aimai

I'm glad to see you moved from a universal declaration to a stance that nuance is everything in these matters, all in the course of one day. The latter position was the whole thrust of my original comment so now we agree on the principle even if not on all the nuances. I'm just fine with that.

Have a Merry Christmas, James, and my sincere thanks for your blogging work these past few months - you do a lot to keep my brain alive and working.

Regards, C

During the Cold War, a lot of folks thought that backing a pro-Communist terrorist organization over the very anti-Communist National Party was counterproductive. And Mandela did in fact refuse to renounce murder as a political tool, which is why he remained in jail for so many years.

People, including Dick Cheney, nonetheless opposed Apartheid as a policy and sympathized with the cause of freedom. The debate was over how to achieve that without the Zimbabwaification of South Africa.

I can't resist: As for Mandela, he had natural sympathy because of an obviously just cause.

Yeah.

Regards, C

surely, one can’t negotiate directly with Bin Laden and company?

Ah, now we're talking specifics rather than nonsensical generalisations. Good. I agree that's problemmatic in the extreme. There's no handle as yet. However, it may be that even there we could find moderates amenable to becoming politicals rather than fugitives. And the Taliban? They've already been a political party, albeit a truly noxious one. There might be a more moderate wing there too.

I suppose we could always outright ask their masters, the Pakistani ISI. We know where their HQ is, right? Wouldn't that open a political can of worms, admitting we (bi-partisanly) had backed a state sponsor of Islamic terror all along?

But many just don't seem interested in finding out, which seems like cutting your hand off to spite your granchildren's face. I suspect that, in the bi-partisan corridors of power, it is more about vote-winning rhetoric (and not opening that can of worms) than about ideology.

Regards, C

Oh really? Based on what?
How big was al-Q pre 9/11?
How big is it now?

The problem with negotiating with terrorists is that doing so legitimates them and encourages more terrorism. Who would negotiate with the likes of Yasir Arafat, otherwise?

As for Mandela, he had natural sympathy because of an obviously just cause. He only became someone worthy of negotiation, though, after decades in prison. Had he been out there ordering the necklacing of innocents, it would have been rather hard to transform him into his statesmanly role.

At some point, some terrorist organizations control territory and create political wings. ANC became a party, as did Sein Fain, as has Hamas. At that point, you can negotiate with the political wing and pretend that they're somehow distinct from the murdering wing, although that's problematic as well. But, surely, one can't negotiate directly with Bin Laden and company?

I dunno. I suppose we could ask them, and at the same time we could ask them how they feel about the prospect of their great-grandchildren not being slaughtered in the same manner.

Oh, wait...

Regards, C

Oh, and in what sense is playing whack-a-mole with ever-regenerating generations of terrorist not problemmatic?

In the real world, eventually negotiation has to take place. Far better if you can pre-select more moderate leaders for the terror-movement-cum-political-party by figuring out the best candidates (intel) and keeping them alive (maybe in jail for a while) while helping their powerbase (targeted strikes on their rivals). The best extant example remains British action against the IRA in Northern Ireland.

Of course, that may be exactly what's happening with A-Q. It's possible, I suppose.

Regards, C

I didn't say that "the idea that killing terrorists is good has anything to do with neo-conservatism". What I said was that the idea that the only good terrorist is a dead one is a popular neocon one - plus, I felt you had used the phrase without full consideration. It's concommitant with the idea that "we don't negotiate with terrorists" and is, like all neocon notions, fatally simplistic. Thanks for bringing up Mandela, another very good example of someone the uber-right would never have negotiated with.

Regards, C

I'm not sure that the idea that killing terrorists is good has anything to do with neo-conservatism.

That aside, while I agree that "the process of making them dead" can be a mixed bag, indeed, their death is generally good.

Nelson Mandela is probably a cleaner case than Menachem Begin of terrorist turned statesman. Plus there's that guy on Battlestar Galactica who has turned out to be a pretty decent fellow. Still, keeping terrorists around in the hopes that they wind up good enough in the long term to outweigh the murders they committed in their youth seems problematic at best.

A top Taliban military commander described as a close associate of Osama bin Laden and Taliban leade...