We Should Negotiate With Terrorists. We Always Have.
Michael Tomasky
Who started We dont negotiate with terrorists? The president who did just that more than any other. Lets stop this reactionary nonsense.
Im sure by now you have heard someone on TV say, of the five Taliban returnees, that we were going to have to give them back anyway, on cessation of hostilities. What you may not have heard said quite so often is
why that is the case. But the reason is crucially important, because it brings to the fore one of the great hypocrisies under which the United States is forced toor has chosen tolabor, and one we should do away with posthaste: this ridiculous idea that We dont negotiate with terrorists.
With respect to the release of the hirsute quintet, heres the deal. We declared war on the Taliban in 2001. We, the Bush administration, did this, although I confess I supported that war (never Iraq, though). Once we declared war on them and invaded their country, the rules of war applied. That means prisoners taken arent hostages. They are prisoners of war. And prisoners of war are accorded certain rights, some of which we violated but never mind that, and they are returned, usually at wars end but sometimes before, through a process of
well, negotiation. Its been this way since warfare began. And aside from prisoner exchanges, there is of course the matter of ending hostilities in the first place. That also must be negotiated.
We alsothat is, President George W. Bush, by executive order
declared the Taliban a terrorist organization in 2002. The group is not on the State Department list, but a presidential declaration has the same legal standing and force.
And so, the conundrum of illogic that these two declarations created: The Taliban are both an enemy combatant with which we absolutely must negotiate, and a terrorist group with which we absolutely must not negotiate.
Obviously, those two realities exist in tension. How do we resolve it? You might say by not declaring war on them, and it has to be said, in retrospect, that sounds like a damn good idea. It should never, ever, ever be forgotten, while these Republicans bang on at President Obama for everything he does, that he was put in this position only because we started fighting this 14-year warthe longest in our history; we defeated Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo in less than one-third the time
with fewer than 2,000 soldiers on the ground. And weexcuse me, wedid that because our brilliant leaders knew at that point that they wanted to save the bigger numbers for taking out Saddam Hussein. So yes, in hindsight, no war in Afghanistan, at least as it was waged by the geniuses who created this world-historic catastrophe, sounds a good thought.
more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/06/we-should-negotiate-with-terrorists-we-always-have.html