To the editor:

While watching Jack Reed, a career military man, on Chris Wallace recently, a very telling remark was made in response to a question of why a number of terrorists are being afforded rights and privileges in a civilian court rather than be treated as enemy combatants in a military tribunal. Mindsets are important and administration officials want to play down the terrorists’ assertions that they are warriors. Trying to pretend that they are not, by incorporating the ideology that administration officials can tell terrorists and the world that they are not soldiers, but common criminals, is a reckless and dangerous linguistic argument that has this country in line for much more of what was attempted by one of the latest recruits of Al Qaeda. They are soldiers.

Timothy Zhrung Wasilla