Talking to terrorists

[Jefferson23]

Amelia Smith
Thursday, 02 July 2015

One week ago, Tunisian student Seifeddine Rezgai opened fire on tourists near Sousse, Tunisia, killing 38 people. On the same day, a man was beheaded in France and a bomb detonated in a Shia mosque in Kuwait killing 27. ISIS claimed responsibility for all three.

Amidst the media coverage that follows terrorist attacks such as these two schools of thought generally emerge: one asserts that terrorists are driven by religious ideology and the other that they are driven by political motives, principally western foreign policy. "All the evidence suggests that this is deeply political," says Richard Jackson, Deputy Director of the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Otago in New Zealand. "It's the conclusion of all the serious scholars I'm aware of that in particular the invasion of Iraq was the single most radicalising event for militants across the Middle East and in European and Western countries."

"That makes complete sense," he continues. "Because if we look at this kind of terrorism it wasn't around in the same form and the same level or even close to the same extent 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. Islam's been around for hundreds of years... but this is a very modern phenomenon and it's very, very connected to the politics of the Middle East, particularly to the invasions to Guantanamo, to Abu Ghraib torture, to drone strikes and so on."

"What you've got to remember is that the west has killed 1.3 million people in Iraq. That's likely to drive any reasonable person into a rage and cause immense grievance."

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/resources/interviews/19616-talking-to-terrorists

[bemildred]

1. Yes.

And one can easily see how divisive politics, so popular these days, plays right into the hands of someone looking to foment a revolution in the manner described.

And why with the ham-handed reactions of guys like al Sisi and The King one can predict trouble without being in any way able to predict what will happen specifically.

But it's not just the Middle East. We have turned much of it into a perfect medium for this sort of trouble to grow in, it's true, but people are coming in from all over the place, it's global. We have our own home-grown terrorists too. Only cohesive societies are safe, like he says, they know what to do, they know what matters. They don't let fear make them stupid.

[Jefferson23]

2. Unfortunately that's what we are seeing, and there is no question the violence, the victims

are living a hell with no sense of relief in sight. I found the authors understanding of the situation
to be thoughtful and even if you're of the persuasion that you'll never see any good in arranging
a process for a dialogue..you should consider it anyway..what is there to lose? This is a mess
and you can't kill everybody to solve it..you'll only make it worse.

When you break an entire country down as we did in Iraq, I would like to see the
playbook on how you fix it. I am not one to have ever been inclined to give any
president a pass, including Obama..but I fear this disaster from Bush has opened
the door for a lasting and severely negative change in the ME for the foreseeable
future.

*"What you've got to remember is that the west has killed 1.3 million people in Iraq. That's likely to drive any reasonable person into a rage and cause immense grievance."

[bemildred]

3. I am always in favor of dialog (assuming you can arrange a safe venue for all parties).

If you don't want dialog, then you do want war, whether you think so or not.

But that requires a certain measure of trust, and there is not much trust to be had, and generally that lack of trust is well founded in previous deceits, so yeah, ...

[Jefferson23]

4. I agree and will only add one needs to accept a level of responsibility when making that effort

from all involved..which requires one getting past the desire to "win".