; The U.S. Army is still here and it looks like it doesn?t plan on leaving until you all are gone. You would move to another country where there was no constant threat of death, but your name and face are in the top 20 of every most wanted terrorist list in the world, so scratch that idea. By now, you?re starting think that to avoid death, turning yourself in might not be such a bad idea. Maybe if you willingly surrender yourself to the nearest American base, you will be put in a relaxed, mid-level security prison for political prisoners. So what if you have detailed knowledge of what your fellow terrorists are plotting and planning to do next? They?ll never get it out of you, you tell yourself.

After all, you are a big-time terrorist from the Middle East. Your resolve is strong as steel ? do they think that tough questions under a bright light or a little food and sleep deprivation is going to make you crack? They must be kidding themselves. These Americans will give up after the first week and then you can sit back and watch your friends do all the dirty work on the outside. Its not like they would actually torture you or anything?

So you decide to surrender and are sent to a place called ?Gitmo? in Cuba where you are told that you will give the information you know about terrorist activities to the U.S. authorities or else. You come to find out the ?else? is apparently something the Americans call ?enhanced interrogation techniques.? Well that doesn?t sound too bad, you think. Then you find out that 90 U.S. senators voted for a bill that would prohibit the technique?s use of ?cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment? on detainees such as yourself, but that the bill hasn?t passed yet.

Then you hear about Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, one of your old pals from al-Qaida who buckled under the pressure of the techniques and gave up a big terrorist plot, and Khalid was one of the really fanatical ones. Now?s the time to really start worrying. You didn?t think the Americans had the guts to torture a person, even one as murderous and fiendish as you, into giving up information that could save thousands of innocent lives.

You thought they were too weak to actually go through with that. Apparently, the Americans are willing to protect their way of life as strongly as you were willing to terrorize for yours. Turns out you were right. Being a terrorist really isn?t so great these days.