# Why doesn't the US Negotiate with Terrorists? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 19, 2013, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-the-us-negotiate-with-terrorists/658720 "2013-05-19T03:31:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-the-us-negotiate-with-terrorists/658720/41 "2013-05-20T04:16:27Z")
Well, we should never get that bad, but we should probably use the Soviet tactic Friedman cited once, when terrorists had the temerity to take Soviet hostages in Lebanon. And notice they didn’t screw with the Soviets anymore after that. There’s also the “I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you” effect. THe US is a tempting target because our response tends to be measured and often only feeds terrorist recruiting. Notice they don’t try that crap with China, an infidel nation that also oppresses Muslims. A Chinese response to a 9/11 scale attack would be swift and vengeful and probably fall heavily on Chinese Muslims, but not be limited to them. The Soviets managed to avoid being victims of Muslim terrorism before Chechnya because their responses to it were stronger than ours and more vicious. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-the-us-negotiate-with-terrorists/658720/42 "2013-05-20T05:32:55Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Well, we should never get that bad, but we should probably use the Soviet tactic Friedman cited once, when terrorists had the temerity to take Soviet hostages in Lebanon. And notice they didn’t screw with the Soviets anymore after that. > > There’s also the “I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you” effect. THe US is a tempting target because our response tends to be measured and often only feeds terrorist recruiting. Notice they don’t try that crap with China, an infidel nation that also oppresses Muslims. A Chinese response to a 9/11 scale attack would be swift and vengeful and probably fall heavily on Chinese Muslims, but not be limited to them. The Soviets managed to avoid being victims of Muslim terrorism before Chechnya because their responses to it were stronger than ours and more vicious. Nah. They avoided the Soviet Union as long as the Soviets tended to either stay home or support their causes. And, as soon as the Russians decided to get involved, the Russians faced more terrorism than we have. It waxes and wanes, but there is more to it than simply claiming that Russians know how to treat terrorists. The Russian ruthlessness in Chechnya has not really prevented anti-Russian terrorism. Similarly, terrorists leave China alone because China has not ever bothered to go stir up trouble in Muslim countries. The persecution of Muslims in Communist China pretty much began and ended with the Cultural Revolution, (that persecuted everyone), and ended before the current Islamist political movement began to spread. While China has been recently engaged in suppression of the Uyghurs, that suppression is seen–on both sides–as more of an ethnic/nationalist conflict than one of religious persecution. The Hui, for example, have been integrated more easily into China’s growing economy and do not feel the same level of persecution. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-the-us-negotiate-with-terrorists/658720/43 "2013-05-20T06:07:04Z")
Perhaps, but I still think it’s an “outrunning the bear” thing. China pisses them off LESS, but they are still infidels and still mistreat Muslims. They are just seen for now as less of a problem and even crazy people know how to prioritize a little. Plus I do think there’s the fear element. Chechnya after all is also an ethnic/nationalist thing, yet foreigners are active in that conflict. And I think that’s in part due to Russia’s weakness. Is there any doubt that Brezhnev wouldn’t have crushed the Chechnyans ruthlessly fast? ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-the-us-negotiate-with-terrorists/658720/44 "2013-05-20T06:12:45Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Well, we should never get that bad, but we should probably use the Soviet tactic Friedman cited once, when terrorists had the temerity to take Soviet hostages in Lebanon. And notice they didn’t screw with the Soviets anymore after that. Under Bush we took a taxi to the dark side and that hasn’t happened. Beyond that the delightful story you’re alluding to where the Soviets kidnapped some guy, tortured and killed him and then sent him back with a knife stuck through his heart and a note attached to it may satisfy certain atavistic instincts, the idea that it prevented further terrorist techniques is utterly bullshit. In fact, while the Russian have been lucky enough to not suffer anything remotely close to 911, that’s more do to luck than anything else, and they’ve faced far more terrorist attacks from Muslim radicals than the US as Moscow movie goers and Russian schoolchildren can attest. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-the-us-negotiate-with-terrorists/658720/45 "2013-05-20T06:19:34Z")
The Russians have, but the Soviets didn’t get messed with much. And neither did these Arab dictators until they looked vulnerable. They’ve withstood the tide of history this long through the efficient application of violence and terror. Besides, if terrorism “works”, then it works, period. It doesn’t work for them and not for us. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-the-us-negotiate-with-terrorists/658720/46 "2013-05-20T06:42:27Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The Russians have, but the Soviets didn’t get messed with much. And neither did these Arab dictators until they looked vulnerable. They’ve withstood the tide of history this long through the efficient application of violence and terror. The Shah and Sadat would certainly question the your first point(yes, the Shah wasn’t an Arab but that’s beside the point). It also didn’t save the rulers of Syria, Egypt and Iraq who got overthrown by the various Arab nationalist movements and Hafez Assad and and his brother Rifaat came within a whisker of getting kicked to the curb in the early 80s and Hafez was easily, the most ruthless of all Middle Eastern dictators except maybe for Saddam Hussein, who had constant insurrections throughout his rule, including one terrorist/insurgent bombing that almost killed his President. Respectfully, I think you made some conclusions without looking at the facts rather than drawing conclusions from the facts. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-the-us-negotiate-with-terrorists/658720/47 "2013-05-20T06:55:12Z")
Not at all. Putting down uprisings doesn’t mean that you never have uprisings again. It just effectively ends the current uprising. Whereas the West has been tolerating terrorism for 50 years now as a nuisance. I guarantee that the day it stops being a nuisance and starts becoming a truly existential threat, we will deal with it with all the power we have available. We made a pretty fanatical people practically give up their religion due to the destruction we inflicted on them. It can happen again. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-the-us-negotiate-with-terrorists/658720/48 "2013-05-20T06:58:29Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > We made a pretty fanatical people practically give up their religion due to the destruction we inflicted on them. It can happen again. What are you referring to. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-the-us-negotiate-with-terrorists/658720/49 "2013-05-20T07:23:06Z")
The Japanese. State Shinto was used to whip up the people into a nationalist frenzy. The American occupation stamped it out and made the emperor declare that he was not divine. Today, there are estimated to be only 4 million actual practitioners of Shinto in a nation of over 100 million. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-the-us-negotiate-with-terrorists/658720/50 "2013-05-20T07:37:07Z")
Equating state shinto with global radical islam is several kinds of weird. Not the least bit because it wasn’t so much a deeply held religious belief among the Japanese people as much as it was a form of ceremonial deism. As for the disestablishment of state shinto, it had more to do with the forceful separation of church and state in Japan made possible not because of any particular destruction, but because the state had become an absolute puppet of the US and its culture (itself, granted, thanks to making things go boom first). I’d like to know which state or nation you’d intend to nuke to separate it from Islam, exactly. Also a succinct explanation on how it’d end radical Islam-influenced terrorism. > [@](#): > > Chechnya after all is also an ethnic/nationalist thing, yet foreigners are active in that conflict. And I think that’s in part due to Russia’s weakness. > > Is there any doubt that Brezhnev wouldn’t have crushed the Chechnyans ruthlessly fast? Wait, you think the Russians have been using kid gloves in \*Chechnya \*? You ever seen before/after pictures of Grozny ? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-the-us-negotiate-with-terrorists/658720/51 "2013-05-20T07:43:08Z")
Of course the Russians have been brutal. but also ineffective. There’s a reason Chechnya got a good rebellion going only after the Soviet Union fell. And Stalin did face a Chechnyan rebellion. This is what he did: The Chechens again rose up against Soviet rule during the 1940s, resulting in the deportation of the entire ethnic Chechen and Ingush populations to the Kazakh SSR (later Kazakhstan) and Siberia in 1944 near the end of World War II.[17][18] Joseph Stalin and others argued this was punishment to the Chechens for providing assistance to the German forces. Although the German front never made it to the border of Chechnya, an active guerrilla movement threatened to undermine the Soviet defenses of the Caucasus (noted writer Valentin Pikul claims that while the city of Grozny was preparing for a siege in 1942, all of the air bombers stationed on the Caucasian front had to be re-directed towards quelling the Chechen insurrection instead of fighting Germans at the siege of Stalingrad). The Chechens were allowed to return to their “own ethnic land” after 1956 during de-Stalinization under Nikita Khrushchev. > **[Chechnya | Soviet rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chechnya#Soviet_rule)** > > During Soviet rule, Chechnya and Ingushetia were combined to form the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. In the 1930s, Chechnya was flooded with many Ukrainians fleeing from a famine. As a result, many of the Ukrainians settled in Chechen-Ingush ASSR permanently and survived the famine. > Although over 50,000 Chechens and over 12,000 Ingush were fighting against Nazi Germany on the front line (including Heroes of the USSR: Abukhadzhi Idrisov, Khanpasha Nuradilov, Movlid Visa So while the Russians are pretty brutal, the Chechens have seen worse. It’s amazing how the risk of losing your ENTIRE COUNTRY can make you calm the F’k down. Now as far as Islam itself goes, if it ever came to a global war against Islamic states, you can bet we’d seperate ISlam and state as the first step to preventing a future war. The next step would be to identify radical Islam as the cause of the war, much like we fingered state Shinto as the cause of the war with Japan. And the leaders would have to broadcast to all their subjects that they were led astray by their religious leaders. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-the-us-negotiate-with-terrorists/658720/52 "2013-05-20T08:02:04Z")
> [@](#): > > Now as far as Islam itself goes, if it ever came to a global war against Islamic states, you can bet we’d seperate ISlam and state as the first step to preventing a future war. The next step would be to identify radical Islam as the cause of the war, much like we fingered state Shinto as the cause of the war with Japan. And the leaders would have to broadcast to all their subjects that they were led astray by their religious leaders. State shinto had exactly \*nothing \*to do with the war. It was a propaganda tool among many others used to support it, that’s all. Unless your proposition is that Tojo et al. were after the resources of the Greater Co-Prosperity Sphere and a leading politico-cultural influence over the whole of SE Asia in order to appease the river kamis or something. If so, I’d humbly request a cite 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-the-us-negotiate-with-terrorists/658720/53 "2013-05-20T08:26:28Z")
You’re right, but it was used to whip up the population, and the same thing is being done with Islam today, at least as far as the behavior of nation-states goes. When Saddam wanted to invade Iran, he wrapped himself in the cloak of Islam, despite being a secular socialist. And states where Islam is the state religion use the media to whip up hatred against non-Muslims to distract the people from the failings of their leaders. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-the-us-negotiate-with-terrorists/658720/54 "2013-05-20T08:57:19Z")
> [@](#): > > You’re right, but it was used to whip up the population, and the same thing is being done with Islam today, at least as far as the behavior of nation-states goes. True enough. But those are not the ones who are into terrorism (well, except Iran using Hamas to get at Israel, but that’s a specific kettle of underhanded fish). Islamic terrorists, the kind that are used as \*our \*big bugaboo to whip up and/or distract the population, actually and strongly believe in their vision of Islam. They do what they do specifically _because_ of their religious beliefs - as a general rule it’s not just window dressing for more conventional, or even nationalistic motives (even though it’s difficult to tell them apart, sometimes). Osama Bin Laden didn’t need turn to amateur aeronautics if all he wanted was money, power, fame and/or influence - he could have stayed home and sold oil like the rest of his fabulously wealthy family for the same result. In rather comfier surroundings than Bumfuq, Pakistan, too. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-the-us-negotiate-with-terrorists/658720/55 "2013-05-20T10:10:18Z")
But those guys are created by the state religions, which support the madrassas that recruit these goons. You still wouldn’t get rid of it entirely, of course. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-the-us-negotiate-with-terrorists/658720/56 "2013-05-20T16:49:38Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Mmm. Neither of those really works. Iran’s a State actor, by definition not a terrorist. We also were not being terrorized by the Contras nor were we “negotiating” them, we were supporting them covertly. They may or may not have been terrorists but we weren’t giving them anything as part of a negotiation in response to demands but because we essentially supported their ultimate goals. Don’t tell any Republicans that Iran has not supported terrorist attacks since the Revolution. Seriously, you are gonna try to wave this one away with definitions? Iran not a terrorist state? By definition? Dude, Iran loves it some terror. Are you higher than the the Burj Khalifa? [Iran and state-sponsored terrorism - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state_terrorism) And the Contras I will concede were not terrorists against the citizens of the US in the US. They were f’in death squads against their political opponents in Nicaragua attempting to overthrow the democratically elected government of Nicaragua. The US sponsored the Contras and their murderous rampage because the government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega was somewhere out in left field and Ronnie Reagan and his cronies were fine with an unauthorized series of acts of war by the Contras and sending them US govt money despite US law specifically prohibiting exactly that. They were terrorists against the legitimately elected government of Nicaragua. They were not, as Reagan’s bs described the Contras “freedom fighters” except in the sense that they fought to overthrow the freedom of the people of Nicaragua to democratically elect their own leaders and install by force cronies who were basically the remnants of the Samoza dictatorship that outright murdered Nicaraguans who objected to the enslavement of the peasants. But hey, except for being completely f’in wrong about terrorists in Iran and Nicaragua, you are exactly spot on. Which is to say, duh, they are and were terrorists. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-the-us-negotiate-with-terrorists/658720/57 "2013-05-20T16:51:34Z")
Terrorism is asymmetrical. A state’s conflict with another state cannot be terrorism. The U.S. was not negotiating with the Contras in the sense of asking the Contras to cease their activities in exchange for some sort of concession or payment. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-the-us-negotiate-with-terrorists/658720/58 "2013-05-20T17:34:17Z")
I guess a better word for the way Iran wages war would be paramilitary maybe? We’ve done it ourselves, but Iran uses it as their primary way of striking at their enemies. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-the-us-negotiate-with-terrorists/658720/59 "2013-05-20T17:35:17Z")
A few things. Saddam Hussein was never “secular”. Yes, he wasn’t a fundamentalist or a radical, but that’s hardly the same as being secular. Second, Iran was a legitimate state actor not a terrorist organization. As for Nicaragua, it usually takes more than the killing of political opponents to label a group “terrorist”. By Adaher’s reasoning, the French resistance were terrorists. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-the-us-negotiate-with-terrorists/658720/60 "2013-05-20T17:42:51Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > The government of Iran wasn’t a terrorist organization. > > For that matter, I don’t remember the Contras ever being listed as one or doing anything that would warrant them being more of a terrorist organization than just about any guerilla resistance group. [Examples of Contra Terrorism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_v._United_States) > [@](#): > > Father Jean Loison was a French priest who worked as a nurse in a hospital in the northern frontier region close to Honduras. > Asked whether the contras engaged in acts of violence directed against the civilian population, Father Loison answered: > “Yes, I could give you several examples. Near Quilali, at about 30 kilometers east of Quilali, there was a little village called El Coco. The contras arrived, they devastated it, they destroyed and burned everything. They arrived in front of a little house and turned their machinegun fire on it, without bothering to check if there were any people inside. Two children, who had taken fright and hidden under a bed, were hit. I could say the same thing of a man and woman who were hit, this was in the little co-operative of Sacadias Olivas. It was just the same. They too had taken fright and got into bed. Unlike El Coco, the contras had just been on the attack, they had encountered resistance and were now in flight. During their flight they went into a house, and seeing that there were people there, they threw grenade. The man and the woman were killed and one of the children was injured.” > About contra kidnappings: > “I would say that kidnappings are one of the reasons why some of the peasants have formed themselves into groups. Here (indicates a point on the map) is Quilali. Between Quilali and Uilili, in this region to the north, there are hardly any peasants left of any age to bear arms, because they have all been carried off”." > Father Loison described many examples of violence, mostly indiscriminate, directed at the civilian population in the region where he resides. The picture that emerges from his testimony is that the contras engage in brutal violation of minimum standards of humanity. He described murders of unarmed civilians, including women and children, rape followed in many instances by torture or murder, and indiscriminate terror designed to coerce the civilian population. His testimony was similar to various reports including the International Human Rights Law Group, Amnesty International, and others.[21] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-the-us-negotiate-with-terrorists/658720.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-the-us-negotiate-with-terrorists/658720.md?page=4)