{"id":853,"date":"2009-06-22T17:59:05","date_gmt":"2009-06-22T17:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/2009\/06\/22\/does-engagement-with-terrorists-save-lives\/"},"modified":"2009-06-22T17:59:05","modified_gmt":"2009-06-22T17:59:05","slug":"does-engagement-with-terrorists-save-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/2009\/06\/22\/does-engagement-with-terrorists-save-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Engagement with Terrorists Save Lives?"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY ALEXANDER MELEAGROU-HITCHENS<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

I have recently<\/a> written<\/a> about the British government\u2019s misguided strategy of seeking to engage with Hamas and Hezbollah, in the hope that this will coax them into moderation.\u00a0 This debate was re ignited in May of this year when junior Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell stated<\/a> in Parliament that the government was \u201cexploring the possibility of limited and considered contacts\u201d with Hezbollah\u2019s \u2018political wing\u2019.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Apart from still clinging to the ridiculous notion that Hezbollah\u2019s different wings are unconnected and separate entities, the FCO also displayed naivet\u00e9 in assuming that for Hezbollah this engagement was anything more than a propaganda tool to help further legitimise the organisation in the eyes of the Lebanese electorate.\u00a0 Although already warned about being used by Hezbollah in this way, the FCO had to find out the hard way when, in one of their first meetings after Rammell\u2019s comments, Hezbollah officials tried to film<\/a> the proceedings so as to use them in run up to the June 7 Lebanese elections.\u00a0 This acted as something of a temporary wake-up call for David Miliband who announced that because of this, meetings with Hezbollah had ceased.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this hiatus has not lasted long, with various news agencies in Beirut reporting<\/a> that the British Ambassador to Lebanon, Frances Guy, held a meeting with Hezbollah parliamentary leader, Mohammad Raad, last Thursday.\u00a0 They discussed the recent elections and Raad claimed that \u201cthe doors are open to further meetings.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n

From the perspective of the FCO, one of the suggested purposes of these meetings was to help secure the release of five British hostages held since May 2007 by the Iraqi Shiite terrorist group, Asaib al-Haq (League of the Righteous).\u00a0 On the 19th<\/sup> of June, the bodies of two of the five Britons, Jason Creswell and Jason Swindlehurst, were handed over to the British Embassy in Baghdad and fears are mounting for the wellbeing of the remaining three.\u00a0 Early reports indicate that the condition of the corpses suggested they had been killed months ago.<\/p>\n

Asaib al-Haq has strong links with Hezbollah<\/a> and is armed by Iran<\/a>, and one of their demands was the release of a high-ranking Hezbollah military operative in Iraq called Ali Musa Daqduq<\/a>, who was arrested by US forces in March 2007.\u00a0 According<\/a> to a spokesman for Iraq\u2019s Multinational Force, Brigadier General Kevin Bergner, Daqduq \u201cwas directed by senior Lebanese Hezbollah leadership to go to Iran and work with the [Iranian] Qods Force to train Iraqi extremists.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0In the same raid, US forces also captured the head of Asaib al-Haq, Qais Qazali, who has also been identified as an al Quds agent.\u00a0 Iran\u2019s al Quds Force provides support for all Iranian sponsored terrorist groups, including Hezbollah.\u00a0 Incidentally, it is interesting how both Ayatollah Khamenei and (the man who we should now all cease to refer to as \u2018President\u2019) Ahmedinejad had the audacity to invent criticisms<\/a> about Britain\u2019s meddling in Iranian affairs, at a time when their meddling has led directly to the kidnap and murder of British civilians.<\/p>\n

Not only is the government now unconditionally and openly engaging with a proxy of an Iranian mullah regime which is now busy shooting and beating their own citizens, they are also engaging with a group which at the very least could have used its influence to release the British hostages and at worst has had an indirect, but nonetheless crucial, role in their murder.\u00a0 The question then remains:\u00a0 apart from serving to bolster and legitimise them and their murderous benefactors, what does engagement with terrorist groups achieve?<\/p>\n

<\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n


\n\"\"Some black lives matter more than others<\/a>
\n
\n\"\"Can Keir Starmer save the Labour Party?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have recently written about the British government’s misguided strategy of seeking to engage with Hamas and Hezbollah, in the hope that this will coax them into moderation. This debate was re ignited in May of this year when junior Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell stated in Parliament that the government was “exploring the possibility of limited and considered contacts” with Hezbollah’s \u2018political wing’.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}