Sorry, Bundys: We Don’t Negotiate With Terrorists
January 4, 2016
Matt Terzi Politics
I have four words I’d like to say to Cliven Bundy, Ryan Bundy, the rest of the lunatics in the Bundy family, and all of their co-conspirators and supporters, be they active participants or random Internet denizens who back their near-violent action in Oregon:You are all terrorists.
The Bundy family are terrorists. The armed hillbillies holed up in government buildings with the Bundy family are terrorists. The people supporting this terrorist threat with either physical donations of money, food, or supplies, or simply emotionally or ideologically supporting them remotely are either terrorists or terrorist sympathizers.
The Bundy Siege is a terrorist threat.There are a lot of debates going around on the web about whether the Bundy siege is an act of terrorism, insurrection, rebellion, or protest. As far as I’m concerned, it’s terrorism, the Bundy family and their supporters are a terrorist threat, and there are no two ways about it.
Here’s how terrorism was defined for me academically by several experts on the subject: an act of physical violence and/ or clear threats of physical violence intended to force change with an “or else” mentality, with the added, if not primary, goal of weaponizing fear as a utility to bring about said change and/ or additional change.
Team Bundy — Y’all Qaeda, or Vanilla ISIS, or WHISIS, or whatever you’d like to call these terrorist clowns — have taken up arms, seized control of government property, and are threatening to kill any government agents or officers who dare interfere with their plan, while arrogantly demanding the government bend to their will.
To sum all of that up, Team Bundy is using threats of violence, terrorist threats which could very well transform into physical violence at any given moment, to force the government to bend the knee. They don’t care who gets hurt or how much damage they cause… the only thing that really matters to them is that they get what they want, and that they bank as much media attention as possible during their terrorist siege.
Sorry, Team Bundy: We Don’t Negotiate With Terrorists.Ronald Reagan is often attributed with coining the phrase “We don’t negotiate with terrorists,” though the exact etymology of that phrase is open for debate. Of course, that phrase isn’t always true, and every US President has violated this policy in one form or another, from Reagan himself working with the Taliban and Mujahedeen to prop Afghan opposition to Soviet incursion, to President Obama releasing Bowe Bergdahl, we have a pretty lengthy history of negotiating with terrorists.
But that can’t happen here. We can’t bend to the will of Team Bundy and let them do whatever they want. We’d be setting a dangerous precedent if we did. And allowing the Bundy clan to get away unscathed from their 2014 armed rebellion was what gave them the brass to carry out their 2016 terrorist siege.
What happens if we agree to the Bundy family’s demands and release the prisoners they want to see released? What will happen if this ends without countless arrests? The sky can’t be the limit, folks. They can’t have this end favorably for them. We can’t negotiate with terrorists or bend to their will.
What happens when the Bundy clan demands we impeach President Obama? Or seizes some other public place, with or without hostages, demanding Hillary drop out of the race? Or insists we get rid of the EPA, or that Donald Trump’s spray-tanned, racist ass be declared America’s next president without contest? Why the hell should we consider this situation to be any different from one of those extremes?
Treat Team Bundy like we treat other terrorist threats: Send them To Gitmo.Team Bundy consists entirely of terrorists. They need to be treated as such going forward, too. The US government should not treat this terrorist threat any differently than they would if DAESH were doing exactly the same thing, in exactly the same manner, to release an equal number of prisoners arrested for similar crimes.
I’m not suggesting the government should attack the buildings or level them with drone strikes. Instead, they need to fully surround the building and cut off all supplies from entering the building. Shut down all of the facility’s utilities (power, water, gas, etc.). Force these nuts to want to surrender, while minimizing the threat they pose to anyone else. And if they act out violently as a result, treat them no differently than we’d treat foreign terrorists pulling the same stunt.
When this ordeal is over, the Bundy family should be arrested, placed in Federal custody, and sent to Guantanamo Bay or some Gitmo-like facility. They’re terrorists, after all… they deserve nothing more and nothing less than to be treated like terrorists. I’ll bet their Donald Trump support would fizzle if they faced potential waterboarding, but hey… I digress.
The point I’m trying to make here is simple, and should hopefully be obvious to any Bundy supporters with a triple-digit IQ, if such individuals actually exist: The Bundy family and their “militia” are terrorists, carrying out a terrorist act. If you fancy them as heroes, you’re also a terrorist, or in the very least a terrorist sympathizer. I have as much respect for you as I do for a member of DAESH or Al Qaeda… and by that, I mean I have no respect for you at all. Why? Because I personally choose to not negotiate with terrorists. And with any luck, our government won’t negotiate with terrorists either.
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