Harvard Moonbat Wants to 'Talk' to Osama

In an interview that displays astonishing naivete, an alleged terrorism "expert" from Harvard, Louise Richardson, suggests back-channel diplomacy with Osama bin Laden will repair America's image.

Pathetically, she's sure to have a lot of people agreeing with her. Read the whole thing, but what follows are a few absurd excerpts.

Could Back Channel Diplomacy Prevent the Worst?

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The suspects were presumably screened before being hired by the NHS. Is it possible that they were radicalized in the short time after they arrived in Britain?

Richardson: We don't know whether they came to the UK as a sleeper cell with this plan in mind, or whether they were radicalized since they came. There seems to be some evidence that they were radicalized by the war in Iraq, and that would then speak to a years-long process. ... But, if you look at the reaction of the family members to these attacks in Britain and to those July 7, 2005 attacks in Britain, the family members seem to have been stunned by the news that their kin was involved. And that's telling.

If she were such an "expert," she might understand Islamists are trained to lie. But of course, it's only George W. Bush who's been lying to us.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Then was the failed suicide attack in Britain a humiliating experience for the terrorists involved?

Richardson: Absolutely. It is humiliating to come away from a suicide attack still alive. Interestingly, in the instance of a failed attack, terrorist groups try to mitigate the humiliation by destroying the video suicide notes before they can reach the public.

Aww, the poor things, humiliated by their failure to kill innocent people. Where's my world's smallest violin?

SPIEGEL ONLINE: If revenge is one of the motivations for terrorist attacks, how can governments evaluate the legitimacy of the terrorists' grievances?

Richardson: It's very effective to take into account what your enemy is thinking. As we've found out, if you don't try to understand terrorists, you may well just be playing into their hands. A purely military response might only exacerbate the perceived grievances that motivate terror attacks. It's unbelievable, but the public diplomacy budget of the United States is only two-thirds of one percent of its military budget -- even though public diplomacy could be an effective way to combat the impression of the United States as an imperialist power.

There you go. If we just had diplomacy, then these cuddly terrorists would lay down their arms and we'd all be one big happy world.

That's the same mindset dunces like Madeleine Albright preached during the 1990's, and look where that got us.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You've mentioned the possibility of setting up talks with groups like al-Qaida. How would such talks be set up?

Richardson: Well, I'm not suggesting that President Bush sit across a table from Osama bin Laden. They would be informal, set up through back channels. These sorts of efforts from the British government were instrumental in the successful resolution of conflict in Northern Ireland. And it's conspicuously lacking from the United States right now.

Talks wouldn't have to be negotiations. Sometimes diplomacy is just a matter of feeling the other side out, of finding out what they actually want. If we could find splits within the organization of al-Qaida, we could play them off of each other for our benefit, isolating the most radical elements. Some people say that setting up talks with terror groups would grant them too much legitimacy. But, in my view, declaring war on a terror group is actually the most effective way of granting legitimacy.

Is she so stupid to believe that "negotiating" with Osama bin Laden would go over with the American public? No doubt some Democrats would be all for it, but seriously, this one really needs to put down the crackpipe.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Has the Democratic Party done enough to resist the Bush administration?

Richardson: Unfortunately not. Perhaps the country hasn't recovered from the hysteria encouraged by the Bush administration. Just a few weeks ago, John Edwards, one of the Democratic nominees for president, suggested that the "war on terror" terminology should be disbanded -- and he was excoriated. Hopefully, the Democrats will be able to make more headway towards an effective anti-terror policy before the next election.

God help us. Hysteria encouraged by the Bush administration? The only hysterical types I see are the ones with a D after their name.

It's muddle-headed thinking like this which endangers us all.