Is it time to start talking to al-Qaeda?

[tater03]

No, I personally think there is no talking to fanatics like these. One of the reasons they are so hard to fight or talk with is because they think dying for their cause the best thing they could ever do. How do you talk to people that think that killing Americans or any other group of people that don't agree with them will get them into heaven where there will be 500 virgins waiting for them. Almost impossible if you ask me.

 

[Jim]

Adrian: You believe that jihadis won't negotiate because of that article? I couldn't come to that conclusion based on what I read. There will certainly be people who want to continue fighting the "infidels" no matter what, but the majority is surely interested in peace.

tater03: This is just my point. How do you know that they are fanatics and that they think and believe the things you have attributed to them? You don't know any jihadis, do you? You definitely don't know all the jihadis, so how could you possibly make a judgment about them? The need to negotiate is highlighted by the kind of statement you made. No doubt jihadis have similar preconceived (and incorrect) notions about Americans.

 

[dong]

To draw an extremely simplified analogy, talk first shoot later is the preferred policy, and I reckon Jim has a point. But we sure don't want another repeat of that concordat that Neville Chamberlain and Hitler signed on do we?

 

[sarah]

No, I personally think there is no talking to fanatics like these. One of the reasons they are so hard to fight or talk with is because they think dying for their cause the best thing they could ever do. How do you talk to people that think that killing Americans or any other group of people that don't agree with them will get them into heaven where there will be 500 virgins waiting for them. Almost impossible if you ask me.

Think about this from the other side of the looking glass for a minute, they are convinced that we are all of the things we are calling them. (Aside from the 500 virgins thing) they are using the same sort of hate-based tactics you seem to have tapped into here to breed distrust and contempt.
We all need to stop making assumptions about the other side, and try something else because the current methods of thinking are obviously not working.

 

[framed]

I pretty much completely agree with what Jim is saying. If you look at how twisted the word “terrorist” has gotten, it went from “people who hold hostages as bargaining chips” to “pretty much anyone who is willing to fight the US government by force”.

I think its obvious that these people we’re fighting have specific objectives and are using fear as a tool to try and achieve those objectives, they aren’t striving for fear as the end state. Think its not appropriate to use fear as a tool? Think only “terrorists” use fear? Consider the US’s “shock and awe” campaign of using bunker buster bombs (Remember the MOAB?) close to civilian targets as a demonstration of might and to encourage quick surrender.

I personally favor dropping the terror word "terror" from all our war propaganda. Normally I don't nitpick terminology, but the term terror/terrorist leads you to think that terror/fear is the end-all-be-all goal of the people we're fighting. If you watch the news you hear people saying “how can you have sympathy for these people? They’re terrorists!” as a justification to end the discussion. That way of talking and thinking precludes us as a nation from thinking about who these people are, what they want, and why they hate us so much.

The US has done a good job of pulling a bunch of innocent bystanders into the fight with Al-Qaeda, all in the name of fighting terror. Looking at the top page of my.yahoo I saw this story, putting the death toll in Iraq over 650,000 people. That’s in a country that didn't have an active WMD program or connections to 9/11. Who’s the terrorist again?

So yes, lets start talking to Al-Qaeda, or at least try understanding them at a level deeper than “they hate us, and they’re different and scary.” We need more than that to justify all the killing we’re doing, and the losses we’ve taken.

 

[hokeshel]

I don't think there is any talking to them. They are looking at us from an extreme religeous point of view. To try to reason with them would be trying to chane their religeon. Therer may be a few whose minds can be changed but, the majority. Think back, anytime we have tried to reason with people and convert them to our way of thinking, it has only made matters worse.

 

[dong]

Let's take stock:

A single-sentence summary of the positions being discussed here is:

1) Much of the population being placed under the ideological/religious umbrella, including members of al-Qaeda have been misconstrued as extremists as this is not reflective of the majority.

2) There is an undeniable, unresolvable fundamental conflict between certain parties that diplomacy will not solve.

It would be worth considering that the latter are the people who will be likely taking most action that we are concerned with.