Reader Rants 'n' Raves

Taliban too.

I don't understand why any international community is not even trying to bring TULF or other democratic Tamil political parties instead of LTTE to the negotiating table as the ligitimate representative of TAMIL people. For the last 20 years, LTTE has shown that they are not for a peaceful solution with a reasonable decentralized administration within a unitary Sri Lanka. Tamils and Muslims have to understand that majority SINHALESE people treat them and SHOULD treat them with respect and without any discrimination regrdless of LTTE's false accusations

First, I would like to explain that the West has no genuine interest in helping Sri Lanka achieve a peaceful solution to this terrible problem because there is no tangible economic or security benefit to Western countries in this peace process. So, in the absence of a clear security or political benefit to them, comparable to the Middle East, the West has been adopting an ideological position of "moral high-ground" in that the West is advocating the idea of "negotiated settlement." They have been encouraging the Sri Lankan political leaders to negotiate with terrorists LTTE, the very concept that they reject outright with regard to the Islamic terror groups. West opposes any negotiations with Islamic terrorists as it would mean to compromise their sense of military and ideological superiority. On this ground, Sri Lankan leaders and the public, for the most part, are aware of the fact that double-talking Western political leaders and their diplomatic representatives should not be taken very seriously. Sri Lankans of all social and political backgrounds know that American position with regards to Palestine and Israel conflict.

My second point is that negotiations with terrorists who are committed to breakup a country is futile unless you are ready to deal with them militarily. The only way to do that is to give the terrorists a military option while providing a political solution to Tamil people. Throughout the history of this conflict, we have not done that for a variety reasons, which I will not discuss here. But, now for the first time, this dual approach is taking place.