When It Pays to Talk to Terrorists
An interesting article about realpolitiks from the NYT. Also, please keep in mind Rep. Peter King (R), the Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee who also sits on the Financial Services Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence actively supported the Irish republican movement in the 1980s, and frequently traveled to Northern Ireland to meet with senior members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, many of whom he counted as friends and lobbied on their behalf.
So keep that in mind when you want to sloganeer with ‘we should never talk to terrorists” pablum.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/opinion/when-it-pays-to-talk-to-terrorists.html?ref=opinion
When It Pays to Talk to Terrorists
By PAUL THOMAS CHAMBERLIN
Published: September 3, 2012
TOMORROW marks the 40th anniversary of the 1972 Munich massacre in which Palestinian militants killed 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team. For many Westerners, the incident was the most chilling example of international terrorism before 9/11.
Munich — and the lessons learned from it — played a pivotal role in shaping American views on terrorism: Terrorists were bloodthirsty fanatics bent on spreading destruction and anarchy. Negotiation with such extremists was futile and immoral. The only acceptable response was to crush them.
This was essentially America’s response to terrorism for the next four decades as the frequency and ferocity of attacks rose. As terrible as Munich was, the response from President Richard M. Nixon did nothing to help the situation; rather it played into the hands of the most militant Palestinian factions, ensuring that the violence would continue.
Most scholars of the Palestine Liberation Organization now agree that attacks like the one in Munich were designed by Yasir Arafat’s rivals to shift power away from moderates and into the hands of more radical factions. The string of attacks attributed to the Palestinian Black September Organization between November 1971 and March 1973, of which Munich was the most dramatic, were actually an indication of the rifts within the P.L.O. While events like Munich seized headlines, a growing number of moderates within the P.L.O. — most notably Arafat — were putting out feelers about the prospect of a two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute..
