No, mainly because I don't see what we can give them in any negotiation. We can stop bombing them in Iraq and Syria but that means basically giving permission for them to continue their execution of many Syrians and Iraqis.
They don't just want Iraq and Syria do they so I don't know how we get them to stop without it being a global military effort with Iraq and Syria's neighbours on the ground, alongside lesser numbers of global forces, and us in the air in both countries.
I wish I was smart enough to know the answer, and probably talking utter nonsense, but we shouldn't negotiate with terrorists and not just for the sake of us but for the sake of millions of innocents living in this defacto state that are at serious risk of harm.
As unpalatable as another war in the Middle East is, and I'm not one for really wants to see us bombing or our boys and girls putting their boots on the ground, it is unavoidable if we truly want to put an end to IS.
YES! To all who spout the "never negotiate" line, that's how every wars ends. The "good guy" sits down with the "terrorist" and negotiates peace. Doing so doesn't diminish the lives lost in the fight or make those deaths in vain. It just means we are prepared to try and stop the suffering sooner rather than later.
People say you can't negotiate with ISIS as they aren't sane. To that, I simply ask why hasn't the "caliph" or other leadership strapped a bomb to themselves and detonated the nearest group of infidels. They want to live, they value their own life. Suggesting they are rational. They may be psycho murdering scum but the leadership does seem somewhat pragmatic and rational, so negotiating may be possible.
What can we offer them? Safety. Jihadi John's death hoped that any of them can be a target and not know until it hits them. So we say "if you don't harm British people, we won't hurt any of you".
Leading question, immediately calling to mind the "we don't negotiate with terrorists" position, which makes perfect sense in situations like hostage-taking but isn't something you can just apply everywhere.
To balance the OP's question, I'd ask, does anybody think military action on its own can achieve a lasting peace in ISIL-heavy countries?
YES! To all who spout the "never negotiate" line, that's how every wars ends. The "good guy" sits down with the "terrorist" and negotiates peace. Doing so doesn't diminish the lives lost in the fight or make those deaths in vain. It just means we are prepared to try and stop the suffering sooner rather than later.
People say you can't negotiate with ISIS as they aren't sane. To that, I simply ask why hasn't the "caliph" or other leadership strapped a bomb to themselves and detonated the nearest group of infidels. They want to live, they value their own life. Suggesting they are rational. They may be psycho murdering scum but the leadership does seem somewhat pragmatic and rational, so negotiating may be possible.
To quote John Rico's social ethics teacher - "Tell that to the City Fathers of Carthage"...or within "living" memory the leaders of Nazi Germany in May 1945...a rather major war that notably ended without negotiation, in unconditional surrender. There have been plenty of wars that were fought to a military conclusion without a negotiated settlement ending them.
This is often disguised by the fact that they later on result in a dictated set of provisions or an occupation, or a "settlement" imposed by the victors sometimes years afterwards....long after the last shot has been fired and forgotten.
What would the West have to concede to ISIS in order for them to stop, from what I've seen in news reports there isn't anything most right minded people would accept.
To quote John Rico's social ethics teacher - "Tell that to the City Fathers of Carthage"...or within "living" memory the leaders of Nazi Germany in May 1945...a rather major war that notably ended without negotiation, in unconditional surrender. There have been plenty of wars that were fought to a military conclusion without a negotiated settlement ending them
I mean, you're right, but it's much more practical to get an unconditional surrender from a national government who controls their military forces than from a widespread, factionalised group like ISIL. And even if ISIL did surrender, there'd still be Boko Haram, Ansaru, all the remaining bits of Al-Qaeda, etc.
I mean, you're right, but it's much more practical to get an unconditional surrender from a national government who controls their military forces than from a widespread, factionalised group like ISIL. And even if ISIL did surrender, there'd still be Boko Haram, Ansaru, all the remaining bits of Al-Qaeda, etc.
Pickwick, some of those may have aligned with ISIS....but are not part of it. There are even places in the world where there is a degree of cooperation with Al Qaeda - like Libya once upon a time, or Al Qaeda-leaning parts of the Al Nusra Front - because not even all parts of Al Qaeda are the same or have the same beliefs/loyalties. And in many places are being rolled back anyway. The present issue is with ISIS in Syria and Iraq only.
As for unconditional surrender being easy from a national government... nope, that's not how it worked at all in May 1945. Far too long to go into here, but there were holdouts, SS fighting Wehrmacht, local commanders signing the unconditional surrender etc., all sorts of organisational chaos in the last days of Hitler's Germany. But the point is that however piecemeal - it happened - and some years were to pass before certain elements of "settlement" were imposed on Germany. Germany as a political entity was actually officially abolished by the Occupying Allies in May 1945, in the Declaration of Berlin; it had surrendered and the victors were not intending to negotiate with anyone representing Germany or any part of it ;-)
Pickwick, some of those may have aligned with ISIS....but are not part of it. There are even places in the world where there is a degree of cooperation with Al Qaeda - like Libya once upon a time, or Al Qaeda-leaning parts of the Al Nusra Front - because not even all parts of Al Qaeda are the same or have the same beliefs/loyalties. And in many places are being rolled back anyway. The present issue is with ISIS in Syria and Iraq only.
As for unconditional surrender being easy from a national government... nope, that's not how it worked at all in May 1945. Far too long to go into here, but there were holdouts, SS fighting Wehrmacht, local commanders signing the unconditional surrender etc., all sorts of organisational chaos in the last days of Hitler's Germany. But the point is that however piecemeal - it happened - and some years were to pass before certain elements of "settlement" were imposed on Germany. Germany as a political entity was actually officially abolished by the Occupying Allies in May 1945, in the Declaration of Berlin; it had surrendered and the victors were not intending to negotiate with anyone representing Germany or any part of it ;-)
I know they're not part of ISIS, that's my point - that's why "let's bomb ISIS till they surrender" is naive, to my mind. Even if we somehow succeeded in obliterating ISIS without causing backlash, it wouldn't actually do all that much for the situation overall - other groups would just fill the gap, even if our bombing somehow managed not to radicalise any new people.
I know you know much more about the details of WWI and WWII than me, and I know it's not super-straightforward for a nation to surrender, but I still think it's easier than a non-national, not-entirely-hierarchical group would find it.
It's not difficult to draw parallels with a terrorism problem much closer to home for the UK in fairly recent history.
Eventually there was a 'peace process'.
There are few parallels; one would hope that a British government going to war with ISIS was intending to win....whereas the "peace process" in Northern Ireland was exactly that, a negotiated way of securing a peace and a resulting withdrawal from the burdens of internal security and Direct Rule in Northern Ireland by Westminster. A negotiated surrender to terrorists if you like, hidden behind a veil of a powersharing agreement made between their political representatives on one side and the political representatives of their socio-political opponents - but a surrender nonetheless by the British government of ITS role in N.I.
I know they're not part of ISIS, that's my point - that's why "let's bomb ISIS till they surrender" is naive, to my mind. Even if we somehow succeeded in obliterating ISIS without causing backlash, it wouldn't actually do all that much for the situation overall - other groups would just fill the gap, even if our bombing somehow managed not to radicalise any new people.
The problem is that you have accidently conflated two issues that Jeremy Corbyn intentionally conflated....tackling ISIS and the end of the Syrian civil war.
The destruction of ISIS is a valuable and vital end in itself; yes it will remove a major player from the map of Syria...but on the opposition side....which has over a hundred OTHER groups and factions ;-) It will not actually change the map of Syria today by handing ISIS' territory BACK to Assad's government ;-) The destruction of ISIS will remove a huge threat to US....the "us" of many nations, we now know...and remove a major destabilising element from postwar Iraq.
Much to my disgust we did with the IRA and now they have known terrorists in their govt
Yes and as vile as their acts were we all knew what the IRA wanted, a united Ireland. Now whilst most didn't want that and the people of NI mainly didn't there was a way to talk because what they were asking for was not abhorrent to all of us in the way IS / Daesh is
I mean how do you negotiate with Daesh , people who think it is ok to throw gay people from buildings, hang them or behead them, rape women and girls and do all of that in the name of their supposed religion and alleged rules of that religion they wish to run their stolen state on. How can you talk to people like that and negotiate on homophobic murder and rape for example?
No we cannot talk to them as we did the IRA , this is not a case of having to dance with the devil and the only way to get rid of them is by force, I hope our MP's allow us to join that force and then the allied forces should all sit down and decide a plan of action as aerial bombing alone will not get rid of them it will only hurt them a bit , at some point there will need to be boots on the ground from somewhere.
I cant think of a situation where a group or nation has reached the level of atrocities carried out by IS and has been able to negotiate an end to their violence.
Yes we negotiated with the IRA but do you think we could have negotiated with them if they had been shooting , beheading and raping children?
This is apart from the fact that , as has been pointed out already, they aren't interested in negotiating and end to the violence, other than our subjugation.
If I thought for one minute negotiating with ISIS would be possible then yes of course we should....fact is though, negotiating with them isn't possible...they want Armageddon.
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They don't just want Iraq and Syria do they so I don't know how we get them to stop without it being a global military effort with Iraq and Syria's neighbours on the ground, alongside lesser numbers of global forces, and us in the air in both countries.
I wish I was smart enough to know the answer, and probably talking utter nonsense, but we shouldn't negotiate with terrorists and not just for the sake of us but for the sake of millions of innocents living in this defacto state that are at serious risk of harm.
As unpalatable as another war in the Middle East is, and I'm not one for really wants to see us bombing or our boys and girls putting their boots on the ground, it is unavoidable if we truly want to put an end to IS.
People say you can't negotiate with ISIS as they aren't sane. To that, I simply ask why hasn't the "caliph" or other leadership strapped a bomb to themselves and detonated the nearest group of infidels. They want to live, they value their own life. Suggesting they are rational. They may be psycho murdering scum but the leadership does seem somewhat pragmatic and rational, so negotiating may be possible.
What can we offer them? Safety. Jihadi John's death hoped that any of them can be a target and not know until it hits them. So we say "if you don't harm British people, we won't hurt any of you".
To balance the OP's question, I'd ask, does anybody think military action on its own can achieve a lasting peace in ISIL-heavy countries?
To quote John Rico's social ethics teacher - "Tell that to the City Fathers of Carthage"...or within "living" memory the leaders of Nazi Germany in May 1945...a rather major war that notably ended without negotiation, in unconditional surrender. There have been plenty of wars that were fought to a military conclusion without a negotiated settlement ending them.
This is often disguised by the fact that they later on result in a dictated set of provisions or an occupation, or a "settlement" imposed by the victors sometimes years afterwards....long after the last shot has been fired and forgotten.
And may I suggest wearing a suit of armour with a very strong helmet.
Eventually there was a 'peace process'.
Pickwick, some of those may have aligned with ISIS....but are not part of it. There are even places in the world where there is a degree of cooperation with Al Qaeda - like Libya once upon a time, or Al Qaeda-leaning parts of the Al Nusra Front - because not even all parts of Al Qaeda are the same or have the same beliefs/loyalties. And in many places are being rolled back anyway. The present issue is with ISIS in Syria and Iraq only.
As for unconditional surrender being easy from a national government... nope, that's not how it worked at all in May 1945. Far too long to go into here, but there were holdouts, SS fighting Wehrmacht, local commanders signing the unconditional surrender etc., all sorts of organisational chaos in the last days of Hitler's Germany. But the point is that however piecemeal - it happened - and some years were to pass before certain elements of "settlement" were imposed on Germany. Germany as a political entity was actually officially abolished by the Occupying Allies in May 1945, in the Declaration of Berlin; it had surrendered and the victors were not intending to negotiate with anyone representing Germany or any part of it ;-)
I know you know much more about the details of WWI and WWII than me, and I know it's not super-straightforward for a nation to surrender, but I still think it's easier than a non-national, not-entirely-hierarchical group would find it.
There are few parallels; one would hope that a British government going to war with ISIS was intending to win....whereas the "peace process" in Northern Ireland was exactly that, a negotiated way of securing a peace and a resulting withdrawal from the burdens of internal security and Direct Rule in Northern Ireland by Westminster. A negotiated surrender to terrorists if you like, hidden behind a veil of a powersharing agreement made between their political representatives on one side and the political representatives of their socio-political opponents - but a surrender nonetheless by the British government of ITS role in N.I.
The problem is that you have accidently conflated two issues that Jeremy Corbyn intentionally conflated....tackling ISIS and the end of the Syrian civil war.
The destruction of ISIS is a valuable and vital end in itself; yes it will remove a major player from the map of Syria...but on the opposition side....which has over a hundred OTHER groups and factions ;-) It will not actually change the map of Syria today by handing ISIS' territory BACK to Assad's government ;-) The destruction of ISIS will remove a huge threat to US....the "us" of many nations, we now know...and remove a major destabilising element from postwar Iraq.
Yes and as vile as their acts were we all knew what the IRA wanted, a united Ireland. Now whilst most didn't want that and the people of NI mainly didn't there was a way to talk because what they were asking for was not abhorrent to all of us in the way IS / Daesh is
I mean how do you negotiate with Daesh , people who think it is ok to throw gay people from buildings, hang them or behead them, rape women and girls and do all of that in the name of their supposed religion and alleged rules of that religion they wish to run their stolen state on. How can you talk to people like that and negotiate on homophobic murder and rape for example?
No we cannot talk to them as we did the IRA , this is not a case of having to dance with the devil and the only way to get rid of them is by force, I hope our MP's allow us to join that force and then the allied forces should all sit down and decide a plan of action as aerial bombing alone will not get rid of them it will only hurt them a bit , at some point there will need to be boots on the ground from somewhere.
Why was the nuke dropped on Japan? It brought to an end a war that would have gone on for years. Not an option now of course.
You can't negotiate with inhuman monsters.
Yes we negotiated with the IRA but do you think we could have negotiated with them if they had been shooting , beheading and raping children?
This is apart from the fact that , as has been pointed out already, they aren't interested in negotiating and end to the violence, other than our subjugation.
Why is a nuke not an option now?
Might as well sit down in the Serengeti and discuss peace with a starving pride of lions.