Talking to insurgents!

This follows similar reports, which emerged earlier this year of how US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, facilitated regular contacts between the Iraqi government and insurgents.

The admission and willingness of the US, and its allies such as the Iraqi government, to talk and negotiate with those that are militarily opposing it flies in the face of the oft repeated mantra that 'we don't talk to terrorists' and contradicts the West's moral superiority in claiming not to negotiate with those that oppose it by military means.

Examples abound of western governments who have had elaborate dealings with 'terrorists' and groups engaged in material combat such as America's support of paramilitary organisations in Latin America during the 1970's and 80's, the behind the scenes negotiations with the Iranian hostage takers by the Reagan administration and Britain's talks with Sinn Fein and the IRA prior to the IRA's denouncement of the armed struggle. Indeed, since the Iraq war many European countries have given into the financial and logistical demands of the captors who have kidnapped their personnel. Therefore, contrary to popular opinion western governments have no real qualms with talking or negotiating with those that used armed tactics.

The irony of talking to insurgents abroad with the clampdown upon Muslim communities in the west cannot be starker. Recent years have seen the silencing of the Muslim community through a mixture of legislation and bully boy tactics; mosques have been shut down, surveillance cameras have been installed in Muslim community areas, Khutbahs and sermons have been monitored and recorded, Imams have been vetted, hundreds have been arrested under stop and search tactics with the culmination in the current anti-terror bill which risks criminalising those that dare speak out against western foreign policy or in support of resistance struggles throughout the world.

Clearly, intolerance to those that advocate Islamic values and ideas by verbal and non violent means is, in the eyes of the West, far more threatening than those who resist or combat it through military tactics. How else can one explain the degree of militancy shown recently by the British Home Secretary when he poured scorn on the aspirations of millions of Muslims world wide when he said that there can be no negotiation about the re-establishment of the Caliphate or about Shar'iah law.