Incommunicado
As expected Telstra have screwed up my request, so I won't be getting my account transferred until later next week. It's a real drag.
Talking To Terrorists
I had a conversation with Chris last night and he illuminated some interesting ideas.
It's been a bit over a week Since Philippines President Gloria Arroyo 'backed down', so to speak, in agreeing to withdraw her troops 3 days earlier in exchange for the life of the truck driver. Since then there has been a torrent of criticism over that move saying she gave in to terrorists. Well, it seems to me that that while she did do so, all she did was give 3 days to terrorists. What exactly will the terrorists do in the 3-day absence of the Philippines Military? In fact what did they do in the 3 days? Nothing more than they were doing before, I believe. So the symbolic victory of the terrorist kidnap cause hasn't exactly delivered a massive windfall for them.
Isn't it possible to conceive of Arroyo's move as a tactical retreat on the axis of symbolic capital? In fact, why are we so locked into a rigid position of "we don't negotiate with Terrorists"? It is conceivable to say it would be near-impossible to talk to the Al Qaeda group, as made clear by the fact that the point of their terrorism was an act of war; unlike most other terrorist agencies that claim responsibilities and post up demands. This was evinced in the 'September 11' attacks where the death and damage inflicted by the act was the very point of the act; not an act that was meant to terrorise a governments into negotiating. No demands were made, and everybody said this was a new form of terrorism. Actually, it was simply terror as war.
The significant difference between the Al Qaeda Modus Operandi and the Iraqi Kidnappers' M.O. seems to us that the kidnappers made a demand. So if you are Gloria Arroyo, what would you make of this? I would venture to say that she recognised that whoever the kidnappers were, they were not the kind of terrorists you *couldn't* talk to; and so she made a deal. While the rigid and petrified sloganeers have called Arroyo all manners of things, maybe we should be pondering the positive significance of what she did?
- Art Neuro
A Gen-X View of the Universe.
"The Issue Isn't Pussy, It's Monkey" - from The Right Stuff
Film, Cinema, Movies, TV, Music, Rock
2004/07/31
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Blog Archive
-
▼
2004
(342)
-
▼
July
(39)
- This is one of the images taken from the last flig...
- Incommunicado As expected Telstra have screwed up ...
- Laziness Can Burn Your Neck Here is a page of str...
- Laying It Down Derek Zumsteg writes for Baseball ...
- Do We Really 'Need Another Seven Astronauts'? ...O...
- More of the Same Just a quick update on the Ansar...
- Okay, I've Seen It Now 'Fahrenheit 9/11' proved t...
- What Kind of God Invents Cancer? Okay it's got not...
- What It Takes To Get A Woman Out ofYour Life Here...
- It's Been a Long Time Mercury, But Here We Come T...
- Star Wars Episode III: The Title Has Been Announce...
- Some Thoughts On Our National Trauma Sometimes I ...
- Mo' Moneyball Interviews Check these out. Michael ...
- I'm Moving Again Not this blog mind you. I'm qui...
- Saturn Rings in vivid natural colour - Art Neuro
- Cassini Sends Back Picture of Rings of Saturn We ...
- Ansari X Prize Update In case you forgot all abou...
- It Was 35 Years Ago Today That Captain Armstrong ...
- Just For Fun - The Luna(r) Decade Here's an idea....
- A Hairy Kind of Question From the Jack Kerouac Mem...
- Score of the Day While the New York Yankees went ...
- You Tell'em Arnie! This has very little to do wit...
- Holding up the Tent When something like this gets...
- A Victim of One's Own Success The American Gray W...
- This is also borderline softcore porn with clothes...
- Looks like a canto-pop CD cover. But Why?- Art Neuro
- She looks like she's selling a product, but where ...
- This one's borderline softcore porn, but why?- Art...
- Well, what do you think?- Art Neuro
- The Annual Art Neuro Critical Challenge 2004 I re...
- Scramjet City NASA is readying the X-43a for Mach...
- All-Star Game 48 hours after I have a dust-up wit...
- Apocalypse When? In the recent round to select ne...
- Orlando Hernandez, a.k.a. 'El Duque' Check out t...
- Rolling With the Punches This is cool. You read t...
- We Are Not Alone That is, mostly in our dissent i...
- Absence I keep meaning to write something while th...
- And Thar She Blows Cassini finally got there (as ...
- Space Elevator Talks Begin Yes, that's right folk...
-
▼
July
(39)
7 comments:
I don't think the depiction of action acurately reflects the intention of the terorists.
Terrorists are not active because they are evil. They are not active because they are stupid, although often porly educated .. never heard of Dickens. They are not likely to be active because they feel righteous. They are active because they feel can be effective as a terrorist.
Giving legitimacy to their actions feed the impulse and the lie. For the protection of all, it is essential that those considering the mechanism of terrorism not be allowed to believe that it is effective.
Further, terroroism is effective, and can topple a democracy, as the Vietnam War shows. The poorly conieved, well executed film of 'Billy Jack' is a good example of how feeding a lie can create a truth. Few people know today that events depicted in the movie did not happen. Hollywood spun a story.
I saw Natalie Portman the other morning in interview. I can't say that the scenes from an upcoming film were nude, because she wore a top. For the interview she sported a TShirt supporting Kerry for President. This illustrates something for me. People that oppose the opposition of terrorists, believing the incumbent power brokers to be corrupt or compromised, forget their heroes are as well. But those heroes may be less then effective.
Well actually making demands and being the kind of terrorists one *can* talk to does not help. The point is that if the tactic works - we will see more of it. We learned this to our lasting pain in the 60s & 70s when there was a culture of (mostly Marxist) terrorist groups hyjacking planes, taking hostages etc.
Only when all or most countries took the "NEVER negotiate with hostage takers" line that it finally died down... Remember?
Yes, well, the problem with the rigid, none of us talks to terrorists line is that it opened the door to terror as war. In other words, down the line, they just escalated. Now, it seems to me that maybe there are 2 types of terrorsits out there. The ones you can talk to and ones you can't talk to. After all, on the basis of talking Arroyo was able to save a life. That's a concrete result compared to the hypothetical lives she's endangering, and it must be said who are realistically speaking, already endangered.
IOW, she saw a flexibility our ideological position about terrorism didn't see and still fails to see. I think that should be rated. I don't know what positives can be drawn out of this, but 'We Don't Talk To You So You Have No Legitimacy' is no deterrence of terrorism or any kind of positive solution at all.
In some ways I think what really knocked down the 60s-70s high-jackings was that those guys never got anything they asked for anyway, so they simply quit on a losing gambit after many significant failures.
If we could eradiate the terrosist of this world, great; but the plain fact seems to be that we probably can't eradicate these terrorists. Doesn't that fact alone necessitate a negotiation in the interaction beyond the bombs and rhetoric?
I mean, are our minds so closed to the possibility of talking the enemy down? Is a permanent Defcon 1 a good position to sit on for us?
I don't know how many 'types' of terrorists there are. I know that the only people worth negotiating with are not terrorists, There are many examples.
Bobby Sands was a terrorist killer. Negotiations failed.
That IRA spokesman Gerry Adams failed to find peace when negotiated with.
Yassir Arafat failed to find negotiated peace when offered lions share of demands.
Negotiations 'worked well' with Saddam over a ten year period, or his sons before they sacrificed themselves on principle.
Negotiations 'worked well' with Nrth Korea over 50 years.
Negotiations failed at the Achille Lauro
When Israel were talked down over the seven day war, it wasn't terrorists who talked for Golda Meir
When the US pulled out of Vietnam, it wasn't terrorists who spoke for Nixon or Ford.
When US pulled out of Iraq in 1st gulf conflict it wasn't because terrorists had backed down.
There is no current example of terrorism negotiations that work.
Gloria Arroyo's effort resulted in an escalation and broadening of attacks.
US 'pulled out of Fallujah' but attacks continued.
Spain voted dumb but was still threatend, as were limp buddies such as France and Germany.
While I accept the precepts of the cult of the 'Free Thinker,' I don't accept the kind of illogic that will accept defeat over the important issue of 'life, though tenuous, being sacred, and should not be taken lightly.'
It was impossible to negotiate with the IRA; that's why the Ulster unionists negotiated with Sinn Fein. So, no, they did negotiate with the 'terroris' enemy. The result is a tenuous ceasefire which is still holding; a political settlement.
Yasser Arrafat finally, eventually came to the negotiating table after years of resistance, and got the Oslo accord. Since then, the State fo Israel essentially changed governments in order not to honour those agreements and Yasser has failed to rein in all Palestinian factions, leading to th complete collapse f that deal. However, they did negotiate and got the Oslo accord AND the Nobel Peace Prize.
now, you can argue the Israeli cause all you like, but it is true that they whacked Prime Minister Rabin who signed the Oslo Accord because they didn't like it and promptly voted in Natanyahu followed by Sharon in order not to live up to the Oslo Accord. Whatever evil shit the PLO or Hezbollah have done (which are plenty), Israel did welch on Oslo just as much as the Palestinians have. To argue otherwise is just one-eyed or partisan.
South Africa under White Rule for years made it a tennet that they too wouldn't negotiate with 'terrorists', designating the ANC as terrorists. Yet in the end, they did talk to Nelson Mandela and negotiated a way out of Apertheit. They couldn't have avoided more bloodshed than happened had it not been for the likes of Mandela, Mbeki and Bishop Desmond Tutu. I might remind you that the great Bishop said, "It is easy to make peace with friends. The true challenge is making peace with enemies and making it work". Well, I think they did talk to the terrorists in the end and got somethig better for it and the deal has stuck.
There is nothing *illogical* about all of this. When you say, "We refuse to negotiate with terrorists", you're essentially saying in cyberpunk terms, "our crew is going without a sleaze. Killers, Jockeys, Net-heads and Techrats are welcome, but no Sleazes." - You know full well where/how a party like that goes.
So again, the point still stands that it's not *if* you negotiate, but *what* you negotiate for and what you give up in return.
The terrorist groups like it or lump it, do what they do for politics and politics being the art of the possible, horse-trading HAS to come back into it.
If that's still illogical to you, I can't help you understand any better why Gloria Arroyo might have been the superior operator. Even so, let's just put into perspective what her country is about:
They have rebels who do the kidnapping routine all the time. She's used to having to deal with kidnapers. She probably knew she'd take a hit for it from demagogic ideologues like you, but in exchange secured the safety of her countryman. Don't poo-poo that fact;
They have something like 1/8th of the population living overseas, earning money as maids and servants, copping untold abuse from their employers across Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur, and even in India. They're doing it tough. And as the leader of such a country, the onus is on her to make a point that those people are being cared for by their government. Each and every one of those folks taking their weekly lunch outtisde of Central Station in HK can rest assured that their government will come looking for them, securing their safety in untold situations. And if you don't think that means something in light of their domestic politics, I don't think you've any respect for those people or that country.
Your an artist when it comes to arguement.
Well, Mr. Weasel, not to quibble too much but I did have the same response to Arroyo's line as you did when she did it. Then, I got to be thinking about what exactly concrete sdhe gave up, as opposed to giving up the untold mataphysical things she allegedly gave up. And suddenly it didn't sit quite well with me to say, well, those 3 days represent a great retreat from the coalition of the willing. I doubt you think it is a great retreat in real-politik terms either. So the question had to be asked, 'what good did those 3 days do for those kidnappers or any other terror cell?'
You can see that a lot *could* be achieved in the absence of the Philippines Military machine for 3 days; but they have to be in a position to capitalise on it, which they necessarily might not have been. It's a logisitcal issue more than anything else. And even then, it's not like the Philippine Military were even a great blip on the terrorist radar; they probably caught the driver hopibng it would be American and wer proably suprised he was merely* a Philippino. We don't know, but it does reflect on the relative ease with which they let him go.
So then I had to ask, 'what good was the three days if any at all, but symbolic'?
that's all. No tricks, or art-of-argument stuff; just role-playing it through. :)
Post a Comment