Well…Carlos wasn’t really the leader of an “organization”. Personnaly, I perceive him as being to terrorist groups what mercenaries are to regular armies.
The terrorists are the ones who deliberately target non-combatant civilians. Whoever has the resources to do the hunting and the justice-bringing will have to decide who fits the bill.
I’m not targetting anybody.
Who is the terrorist depends on your point of view. To a lot of the world, the US is the terrorist right now, and they’ll remember that the next time someone attacks us.
Whoa…you just blew my mind. Like, we ARE the enemy, man! 
You laugh, but we are, to millions of people.
And this is a country that still can’t figure out why 9/11 happened.
OK, but what’s your point? Do you disagree with something I said about terrorism?
Yes. Sometimes “terrorism” is justified.
And by ‘terrorism’ you mean ‘violence deliberately targetting non-combatant civilians’?
According to your logic, zwaldd, Nelson Mandela should still be in prison, along with the current leadership of ANC. As you probably know, ANC was on the US State Departments list of terrorists until the late eighties for blowing up stuff.
I think that msmith537 said it best, there has to bee something to negotiate about. Organizations like IRA, ANC, ETA, Hamas had/has “talkable” claims, the Red Brigades, Baader Meinhof, Islamic Jihad, etc, did/does not.
The problem with al Qaeda and their brothers is that the situation has gotten completely out of control. Initially they only wanted the US out of Saudi Arabia after GW1, and the communists out of Yemen. Now those arab kids, the second generation, hate the west with all they got, and we will likely have to pay for it, one way or the other.
So?
There was and remains plenty of negotiation with the IRA. Prisoner exchanges, ceasefires, and the legitimization of Sinn Fein- all achieved through negotiation. Indeed, the IRA might have come to heel much sooner if not for John Major’s insistence that they turn in all their weapons before negotiations began (thus requiring that they give up their stick without offering much of a carrot).
The Serbian Black Hand in the early part of this century was fairly major- more than 3,000 members- and was responsible for undoubtedly the most significant terrorist act of all time: the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (which kicked off WWI for those of you not taking notes). There was no negotiation of any sort; the Serbians, on the brink of collapsing under the pressure of the Austro-Hungarian invasion, arrested and executed the group’s leadership in 1914. That, then, was that.
The German RAF packed up its Semtex and Uzis in 1998, not because of negotiation, but because they’d become irrelevant. Marxism, it was pretty clear, probably wasn’t all that good an idea.
Aum Shinrikyo has apparently given up on terrorism since Shoko Ashara was arrested; they’re buying up property and starting businesses instead (and changed names). Again, no negotiation there.
There are only three groups of major terrorist organizations still carrying out violent operations- Greek anti-anyone who isn’t Greek in Greece groups, south American leftist rebels, and, of course, the myriad Islamic and pseudo-Islamic groups variously agitating against Israel, the West, existing Islamic leadership, and so forth.