[Whatever “content” this referred to is now “isn’t available right now’]
Appeals to the authority usually leave me skeptical, especially when that authority involves military types (bonus points for ‘my special-ops friend’), but this one’s pretty sharp. There are really serious problems here: there’s a long and monstrous history of the US DOD declaring all kinds of groups and movements to be ‘partisans,’ ‘irregulars,’ ‘insurgents,’ ‘paramilitaries,’ ‘combatants,’ ‘terrorists,’ and more, and using those labels variously to allow, enable, or commit unspeakable atrocities around the world. So yes. AND ALSO the rise of violent rightist activity in the US presents a serious categorical problem. It’s not just a matter of wording. These categories can have direct serious legal consequences. It isn’t illegal to be an ‘extremist,’ so that’s been the right’s preferred term for describing actors it sympathizes with; but these other categories typically have legal implications. Common-sense takes on the Kenosha shooter, like the one from Trevor Noah that’s been floating around (“That’s some serious bullsh*t”), are fine but, in a basic way, beside the point. The point is that the US has established terminology for describing deliberate, explicit, armed actors and activity, as well as legal mechanisms for addressing them.