Recently, a CNN political analyst by the name of Roland S. Martin, who is black, publicly denounced the Confederacy, conveniently airing his views during Confederate Heritage Month. In his statement, Martin claims that all Confederate soldiers should be considered terrorists, and compares them to, of all things, the jihad and Taliban.
First and foremost, Mr. Martin, these are two separate issues and should by no means be blurred into similarities of any kind. Perhaps you are overlooking the fact that slavery might not have even played a part in the Civil War if Lincoln and his cronies had mimicked the actions of Europe by purchasing slaves from slaveowners, and subsequently allowed their freedom. Lincoln was not in favor of freeing slaves, but in fact, preferred the continuation of slavery to exist in Southern, as well as Northern states, and in western territories. "Terrorist" acts were actually committed by extremists such as the Border Ruffians and John Brown.
If you insist on claiming that Southern soldiers were terrorists, then perhaps you should reacquaint yourself with Northern soldiers' behavior at the time. Their actions were far more terrorist-like than the South in that they indiscriminately invaded, destroyed, raped, and stole everything in their path. To say, Mr. Martin, that Confederates were willing to take up arms against their brethren as an act of terrorism is a malicious attempt to justify what actually took place 150 years ago. The North is just as much to blame for the cause of the Civil War, and slavery could have been abolished far sooner and with a more pleasant outcome than it did because the North refused to compensate the South.
As far as your accusation goes that Confederate soldiers were all terrorists, they were no more terrorists than the Northern soldiers were. (General Sherman comes to mind.)If you take time to read some of these soldiers' letters, Mr. Martin, you will see what their true intentions were, which was in fact to defend their homes. You must also take into account the climate of that era, the predominant Christian faith, which is far different than Muslim beliefs, and the fact that white male supremacy reined in every corner of the world, not just in America. The definition of a terrorist is any unconventional fighter who is unaffiliated with a major military force and attacks civilians for political purposes. To consider Confederate soldiers as terrorists is very narrow-minded indeed. To relate it to the current state of affairs in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Afghanistan is nothing less than laughably ridiculous.
