Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
Why discourse? This isn't a debate. You don't have a discourse with drug dealers do you?
No, but we do have discourse with the drug users that keep the drug dealers in business: a fair bit of effort (mostly ineffectual but still there) goes into education and persuasion aimed at getting people not to start using drugs and to persuade users to stop. Similarly we aim information at potential insurgents and insurgent supporters in an effort to get them to withdraw support and leave the insurgent exposed. Not an answer in itself, but useful as one tactic among many, and though we've done it badly often enough that's no reason not to try and do it better.