Neil Cavuto
"Well look at the bright side, at least we don't need their stinking phone records because now we are going on the record with the very terrorists on whom been spying. The White House says that it is open to peace talks with the Taliban, and the Taliban is open to peace talks with the White House, so who really needs sorted emails and texts when they could just vent in person. Terrorism expert Steven Emerson says he thinks having talks like that is just crazy talk, but it does look like it's pretty real right now. What do you make of this Steven, and where does this go?"
Steve Emerson
"I don't know where it goes, but I think you are 100 percent right, it's absolutely astounding and not just astounding, but very dangerous. Look, the Taliban are one of the most evil forces in the world today. They were responsible along with al-Qaida for the killings of 3,000 Americans. We went in and lost thousands of American lives to try to destroy the Taliban, and now suddenly, we're recognizing them as almost the diplomatic equivalent. We're giving them legitimacy, and we're extending them the protection of that legitimacy so that they can go around the world and say, 'the U.S. recognizes us, and while they're still continuing to kill Americans, to kill Afghanis, to kill women, at the very same time that we are now entering talks with them. Look, you can talk with your enemy, we've always heard, if you don't talk with your enemy, who can you talk with?' The bottom line here is that this is not just an enemy, this is a force that has never lived up to any type of promise that it has ever made, so why would we engage in talks with the group that has killed thousands of Americans, that will continue to do so, that will destroy Afghanistan, and yet we are now still in Afghanistan trying to basically destroy them, yet we are recognizing them and giving them the legitimacy to destroy their own country."
Neil Cavuto
"You know, you make a lot of sense, and here's the counter to that argument. We felt the same way in the day about the PLO, and then remember when Andrew Young, then the UN Ambassador had these secret meetings, I guess it was with Yasser Arafat at the time, when Jimmy Carter was president. And it really led to 'goodbye Andy,' and now we have ongoing dialogue, rocky relations, but still with the PLO and the Palestinian Authority and on we go. The argument goes the extreme enemy of the moment is the sort of negotiating partner in the future. But you draw the line with the Taliban."
Steve Emerson
"Well I also would draw the line with the PLO. Look at the facts with the PLO, they never lived up to their promises, they're still committing terrorism."
Neil Cavuto
"But you know the trajectory, you know this goes."
Steve Emerson
"Listen, we know the trajectory, we know what happened when we negotiated with the Iranians several years ago which they used to buy time just to build up their nuclear program, while telling us that they were really suspending their enrichment program. They weren't. The Taliban are 100 times worse than the Iranians. They are the ones who shot that 16-year-old girl in the last six months; they killed five Americans in the last two weeks. There's no goodwill here that's even evincing some type of effort that says we want to really engage in true diplomatic talks. They are using us, and we are allowing them to be used in enabling them to become legitimate, enabling them to become an equal force with the Afghan security force. What is the ultimate goal of this? They are going to end up power-sharing with Karzai's force? No, what will happen is they'll take over the entire Afghanistan country, and resume to a pre-9/11 status quo anti - and that means everything we have done for the last 11 years, all the thousands of American lives that were lost, have gone for vain. That's the problem here."
Neil Cavuto
"But look at the money we saved on spying on them. We can tell them right to their faces."
Steve Emerson
"You know it's sad, and it's dangerous. What does it say to other Islamist movements? Terrorist movements? That if you just wait out the United States, they will recognize you. This is one of the worse precedents this country has ever committed, and I really fear for the future because we have been empowering Islamist movements, including the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. This is a 10 steps further than doing that."
Neil Cavuto
"Well as you pressingly pointed out, I mean, it's easy to get on the side of the United States if you just say, I think as they said when disorder was in the middle of taking over in the time of Mubarak, 'just say that you think Israel can exist, that you won't kill them.' When they said that, even though they didn't mean it, then the dollars were flowing. It's amazing, they have our number."
Steve Emerson
"They have our number, and you know what, what did Einstein say the definition of insanity was, repeating something that you know is insane over and over again. That's what we're doing here. And it's going to cost American lives, I guarantee you, and that's the real tragedy here. That we know ahead of time what the consequences will be."
Neil Cavuto
"We'll watch, Steven it's always a pleasure, thank you very, very much."