Reply #26: it's easy to say

[kahleefornia]

that the enemy is "non uniformed combatants", so we do whatever we want. Wouldn't it be nicer if people were people - anyone fighting is fighting for an idea, whether it is sanctioned by a larger official government or not. So what's the difference? Insurgents can't collect taxes, therefore they don't have human rights???

I think our government has labelled the other side as an insurgency for convenience. The "insurgents" could very well just be people who believed in the original form of government they had, and are trying to defend it, if you wanted to look at it that way.