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Wednesday, May 23, 2007
The question is the question
Charles Adler: Canadians are telling his firm that they think that it's a good idea to negotiate with Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents as a way to end the violence. this poll was conducted for CTV and the Globe&Mail and there was almost two to one support....
[...]
I know some people would object to the question, but let me ask the question anyways - does everyone know who the Taliban is? [...] Were any of the people participating in this poll told that the Taliban have been known to chop people's heads off?
Tim Wollstencroft, Strategic Counsel: That would be ..ah ah.. that would be provactive and would probably be viewed as a biased question.
CA: My guess is that it would be informative, you see my guess is that if Canadians knew that the Taliban engaged in this kind of thing, they would think they're not the kinds of people who you can negotiate with.
TW: ah ...that might be that these are tough guys, but in the end these people are going to have to be talked to or dealt with in a diplomatic manner.
CA: You're saying you the pollster have decided that's what ought to be done and then you ask the question, is that the point?
Ouch.
UPDATE: More here.
Posted by Rob Huck on May 23, 2007 | Permalink
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Comments
Ouch indeed.
I've had some pretty good negotiation training, from the Stitt Feld Handy group no less. They insist that you must negotiate with terrorists. My point that groups like the PLO, Hamas, Taliban are, in effect, multiple groups of medievally-minded individuals with what can be best described as a "loose" command structure; are we expected to negotiate with each "independent' cell I asked? How does one negotiate a fair settlement for all, when, on "their" side, there may not be a single strong "leader" whom can/ will enforce it? A clear answer could not be provided. Obviously.
What most of the soft skulled urbanites of Canada fail to understand is this; negotiation is a tool of civilized people, one must be able to understand the position of the other. They are not civilized, ergo negotiation is a crock. Best to have the bigger gun methinks. And the will to use it. Which we seem to lack.
Posted by: Hoser | 2007-05-23 4:16:12 PM
All these polls reveal is how well concerted media brainwashing has supplanted Canadian's reasoning and knowledge on any given subject.
If Canadians are given a steady diet of truncated one sided news reporting the poll results will show how well that selective infomation desseminating has worked.
These polls make it apparent to me that Canadians ( because of the partisan media) are among the least informed peoples in the free world.
Posted by: WL Mackenzie Redux | 2007-05-23 4:26:52 PM
It is not so long ago that some people were loudly denouncing the idea of any negotiating with the Jewish terrorists in Israel, both before and after the UN resolution that gave them state status. Who would negotiate with the murderers who had blown up the King David hotel, killing nearly 100 people, and so on. To a similar effect one can recall lots of times in the past 40 year period when objections were raised to any negotiations with the IRA.Did they not committ hideous outrages in the UK slaughtering innocent women and children.
And so today we have the former terrorists in Israel professing outrage at the very idea of negotiations with, for example, Hamas, or other Arab or Palestinian groups. If you want to make a deal you will talk to those who have the authority to negotiate, not with their stooges. Isreal will make a deal with Hamas and or with the group in Lebanon, Hezbollah that gave them a kick in the teeth recently, or they will make no deal at all. Since they are precious close to losing the Americans who are growing tired of their Israel policy pretty quickly now, they would be foolish not to deal.
Posted by: garhane | 2007-05-23 4:47:43 PM
garhane is an obvious cbc watcher. 150 rockets launched at Toronto in one week would not awaken even his kind of Leftoid mind. I'm sure he would want to negotiate with the terrorists as they launched a thousand more rockets until they hit his own house.
Maybe he'd call the UN in to do his talking.
BTW, the Palestinians do not call an hour in advance to warn the Israelis of incoming missiles, something that WAS done before the King David Hotel was bombed - but the warning was ignored by the "occupying" British army.
And to repeat for those unaware - the PLO was founded in 1964 - 3 years before there were any "occupied territories". Their charter called for the annihilation of the State of Israel then - and the charter has not been amended since. It STILL calls for the destruction of the ENTIRE State of Israel.
Yeah - negotiate with these murderers!
Posted by: obc | 2007-05-23 5:08:24 PM
Garhane are you illiterate or just plain stupid? The question is who do you negotiate with if they are a tribal based society with no centralized leadership.
Try reading the post. And as for Hezbollah, ya right, with an Isreali kill ratio of almost 1000 to 1, I'd suggest the only group who got there 'asses-kicked' was the terrorists.
Posted by: missing link | 2007-05-23 5:18:54 PM
Do you negotiate with a murderer? a serial murderer? an abuser in a domestic situation?
If it doesn't make sense to ask these questions, then it doesn't make sense to ask the same question about the Taleban.
Good info about how biased the pollsters set up the questions.
Posted by: anonymous | 2007-05-23 5:47:56 PM
Charles Adler got it right in his questioning the biased pollster.
CTV, G&M hold a strong position of opinion making in Canada, and it's about time they were called on their deceptive methods of skewed polls and biased reporting.
Good on Kate at SDA, Charles Adler and the Shotgun of Western Standard for shining light onto CTV, G&M and the other MSM and their agenda for appeasement of terrorists.
How does a nation negotiate with a faction of religious zealots who value death higher than life?
Did the editorial nabobs at G&M even consider that question when they sanctioned the obviously biased poll?
Posted by: Joe Molnar | 2007-05-23 5:52:51 PM
It was finally possible to negotiate with the IRA due, in no small part, to the fact that the Irish ( of which I am one) are a western civilized people. That and both "sides" have Christian roots.
Posted by: Hoser | 2007-05-23 6:11:03 PM
"And as for Hezbollah, ya right, with an Isreali kill ratio of almost 1000 to 1, I'd suggest the only group who got there 'asses-kicked' was the terrorists."
Not if you were watching CBC reportage, and reading the Toronto Red Star and the Globe & Mail. It's no wonder these Leftoids hold these unfounded opinions. Sheeeesh!
SELL THE CBC TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER - or just shut it down completely. Propagandists a la Goebbels.
Posted by: obc | 2007-05-23 7:55:44 PM
Adler can be a d_ _ k sometimes, but he was bang on with that interview. Aflac!
Posted by: MarkAlta | 2007-05-23 9:30:01 PM
Obc: no, don't sell the CBC. Burn it to the ground. Remove the archives and bury them in another county (better yet the dark side of the Moon), publicly fire the entire staff at once, demolish the buildings and incinerate the rubble.
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2007-05-23 9:42:43 PM
Zack - I mean Zebulon~ :)
I can live with that.
Posted by: obc | 2007-05-23 9:52:41 PM
Just saw this in the Jerusalem Post for those CBC nuts who still want Israel to negotiate with terrorists:
"The armed wings of Hamas, Fatah, and Islamic Jihad have all recently issued separate statements claiming that the rocket attacks would continue "until the Zionists flee from Palestine." A commander of one terrorist umbrella group said, "We will make the Jews drip tears of blood. We will never find comfort until we shed the blood of sons of monkeys and pigs."
Posted by: obc | 2007-05-23 9:59:25 PM
Would the Israeli airforce count for that old jihadi saying..."when pigs fly"?
Posted by: MarkAlta | 2007-05-23 11:09:56 PM
So, we don't want to negotiate with terrorists. That's fine. Besides, as mentioned in one of the posts, we wouldn't know who to negotiate with because of the multiple cells and "loose command structure" of a terorist organization.
But this brings me back to a fundamental concept: If the war on terror is to end one day, it will be through a surrender of some sort, because like the cancer it is, terrorism will never be eliminated; it will always fester somewhere. But who is going to surrender on behalf of all other terrorists?
Let's face it: the current strategy with "big guns" is not leading us anywhere (unless you see an improvement in Iraq that I have missed) and the "war on terror" will last for the next hundred years. I say pull out, regroup, secure our borders, and by the same token, seal off the borders of those failed states.
Posted by: Nothing New Under the Sun | 2007-05-24 3:46:09 AM
Who still thinks it's just against Israel that these Islamofacsists are fighting?
"Arson suspected in Geneva synagogue fire"
http://usatoday.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Arson+suspected+in+Geneva+synagogue+fire+-+USATODAY.com&expire=&urlID=22453534&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fnews%2Fworld%2F2007-05-24-geneva-synagogue_N.htm%3Fcsp%3D34&partnerID=1660
Posted by: obc | 2007-05-24 9:25:04 AM
Cogent thoughts from Nothing New Under the Sun. I'd have to agree completely, bring those big guns home and secure the borders.
Posted by: Hoser | 2007-05-24 3:23:56 PM
There certainly is a lack of wisdom the way we fight. We should not be fighting terrorism per se because it is a strategy. We were not fighting blitzkrieg during WWII.
The way we go now is like a fire extinguisher. Any place a fire is set up we go. That is very expensive and not efficient.
Our strategy should be at least one step ahead of the trouble makers. Sadly it seems many steps behind especially for Iran.
What will happen when Iran get nukes?
Posted by: Rémi Houle | 2007-05-24 7:11:49 PM
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