The aftermath of the Bhutto assassination, along with a new message from Osama Bin Laden calling on continued hostilities against us and our allies, once again has brought to light the treacherous relationship between our society and those people we are quick to call radicals and terrorists, but which are lumped together under the category of "islamic extremists." Furthermore, they are labeled "terrorists" when they resort to violence to influence the political process. No doubt, those kind of tactics have caused way too much terror, but it seems too simplistic to me to just brush off these people when our national actions have caused our share of terror also. (How many civilians have been killed in Iraq, for example?)

Our leaders continue to tell us that we must have a "war on terror" to try and stop these people from destroying us. But at the same time, the very people telling us that know darn well that we cannot kill them all, at least not without dire consequences, and that there is no way that a relative handful of people can destroy our nation. Sure, they can inflict damage, and no doubt want to, but why do you want to do this?

One has to be brain dead to completely disassociate our foreign policy based on bullying and belligerence with the hard line position that the islamic fundamentalists are taking with us. It isn't necessary to go into the details of that discussion in this post, but, what is relevant is whether or not we are going to continue to take a position that we cannot talk to these people and can only fight them with violence and refuse to try and talk to them, or, we are going to make a fundamental shift in policy and try to talk to them and find out if there is a way that we could live together in peace. That means talking to their leaders.

If we don't, then we are doomed to neverending violent war for us and generations to come, because it is obvious that there are a lot of people out there that have strong roots to a certain way of life and certain lands that will never let us force our thinking on them without a fight. And, in today's world, where international diplomacy and politics involve many nations now capable of manufacturing and selling modern weaponry, we can never be sure what an even small group of determined and funded people can obtain and use against us. And that scenario is only going to get worse as countries like China, India, Russia, and Iran manufacture more and more sophisticated weapons, and have no qualms about letting our "enemies" purchase them. Then there are nuclear materials that have been manufactured at amazing quantities that in many places are not secure. The opportunities for creating mischief are numerous and our ability to monitor and police these people are limited.

So why should we keep saying that "we won't negotiate with a terrorist?" Is that really going to be a policy that is possible. Frankly, we have already negotiated with "terrorists" a number of times. We have diplomatic relations with Musharef of Pakistan, who is nothing more than a military dictator who has violated basic human rights a number of times, and has taken billions of our taxpayers dollars while playing both sides of the "terrorism" coin for and against us. There are a lot more examples. Perhaps we never will be able to live in peace with these folks, but the fact is for sure we won't if we don't try.

If we can at least try to talk to these people and work with them, why would we make a hard and fast rule that we will not, under any circumstances, try to talk with the people that we are branding as the biggest threat to us? Sure there are issues of identifying true leadership figures that can broker agreements in loose knit organizations that are trying not to be identified. But that doesn't mean that sincere efforts of good will can't reach across those controversies and find people that want to end this cycle of violence. But as long as we keep spending way more than any other entity on military weaponry, and keep inflicting our military will on foreign soils, we will have people out to get us in the most severe way that they can think of to do it. Not a great way to live, for us or generations to come.