"We don't negotiate with terrorists." - Why not?

Nose Plugs Needed Fast

The politicians are shoveling the BS into huge piles.

By Gary;

Our Comrade President managed to free Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from the clutches of the Taliban.

Within seconds of the announcement the usual GOP political hacks and their media supporters were beating their chests in mock fury bellowing "We don't negotiate with terrorists."

Simply, that statement is just nonsense.  If Obama had not negotiated then those very same politicians would have attacked him for ignoring an American held captive.

Also, our government had no problem negotiating with the Communist North Vietnamese who were terrorizing and murdering our allies in South Vietnam with guerilla warfare.

From the dawn of warfare all sides have always negotiated with each other and traded POWs.  This is nothing new.  Wars would never end if people did not talk and work out a peace treaty.

Are The Taliban Terrorists?  -  This a historical point we should consider.  The Taliban was the government of Afghanistan before the American invasion.  That makes the guerrilla warfare of the Taliban just an extension of the original war.  They never surrendered.

A neutral historian with no ax to grind could easily place the Taliban in the same category as the guerrilla war conducted by Mexican President Benito Juarez against the invading French.

Yes, the Taliban are scumbag Islamist nutcases.  But terrorists?  As a historian I would say no.  They are just ruthlessly conducting a war by all the means at their command.

Every nation that has ever engaged in war has also engaged in forms of terrorism against both troops and civilians. The civilized Romans had no problem slaughtering the people of an entire city to win a war.  In World War II the British and Americans had no problem leveling entire cities and their civilian populations from the air with fleets of bombers. 

I am sorry to say nothing has really changed.  The Taliban will kill helpless villagers and NATO in turn will drop a drone on a cluster of huts killing the enemy along with women and children.

I say everyone should just drop the BS and welcome Sgt. Bergdahl back home.



Burning of USS Philadelphia
In the Barbary Wars we saw Muslim "terrorists" attacking American ships and selling our sailors into slavery.  But even Founding Father Thomas Jefferson had no problem negotiating with the Muslims and paying $60,000 to get the Americans released.
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Article 2 of the Peace Treaty reads:

The Bashaw of Tripoli shall deliver up to the American Squadron now off Tripoli, all the Americans in his possession; and all the Subjects of the Bashaw of Tripoli now in the power of the United States of America shall be delivered up to him; and as the number of Americans in possession of the Bashaw of Tripoli amounts to Three Hundred Persons, more or less; and the number of Tripolino Subjects in the power of the Americans to about, One Hundred more or less; The Bashaw of Tripoli shall receive from the United States of America, the sum of Sixty Thousand Dollars, as a payment for the difference between the Prisoners herein mentioned. 

See more The Barbary Wars. 

British captain witnessing the miseries of
Christian slaves in Algiers, 1815