We will not negotiate with terrorists

[Tachikaze]

Saying "we will not negotiate" I agree is foolish. If the terrorists have valid claims which would hurt nobody to allow them to carry out, there's no reason why negotiation should be refused. Then it's state terrorism to deny it to them. Especially nowadays when the word "terrorist" is abused and given to anyone appropriate during a short moment, to use as a political tool much like the witch accusations during the period of witchhunt in Europe, it's important to make sure that not all methods of dealing with real terrorists without thinking it through are extend to include these new people who are incorporated in the terrorist concept.

However if the terrorists say "we'll blow up this plane unless you give us, personally, 10 million dollars" not negotiating can be a very good principle. Or if they say "you must all have a communist leadership in your country or we'll blow you all up", then not negotiating is also appropriate.

In all cases where the alleged terrorists don't openly state what their entire list of demands and political program and ultimate goals are, asking them to state them can only be a good thing. If it turns out their claims are impossible to meet, negotations can always be ended. But if you refuse to even negotiate as far as to finding out what they want, then you're only foolish IMO. If they answer they won't tell you what their demands and goals are, then they've made negotiations impossible. If you answer them you won't tell them what your demands and goals are, then you've made negotiations impossible. If only one of the sides refuse negotiations that side clearly puts the ethics and moral in the hands of the opponent.

The "refuse to negotiate" principle is most likely a derivate of the old historical prestige-vs-rebels principle employed by monarchs all over the world before the democratic systems started being incorporated in western countries. However emplying a total refusal of negotiation in these modern cases would be a clear misunderstanding of how that principle works. It's essential to never make rebels, freedom fighters or terrorists feel that their violence achieved an improvement for them. This means it's usually not appropriate to just after an act of terror negotiate, but the principle also encourages negotiation with people who are on the verge of becoming terrorists and haven't yet used violence or threatened with it. The things needed to minimize terrorism, rebellions or similar are:
1. make sure a for the people better life isn't given shortly after they used violence to protest against their life situations. This is to not encourage more rebellions because previous ones were successful
2. remove the incentive to rebellion by giving the violent people what they want, if the claims are fair and possible to meet. 3. still be prepared to fight defensively in the cases where the claims of the opponent aren't fair or possible to meet.
3. establish open and safe channels for the rebels, terrorists and freedom fighters so they can anonymously communicate their discontent peacefully. Encourage the usage of this medium over the use of violent protests as a means of expressing your opinion. This is to allow the leaders to in any way find out about discontent before it goes as far as to violence.
4. make sure treatment of terrorists, rebels and freedom fighters is just and fair, and not handled as a genocide terror killing spree, so that ordinary people don't feel they might be target to gestapo style raids.
5. make sure the leaders really listen to the communication channel carefully and try to adapt their politics, and don't abuse the communication channel for gestapo style actions. In cases when it seems impossible to meet the demands over the communication channel, the leaders should list what was impossible to carry out in practise and why, and ask the people to find a better solution to the problem. If they can't find a better solution one can avoid violence by making it clear that there are no better solutions to the problem, and that who holds the leadership therefore doesn't matter.

I like this. It saves me from writing a similar post.

On my own part, I have to say I'm tired of Bush's absolutes and ultimatums ("You're either with us or against us", etc.). What a child.