Political in Iraq

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. and Iraqi security forces cannot solve the problem of violence in Iraq without political action and reconciliation with some militant groups, the U.S. commander in Iraq said on Thursday.

Notice how the "Insurgents" now become "militant groups" when the U. S. wants to negotiate with them.

Since the Iraq war started I have advocated negotiating with the enemy because asymmetrical warfare is impossible to win without the support of the local people. Kicking the doors down and killing the women and children of the local population brings out the historical results of the use of force. John Galt, a fictional character in Ayn Rand's, "Atlas Shrugged", published 50 years ago, talked passionately about the immorality of using force on another.
http://compuball.com/Inquisition/AynRand/galtspeech_pmark_broken.htm

As the Iraq war drags on and becomes more unpopular, which is what always happens in a democracy when the deaths and costs escalate, and there is no victory in sight, President Bush is finally doing what others have recommended, negotiate. He has less than two years to try and mend his legacy and offer some window of hope for the Republican party in the 2008 elections.

Before going to war President Bush and the war lovers should have read Auberon Herbert's fictional speech by a terrorist, written in 1885.

Government, Herbert argued, should never initiate force but be "strictly limited to its legitimate duties in defense of self-ownership and individual rights"

AUBERON HERBERT, THE RIGHT, AND WRONG OF COMPULSION BY THE STATE, AND OTHER ESSAYS- ESSAY V: THE ETHICS OF DYNAMITE. 1885. The fictional conversation is between a terrorists and a big government.
http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0146.php

The new claimant for the government of men was not impeded by any diffidence or modesty of temperament. He saw no reason why he should not rule as well as any other Giant Power. With a hideous leer upon his face, he turned to the governments and said:

“You govern, you do what you choose, you take possession of body and mind, you wring from this subject human material all that you imagine that you want for your own purposes, you send men hither and thither to be shot for the quarrels that it amuses you to make, you burden them with all the restrictions and vexations that in your belief can add some little thing to your own security or convenience or dignity, and you do it just because you are strong enough to do it—because you have discovered and perfected the trick of the majority. You say that you have a majority on your side—that this majority is strong enough to inflict its will upon all others. Let it be so; I make no pretense to possess a majority; a minority is good enough for me—a small minority of desperate reckless men, believing in their ideas, and not caring much for their lives. But such as we are, we, too, have power. It is not like your power, disguised under innumerable forms and ceremonies; it is just what it professes to be—power, brutal, naked, and not ashamed. Come now, let us reason for a moment together. Where, after all, is the difference between us? We both of us are believers in power; we both of us desire to fashion the world to our own liking by means of power. The only difference between us is in the form of the power which we each make use of. Your power depends upon clever electioneering devices, upon tricks of oratory, upon organized wealth and numbers; mine is the power that can be carried in the pocket of any ragged coat, if the owner of the ragged coat is sufficiently endowed with courage and ideas. We are both seeking to govern. Why, then, do you turn your faces from me, flout me, and disown me? I am your brother, younger, it is true, than you, a little down in the world and disreputable perhaps, but for all that, child of the same family, equal in rank, and claiming by the same title deeds as yourselves. True, I am not magnificently equipped as you are; I have no court as you have, no army, no public institutions, no national treasury, no titles, no uniforms resplendent with decorations; I have only a few fanatical followers; and yet, perhaps, as regards the true test of power, I can command the fears of men and possess myself of their obedience quite as effectually as you can. Let us greet each other and shake hands, even if we are opposed. Believe me, though you shrink from recognizing me, I am in very deed your own brother, your coequal, flesh of your flesh, and spirit of your spirit. Henceforth from today we divide the government of the world between us. You are the force of the majority; and I am the force of the minority.”

Bilbo Baggins