No, and this is a right-wing brainbug. We haven't sat down with Al-Qaeda and they're considered extremely legitimate in an awful lot of "Bad Guy" circles. We don't sit down with Hamas or Hezbollah and they've both gotten wide power bases now too, without our help. The right seems to think the Muslim world gives a fuck what we consider legitimate or not. If a terror group wants to get more public approval, they can always blow up an Israeli Pizza Shop or post some videos of them throwing a bomb at a tank, and editing out the bit where the tank turns around and sprays them with 50 cal fire. Terrorists operate on a Meritocracy of Evil Bastardness, it's a very results-driven economy they have there. Hamas and Hezbollah both promised to restore order, clean up civil services, make the trains run on time, and so forth--and that's how they get legitimized, entrenched, and in power. Think about that--they are more legitimized by saying "See? The Americans do not care! They will not help us help you--they let us die because they are ____," than they are by having discussions with us. We've let the middle east's few half-decent nations really crumble due to our ignorant policies, and it's going to be biting us in the ass for some time. Let's hope Turkey can keep them out.BountyHunterSAx wrote:I'm not much for politics, but I was under the impression that there were repercussions from having a failed peace talk. Particularly in the case of a terrorist organization, doesn't it give them legitimacy that they otherwise wouldn't have? Not that I'm arguing against it in this specific case; I'd say it does more good than it could do harm - but to say you lose nothing from it?White Haven wrote:Sigh, these people need to learn the great advantage of talking to your enemies; if the talks go poorly and the other party ends up hating you. you haven't lost anything.
-AHMAD
PS: Ray, throughout the topic you break up your posts with 1/2 sentences per line. Could you please start typing in normal paragraphs, it's actually quite distracting and annoying to follow.
If we want to de-tooth these people we need to give them a better way to get power, influence, money, sugar and hookers. If they want to invite us over to discuss something, and we sent Joe the Ambassador over to chat, and they decide to bail on him instead of talking, it's not like these guys gain any new aura of legitimacy, especially if we're actively engaging with anyone who is willing to talk to us. It's only our own back-asswards way of dealing with these groups that makes getting an audience from us seem like a big deal, and soon after we stopped doing that, talking to us wouldn't seem very special, since all the groups could do it then, and they'd all want to find the next big thing to earn their spot on the Top 10 list of Terrorist Jackasses.
These groups are either in control over there in a de-facto military sense, or they're trying to be. Talking with them can only serve our interests. If there's even a tiny chance that we could actually work something out, we save a lot of time and money by pursuing it. If things go sour, the military option is still there. There's no real good way to drag these people up to the first world status overnight, but we can't bomb them into an Enlightenment unless they know there's another option.