Negotiating with terrorists

[Angela Harlem]

A bit of a debate was on the radio about this the other day, and I truly reckon there are 2 sides to this subject. Intellectually we can never negotiate as we cannot give in and bow tow to them, we cannot give them strength and power, cannot give them the upperhand. We cannot weaken the resolve. We just can't.

But can we cannot let people die, knowingly. Can we?

Should the negotiations start way before we have a hostage situation? Can they start way before the terrorists are holed up in whatever/where ever with their hostages? Can we do something to prevent it getting to this stage? We try now, we have been seeing talks with various regions for years and years. Middle East Peace talks are always a topic in the news, always.

Where are we all going wrong? The terrorists who we hear most about are the ones who bloodily persue their threats and behead their hostages, or we see Beslan. And clearly there is something wrong with these people. Perhaps with many of them there is no reasoning or any means of useless negotiation or compromise anyway. How can you rationally reach a mutually beneficial decision with a man/group who is willing to behead someone or partake in the murder of a child?

One thing I did think about, was what does it make us when our hands are tied and we're forced to allow them to kill their hostages? It's a moral issue, but we're essentially allowing a murder when we could actually stop it, but intellectually we are thinking "no, we can't go down this road".

We've heard the arguments in this forum many times, and most often the argument is coming quite rationally and justly from one side or the other. How do we come at this from both?

 

[U2Kitten]

The main thing is, you cannot let them think their tactics work, or they will continue to do that to get more and more, and other groups will take it up if they see it works. Also, you cannot 'negotiate' with people who are willing to die. If you can't threaten them with their lives, what have you got. Money? Many of the groups shun the western capitalistic lifestyle and want no part of it. As A_Wanderer posted recently, the goal of many of these groups is just to wipe out all the people they see as infidels, there is no negotiating with that.

 

[Sherry Darling]

Briefly, and I hope I can say this without offending someone, but it occurs to me that "negotiating with terrorists" was to an extent who Ireland's "troubles" calm down. The conflict is not totally resolved yet, but from what I know, folks are yelling at each other now and not blowing up supermarkets. This would not have been possible, for one, if the Brits hadn't talked to reps. of Irish separatists.

Just some thoughts. There is no easy or perfect answer.



SD

 

[U2Kitten]

But the difference is, the IRA were not out to wipe out everyone who disagreed with them, and they did not believe if they killed the enemy in a suicide attack they would go to glory. It's a different situation, a different set of rules, a different ideology, a different 'breed of dog.'

I remember seeing the Bobby Sands hunger strike reports on TV as a kid. He did end up dying, but later there were no more hunger strikes because they believed that suicide was a sin and they would not use it to achieve their goals. That is very different from the middle eastern terrorists today.


and of course it was really U2 who brought peace to N. Ireland

 

[STING2]

When one negotiates with terrorist in order to save 5, 10, or 15 people or more people, one is giving the terrorist things that will enable them to kill more people and take more hostages in the future. Whether it be money, political leverage or just showing that the a government can be brought to its knees by such action, it encourages more action because it is seen as a successful way to accomplish ones political or other objectives.

The result of the negotiations with terrorist is an increase in the number of people that will eventually die from terrorism.

I'd say the IRA talked because their position and idea's were weakening among people who would have normally supported them in Northern Ireland. The British new this and naturally entered negotiations as a way to further the process. Economic growth in Northern Ireland is ultimately what led to an end to most of the conflict. The discrimination and poor economic situation for Catholic's was the fuel for much of the conflict in the late 1960s and 1970s. Massive economic success in recent years has made that situation disappear. When I was in Northern Ireland in 2002, I did not see a single British soldier. No Guard Towers were manned in either Belfast or Derry. People in Belfast talked about the conflict in the past tense and were more interested in what Club they were going to go to in Belfast that night. The Murals and monuments to the conflict are all still there, but the feeling I got when I was there was that the conflict for most was largely in the past. The Zelots and criminals on both sides of course will still make a seen, but they are just as much involved with drugs and prostitution as they are with the whole political thing.

I'd say the conflict would still be waging with just as much intensity today, if there were still 40% unemployment for Catholics and the continued discrimination by both sides, significantly as a result of economic hardship. Extremist on both sides took advantage of the average persons hardship to turn them into recruits for their political causes. Economic prosperity kills political extemism.

 

[deep]

If you don't believe in negotiating with terrorists you should vote for Kerry and the Democrates.

If you want to negotiate with, coddle, and enable terrorists vote Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld.

 

[A_Wanderer]

May you please clarify that statement, I don't think that either Democrat or Republicans would negotiate with terrorists. That statement makes absolutely no sense.

 

[deep]

Jimmy Carter refused to negotiate with Iranian hostage takers/ terrorists. He did authorize a botched rescue mission.

Reagan campaigned hard against Carter as being weak / inept on that issue.

Reagan ,in office, negotiated with Iranian/ Hezbollah terrorists. His people tried to insulate him by using third parties, i.e. Israelis, Arab arms brokers, etc. Still he did trade arms for hostages. Cheney, and Rumsfeld were right there with him.


I could list GHW Bush dealings also.

W is negotiating with and keeping in Musharif regime in power for some phony, luke-warm cooperation on Al-Quiada.

The House of Saud is corrupt and the TRUE financiers, participants and enablers of 9-11 attacks.
Bush and family are completely enmeshed financially with these despicable people.

I did not watch Moore’s F 911 and have no interest in seeing it.
I come by my opinions from reading many sources and first hand observations of these politicians’ dealings. I have lived through these events as an adult.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Indeed, but how is dealing with Musharraf negotiating with terrorists? The ISI was instrumental in the organization of the Taliban but working with a foreign government to go after international terrorists is not negotiating with them.

Now Saudi Arabia is a very complicated situation. It is definitely the center of Islamist terrorism and it exports it all over the world but Osama bin Laden desires to topple the Saudi Royal Family and to do this he has to destroy the US/Saudi relationship. This is done by using Saudi hijackers, to create the perception that it is Saudi Arabia that must be annihilated and from that chaos when the monarchy is toppled bin Laden / Islamists could sieze control of a sizable ammount of the world oil supply. The enemies of the Saudi government are the same terrorists that go after us, it is a Saudi civil war exported as a global problem. The only way to "fix" Saudi Arabia is to secure other oil supplys in the region so when you apply pressure all hell will not break loose.

 

[STING2]

Jimmy Carter refused to negotiate with Iranian hostage takers/ terrorists. He did authorize a botched rescue mission.

Reagan campaigned hard against Carter as being weak / inept on that issue.

Reagan ,in office, negotiated with Iranian/ Hezbollah terrorists. His people tried to insulate him by using third parties, i.e. Israelis, Arab arms brokers, etc. Still he did trade arms for hostages. Cheney, and Rumsfeld were right there with him.


I could list GHW Bush dealings also.

W is negotiating with and keeping in Musharif regime in power for some phony, luke-warm cooperation on Al-Quiada.

The House of Saud is corrupt and the TRUE financiers, participants and enablers of 9-11 attacks.
Bush and family are completely enmeshed financially with these despicable people.

I did not watch Moore’s F 911 and have no interest in seeing it.
I come by my opinions from reading many sources and first hand observations of these politicians’ dealings. I have lived through these events as an adult.

Reagan administrations dealings in the Arms for hostages trades were wrong. Cheney and Rumsfeld were not involved in those dealings though.

Musharif is in power on his own strength. Pakistan has captured more Al Quada terrorist than any other country besides the United States. This effort is indeed working. Just as US efforts to support Stalins Soviet Union were vital in winning World War II. Saudi Arabia has had a long and deep relationship with every US administration since Franklin Roosevelt who started the relationship. It has resulted in an abundence of cheap energy that has fueled economic expansion and prosperity throughout the world and improved the standard of living of most people including yourself.

There are people in Saudi Arabia that support terrorism, but that is not the governments position. For Saudi Arabia to attack the United States in any way would essentially be the same as attacking themselves. The two countries are interdependent. Bin Ladin wants to create an image of Saudi Arabia as the enemy of the United States in order to destroy this relationship which is why he stacked the deck with the hi-Jackers insuring that most would be from Saudi Arabia. He was hoping this would fool many people and indeed it has.

John Kerry on the other hand has met with enemy during a war. During the last years of the Vietnam war, he met with North Vietnamese representives in Paris as a private citizen and not a part of the US State Department.

While US prisoners of war were being tortured in order to sign statements that they and the US military committed atrocities against the Vietnamese and resisting this torture, John Kerry went before the US congress and said the same lies and inaccurate statements that the North Vietnamese had wanted their tortured prisoners to say.

 

[deep]

It has resulted in an abundence of cheap energy that has fueled economic expansion and prosperity throughout the world and improved the standard of living of most people including yourself.

You said it.

It is blood for oil.

How much is tolerable?

Most Eropeans pay quite a bit more than we do.
They seem to be doing alright.


But, then again we pay about three times what they do for medicine.

Tell me that is supply and demand and not price fixing.

Cheney is a profiteer. He is the lowest of the low.

He was doing busniess with and wanted santions off of Iran. (Axis of Evil, you may recall).

 

[AcrobatMan]

Pretence of negotiation could be done to prolong the situation and to help secure release of hostages or determine course of attack.

But absolutely no final negotiation in Beslan-kind-of terrorism should be done

 

[Angela Harlem]

Would you, AcrobatMan, and anyone else, still think that if it were your child in that school? I'm not asking to find flaws with this argument as I dont think it is flawed to take a clinical stance in theory and then backtrack when it becomes personal.

 

[AcrobatMan]

Would you, AcrobatMan, and anyone else, still think that if it were your child in that school? I'm not asking to find flaws with this argument as I dont think it is flawed to take a clinical stance in theory and then backtrack when it becomes personal.

I would personally want, hope & pray my child to be saved by ANY means ( negotiation or otherwise)

Having said that, if the governments policy is not to negotiate with the terrorists ever, I would understand if the rule is not changed.

However there is no guarentee that negotiation would necessarily secure my child and counter-attack would necessarily do the opposite.

But the government should be always consistent in not
negotiating with the terrorists.

Only yesterday , I was seeing a documentary where a child held in beslan was interviewed as in what should be done to hostage takers..

He said "all such people should be caught and shot because if you put them in jail, they would somehow escape and take people hostage again".

A 10 year old boy can understand this bit...Why cant we ?

 

[achtung davy]

i really really hate people who know nothing about northern ireland, trying (and failing) to explain their theorys, and their ideas from 2000 miles away

 

[A_Wanderer]

^Quite

The problem that I have is that Islamist terrorism is different from nationalist terrorism. To the Islamist you are deserving of death, an Infidel who is a legitiate target whose death is sanctioned by God. They rape and cut up little children, blow up even more. Negotiation with them is out of the question because it emboldens them and will encourage more attacks. If you give them a positivie response they will just come back later to try something more audacious. There is no detterant for these groups, people will be killed whatever you do - in this situation it is best to take the path that leads to the least deaths, which is not to negotiate - the path of appeasement is just feeding the crocodile, eventually you will be eaten.

 

[babyman]

it is a difficult, very difficult question.........negotiating with terrorism may save 100-200-300 lives, but then? 1000, 2000, 3000 will die however, because terrorists would feel more powerful, this is the problem, there can't be negotiation with terrorism at all, you can reason with people who use common sense, but not with certain who represent a constant menace to your life, especially with "people" who don't care to die like terrorists.........but on the other hand, how may feel the ones who fall in the claws of those beasts.....

 

[AcrobatMan]

i really really hate people who know nothing about northern ireland, trying (and failing) to explain their theorys, and their ideas from 2000 miles away

well said

 

[Angela Harlem]

maybe thats how parts of the middle east feel about us too.

 

[Popmartijn]

Should the negotiations start way before we have a hostage situation? Can they start way before the terrorists are holed up in whatever/where ever with their hostages? Can we do something to prevent it getting to this stage?

Are those people terrorists then, in this situation? I mean, at that moment they haven't done their terrible deed.

 

[A_Wanderer]

If they are plotting an attack then I would say yes. I dont even think that terrorist is an adequate description of these monsters.

As far as prevention goes, reasoning with them and the like. I suggest we murder all the Jews, kill our children and then commit suicide - then I think they will stop attacking.

 

[Angela Harlem]

Re: Re: Negotiating with terrorists

Are those people terrorists then, in this situation? I mean, at that moment they haven't done their terrible deed.

Well I guess we need to work out first if terrorism is an action or an ideal. It is all born from what we see as irrational hatred. Can we do something while it is still at that stage, before the ideas and plans take root and become an action?

 

[A_Wanderer]

No we cannot, there is no ammount of affirmative action that can detter these zealots. I think that when they are prepared to slice up little kids we are beyond the stage of peaceful negotiation and prevention.

Attempting to rationalize their actions because of the actions of the victim is a dangerous slope. It brings about moral relativism and the desired result, it makes the responsibility of the attack fall on the victim. If somebody is willing to kill innocent people for a cause then surely their cause must be very worthwhile and for a noble cause - that is the response given, just look at the way Palestinian terrorism is rewarded. Hamas murders 40 innocent Israelis - Arab and Jew indiscriminantly - and the next day the UN will issue a resolution condemning Israel for attempting to find a peaceful means of self defence like the security barrier.

It is harsh but we must make sure we foil every attack even if it means killing a terrorist. It is never 100% effective and people will be killed but it is the only way to deal with it short of becomming a perpetual slave to the terrorists by negotiating or submitting to all demands and just dying.