Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions - Number Three

Question Terrorists only understand force and nothing will stop them except their destruction. How can we negotiate with terrorists?

Answer The underlying thinking behind this world-view (now embodied in the US by the neo-cons) is so simplistic, one wonders how otherwise intelligent people can spout such nonsense.

On further consideration, such thinking is quite clever and extermely useful. The oppossing force is labelled "terrorist" to create a moral framework within which our side consists of moral paragons and the other side is evil incarnate. Since they are utterly evil, negotiating or compromising with them, will taint us morally. No matter what the price, no matter how many people are killed, to talk to these people would mean to lose our very souls. Hence even though everything we do might appear to be immoral (killing innocent civilians, destroying homes and livelhoods etc etc), that is a mere illusion. Avoiding damnation by even being in contact with these evil creatures, makes all our actions righteous and virtuous.

I have written about Chris Hedges' amazing book, War is a Force that Gives us Meaning which covers this topic in depth. Living an illusion of moral purity might make us feel good. But in the real and messy world we actually live in, where it is not always so clear who is the angel or who is the devil, where all sides might have legitimate grievances, the only successful way out of conflict is compromise and a negotiated settlement. Sadly, it nearly always seems that the combatents reach this conclusion only after first taking the path of war. One wonders why so many people have to die, when the final result (or even a better one) could have been achieved so much faster and easier at a far lesser cost. This too has an answer. But I'll leave that for another post.

In the specific context of the current conflict, as I write, it seems that already the outline for ending the conflict is being put into place: strengthening the Lebanese government, a negotiated exchange of prisoners, Israel's withdrawel from the Sheeba Farms and the "disarming" of Hezbullah in the south. The same "outline" could have been put in place had Israel pressed for a diplomatic resolution instead of rushing to war.

Israel originally argued it needed to go to war to destroy Hezbullah, which, Israel claimed, is "a vital threat to Israel's existence." Later, when it was obvious this goal was not achievable, Israel claimed that it needed to continue the conflict as long as possible in order to "weaken" Hezbullah. Had Israel not gone to war, Hezbullah would have been weakened and further marginalized. Instead, Hezbulah emerges from this conflict far stronger with an even more central role in Lebanese affairs. Worse, from Israel's and the U.S.' perspective, Nasrallah has become a hero of the Arab world, and will likely become an influential player in the various intrigues and conflicts of this volatile region.

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