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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dale Baker who wrote (1898)	7/20/2005 10:04:18 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 540968

and political negotiations that take away the terrorist grievance or give the terrorists a legitimate political channel to vent their aggression I think that it's at least theoretically possible to defeat this terrorism without negotiating grievances and I'd prefer an approach that concedes nothing. I appreciate the objection to legitimizing grievances. I just think that it's inapt to deny them. You can recognize and understand the grievances without legitimizing, negotiating, or appeasing them. I am not prepared to do any of those. But it's dumb to confine one's own understanding, seems to me. It's unfortunate that we get into zero-sum arguments that say we must do ONLY one of those, and doing one means ignoring the other. I disagree with that. I think that the minute you show a willingness to negotiate you shut down other opportunities. You can work in the background on the grievances but only if you can do so without positively reinforcing terrorism.

To: Dale Baker who wrote (1898)	7/20/2005 7:57:14 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 540968

In a number of cases settlements only happened after one side or the other was largely but not totally victorious. Of course in quite a few other cases that was not the case but if you leave those cases out of the calculation it is probably no longer accurate to say that "Most insurgencies are ended through a combination of military stalemate where the target regime doesn't topple, and political negotiations that take away the terrorist grievance or give the terrorists a legitimate political channel to vent their aggression." I think they should be left out of that calculation because they were decided more by military force than by negotiation. In any case I don't see how the Iraqi insurgency can be ended by negotiation. Al-Qaeda is probably even less accessible to a negotiated solution. In both cases it would be hard to find anyone to negotiate with, and if we were serious about giving in to their demands the cost would probably be greater then the damage that has so far been done by terrorism and insurgency directed against the US and its allies. Some insurgencies can be defeated purely on a tactical military basis. They are the distinct minority once an insurgency has taken hold and has a wide following (numbering in the thousands or higher). That much is true but the outcome of quite a few insurgencies are decided primarily by military force rather than purely on military force. In any case Iraq is not an example where an insurgency is being battled purely by military force, and if your talking about terrorism rather then the Iraqi insurgency than once again you are dealing with a situation where the attempt to combat it is not "purely on a tactical military basis", so while the statement is true, I'm not sure that it is very relevant. It's unfortunate that we get into zero-sum arguments that say we must do ONLY one of those, Such arguments might be common on SI but its not like the administration, or the key leaders among the Democrats are proposing that nothing but military force be used in Iraq or against Al Qaida, and few are arguing that no military force be used. Sorting out the political side is much harder with the Al Qaeda-type terrorists. Speculating on that would take a lot more space than anyone should ever use on a chat board if they expect readers to finish the post. To the extent that there is a political solution (or a major political gain that falls sort of a full and total solution) I don't think it will come through negotiating with Al Qaeda and those their ilk, but rather by marginalizing them. Tim