Dhimmitude or just plain stupidity? "Operation Charm Offensive Towards Islamists," from Olivier Guitta in Tech Central Station, with thanks to JJohnson:
In the past few weeks, the Arab media have been buzzing with shocking news: the West is engaging in open talks with Islamists. While this is not really unexpected coming from the European Union, which has always been quite appeasing with Islamists, it is all the more surprising coming from the Bush administration.It all really started with reports in the Arab press of a "secret" meeting in Beirut on March 22 between US officials and representatives of terrorist organizations. In attendance: Musa Abu Marzuk, Sami Kheter and Osama Hamdan from the Palestinian Hamas; Nawaf Mousawi from the Lebanese Hizbullah; Ibrahim al Masri and Assad Harmouche from the Lebanese Gamaa Islamiya; and three representatives from the Pakistani Gamaa Islamiya. Eli Lake from the New York Sun is among the only journalists in the US media who has reported at length about this meeting.
At the same time, the European Union was on the same active path of engaging dialogue. At an EU meeting in Luxembourg on April 16 foreign ministers decided it was high time to get into talks with "moderate" Islamists. They regretted that in the past they only dealt with the seculars in the Middle East....
Indeed, as Rifaat al Said, the President of a leftist opposition Egyptian party, said it:" The moderate Islamists do not exist. To be moderate is to accept the Other. And the very Muslim Brothers' doctrine is based on the non respect of other religions." Said deemed it a major mistake to think -- like Europeans and Americans do -- that democracy in a Muslim country has to go through a "moderate" Islamist power phase....
At least, before engaging Islamists, the US should wait that they stop, once and for all, terrorism and lay down arms. By dialoguing with our very own enemies so early in the War, we are shooting ourselves in the foot. The Bush administration is on a very slippery slope: how can you justify speaking with Hamas, Hizbullah and the Muslim Brotherhood? Where is the "We don't negotiate with terrorists."? What kind of credibility will the US have? If on one hand, we are fighting terrorism but on the other we are talking to these very same terrorists...We went from "Shock and Awe" to "Charm and Talk" and thus we just handed ourselves our first defeat in this war.
Read it all. I tried to tell 'em.
"What kind of credibility will the US have? "
That is exactly the kind of problem blatantly visible since Bush's June 2002 speech and later ones to the region and the subsequent actions of his State Dept., and others ever since.
There is a credibility gap.
At the Aqaba talks, talking tough to Arafat and at the same time "massaging the moderates" who were engaged in supporting Arafat left many in the region wondering what to think.
Now his Admin believes it is dealing with "men in suits".
Most power elite stupidly believe that elite to elite negotiations will solve problems and those in shirtsleeves will be forced to follow along.
Look at the Muslim world. Whether they want to believe it or not, extremism drives Islam, for those that don't toe the line are coerced or eliminated.
Jeez!-
What a disappointment!
From the headline I thought they were finally using their heads, and some cultural cunning, and were spinning magical spells and spreading disorienting 'charms', since the uneducated Muslim masses (outside of major cities) are notoriously and incorrigibly superstitious.
That would probably be more efficacious than this idiocy.
Dropping such 'charms' by parachute to 'hex' the suckers might spook them in the hinterlands -if the proper symbols were utilized and the correct Islamic 'power icons' appealed to.
But talking to terrorists is going to get us one thing: more cunning terrorists.
I guess C.I.A. now stands for:
Coddling Islam Absolutley.