RELIAPUNDIT REPRISE - 12/26/05: "TERRORISTS MUST BE FORCIBLY DISARMED"

I STAND BEHIND WHAT I WROTE SEVEN MONTHS GO: Monday, December 26, 2005:

HAMAS, HIZB'ALLAH AND THE SUNNI TRIANGLE

What do HAMAS - in Gaza and the West Bank, HIZB'ALLAH - in Lebanon, and the SUNNIS of the SUNNI TRIANGLE in Iraq have in common?

They are all armed terrorist groups which use the threat of terror to try to gain political power.

Though they may CLAIM to be political groups, and though they may POSE as political entities, as long as they remain armed - and support armed insurrection and terror - they can ONLY be at best destabilizing.

This would be true of any political group ANYHWERE: in Israel, the Labor Party doesn't have its own militia; in Canada the Liberals don't have their own militia; in France the Gaulists don't have their own militia - and so on. As long as a political party keeps a private militia a virtual civil war exists (or at least the THREAT of civil war exists - a threat which amounts to nothing more than thuggish blackmail, a threat which shouldn't be tolerated AT ALL).

If Hamas and Hizb'Allah and the Sunni groups sometimes act like political parties, this is only until they don't get their way, and then they use the threat of violence and terror to try to get their way. THIS AIN'T DEMOCRATIC! The Sunnis in Iraq appear to be doing this, right now: Unhappy with the election results they are stepping up their campaign of terror. (See HERE and HERE and HERE.)

This is why the Sunnis refuse to disarm and this is fundamentally ANTI-DEMOCRATIC and undermines all attempts at nation -building.

NONE of these nations - neither the "Palestinian Territories" or Lebanon or Iraq - will EVER become stable democracies unless and until these "militant groups" disarm. If they refuse to disarm VOLUNTARILY, then they should be forcibly disarmed. Or, the forces of democracy and liberty can do one other thing: they can appease these terrorist groups and essentially surrender their liberty and democracy to the terrorist's blackmail.

I'm waiting to see what the Palestinian Arabs and the Lebanese and the Iraqis will decide to do. In this decision lies the fate of their nations.

[ADDENDUM: I wish George Bush would more forcefully demand that these groups disarm, and offer any and all means to help the sovereign governments achieve that end! And I do mean any and all means!]

7/25/06: History proves that appeasing the bad-guys just gives them time to get stronger and make the inevitable conflict worse. This goes for Iran, too. And North Korea.