Thursday, September 14, 2006

You Can't Negotiate With Terrorists

Neither can you appease them. But I'll get to that in a moment.

I have some very vocal liberals in one of my classes; they're fairly strong personalities, though, so I think they'll be able to tolerate the 8x10 of Ronald Reagan I have on the wall over my desk. I thought I'd make a point to them today, though, and I was certainly able to corner them.

"Do you guys think I'm flexible? Do you think I'm open-minded? Do you think you can change my mind? Do you think you can negotiate with me?"

"No!" came back the replies.

"OK. And I'm not even crazy enough to fly airplanes into buildings. If you don't think you can negotiate with me, what makes you think you can negotiate with people who will fly airplanes into buildings?"

Point made.

Now let's change the subject to France. You know, the cheese-eating surrender monkeys. The ones who secretly dealt with Saddam in order to undermine our efforts before the invasion. The ones who refused to participate in the invasion. The anti-Semitic ones who constantly look down their noses at the US whilst siding against Israel and with the Palestinian Authority and Hezbollah. The ones who haven't lifted a finger against Islamic Terrorists.

Not enough. The Associated Press reports that Al-Qaeda has allied itself with an anti-French terrorist organization!

As Charles says at the end of his piece on the topic:

Poor France. They just can’t win for surrendering.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

France just keeps sounding better and better. :)

Amerloc said...

At least the French didn't give him freakin' silver spurs.

Onyx said...

I loved it! If the kids can't get a teacher whom they know to compromise, why would they feel that terrorists would compromise. Good job, you got to them on their level!

Anonymous said...

Some terrorists negotiate, though. I'm not saying that I like them or anything, but you should recognize facts when they exist.

Darren said...

Anonymous, that is the weakest argument I've heard in quite some time.

When the people we're fighting show even the slightest inclination to negotiating in good faith (and not merely using negotiation to buy time), I'll be sure to post about it.

Don't hold your breath that it will hapen in the near future.

Anonymous said...

I'm coming to the conclusion that otherwise sane people believe in this this appeasement crap because they (1) do not understand fanaticism and (2) they are deathly afraid, like they feel they're looking into the abyss and have to turn away in fear. Denial in other words.

Which is not good for our future.

Ellen K said...

One point, you can't negotiate with someone in good faith, if their own religion says that they dont' have to honor agreements made with nonbelievers. That is a tenet of law in some versions of Islamic law. It's like the the old saying from "Bedazzled" (the good one, with Dudley Moore and Peter Cooke)'Everything I tell you is a lie, including this." If the "negotiators" tell you That they will honor this or that deadline, how can you really have any support for the agreement. It's what they have been using to fight at will for centuries.

Anonymous said...

It wasn't an argument. I was merely pointing out that there have been successful negotiations.

Anonymous said...

You compared yourself to the terrorists?

Good Analogy!

You’ll be real proud to be an American when we win back the White House and make our country more like Europe, winning back France’s love!

Darren said...

Actually, Anonymous, I didn't compare myself to terrorists. Read it again, this time while *thinking*.

And your last sentence--the fact that you consider that a good thing is all I need to know about you. Well, that, and the fact that you couldn't understand something as simple as what I wrote.

Anonymous said...

Yikes these posts just keep getting more and more heated. How I long for the good old days when people could discuss politics in a civilized manner without resorting to insults about their opponents intelligence, beliefs, or life styles. Wait when exactly was that? I'm not sure. Anyway I of course have to do my bit and stnad up for the French since I know no one else here will and everyone needs someone to defend them against slanderous comments.
1) Perhaps the most important thing: back off on the cheese! The French make very fine cheese, some of which I am sure most people have enjoyed.
2) Where is your proof that the French "dealt secretly with Sadam" prior to the invasion. Oh wait do you mean the way the US gave weapons to Sadam to fight Iran which he later used to kill Kurds?
3)They refused to partcipate in an invasion which dozens of other major countries also refused to. They were the majority, not some hell-bent minority.
3) Clearly anyone who does not blindly support Israel is obviously siding with the terrorists. Kind of like the "you are either entirely with us and agree with everything we do or you are our enemies".
I confess myself disappointed Mr. Miller. Your blog used to be fair and accurate. When you resort to making prejudiced generalizations I can no longer respect it as a forum for discussion.

Darren said...

We openly sold Saddam weapons during the early 80s, as he was an effective foil against--the Iranians! That was under the "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" belief structure of Realpolitik.

As for the French, their duplicity in the Oil For Food scandal is well-documented. I'll agree, they may make good cheese, though. But have you ever been to a cheese-making facility? Have you smelled one? Ewww! (The one I went to was Dutch, but I assume they smell similar in France!)

Israel doesn't lob rockets from population centers into the population centers of its neighbors--I don't understand how anyone can refuse to accept that the Arabs do that, or believe that Israel shouldn't respond to it. I've said it plenty of times, and the truth of it is so clear that people shouldn't argue it (but many will anyway)--if the Arabs lay down their weapons, everyone there lives in peace; if the Israelis lay down their weapons, Israel ceases to exist.

And if someone speaks like an idiot, they deserve to be called on it. It's unfortunate you don't appreciate this forum anymore--you're a welcome (albeit liberal!) voice of calm here. Feel free to come back any time you like.

Anonymous said...

Few would advocate trying to negotiate with the likes of those who flew the planes into the Twin Towers and Pentagon. That said, we and our allies can and have negotiated with, and at times directly supported, various unsavory nations, groups and movements--terrorists whether wholly-owned state operations, simply state-sponsored, or independent retail. A few of the many examples that immediately come to mind: the IRA, Mobutu Sese Seko, an array of military and other dictators in Latin America, Iran (arms for hostages), the Contras...Just to address the implication that all this is old news, justified under the new obsolete “enemy of my enemy” Cold War mindset, very recently we’ve been working with various war loads in Somalia, negotiating in fits and starts with a range of parties in Sudan, and it appears did some wheeling and dealing with the Iraqi insurgent group that kidnapped the FOX journalists http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/08/report_us_secre.html. It seems that most nations assert they don’t negotiate with terrorists and terrorist-supporting nations, yet from time to time, most do.

And as long as they keep bottling champagne and beaujolais, I say vive le France!