WHY YOU WANT TO TALK WITH TERRORISTS

Sam Smith is the editor of "The Progressive Review"........... news@prorev.com

SAM SMITH - Bush's history is as bad as his politics. Of course, there
can be peace with so-called terrorist organizations; it's just a matter
of whether one waits the better part of a century like the British in
Northern Ireland or you start talking and negotiating now. The latter
course would seem advisable in the Mid East given the prospects for the
PA even with the "democratic institutions" the American empire is
"acting to establish" - a neat trick not unlike forced consensual sex.
Besides terrorists are just people with weapons with whom America
doesn't agree; the other ones are called allies and by definition there
isn't all that much to negotiate with them about.

Further, one of the reasons America is in so much trouble is because it
happily makes all sorts of compromises in order to get along with large
dictatorships such Russia and China, but thinks it can handle smaller
operations like Hamas, North Korea, and Iran by simple obstinacy and
belligerence. In other words, it is happy to talk with big terrorists,
just not little ones. In fact, most of these small entities - and those
who lead them - suffer from extreme inferiority complexes. By
threatening war, imposing massive embargos and so forth, America merely
feeds the sense of persecution and encourages the least rational
reaction. A more sensible approach would be to constantly negotiate with
these leaders and edge them towards reasonable participation in world
affairs..

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CHOOSING WHAT WE FEAR

ASK people to name the greatest domestic disaster in the past ten years
and most would cite September 11. While this is true in terms of known
deaths - over twice as many as in second place Hurricane Katrina - the
WTC tragedy is only the third most costly in dollars. If those missing
as of a month and a half ago - over 6,000 - are added, 9/11 was about
as third as deadly as Katrina. Looked at another way, nine out of the
ten worst disasters were due to nature with no little help - some would
say - from climate change.

Yet after Katrina, did we form a new Department of Hurricane Security,
did we move to radically change our environmental policy the way we
changed our police policies following WTC? No, unless we lived in the
affected region, we absorbed it into our lives and went about our
business.

And here are a few things that are more deadly each year than either
hurricanes or terrorists: heart disease, cancer, prescription drugs,
accidents, guns, suicide, infant deaths, murder, war on drugs, and
workplace accidents .

We truly do choose what to fear.

http://www.stateline.org/live/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=136&languageId=1&contentId=80383


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