If I could interrupt El Jeffe’s hijack for just a moment.
2002 Nobel Peace Winner
(not sure how long the link will work)
Um, people were also fleeing El Salvador because of persecution, but Reagan didn’t accept that.
Jeff: since you didn’t get my message made euphemistically with the note about skillfully quoting out of context and “information is power”, I will state the message more directly: I’m not going to engage in a debate with someone who provides only quotations out of context to skewer someone without having access to the full context in which these things were said. I took the Cuba example simply because there I was able to get the full context myself on the Web.
Besides which, I think all of these are going to come back to the same point: That the Jeff school of diplomacy consists of telling those you are negotiating with (or even trying to broker a deal for a third party with) that they are evil and you are right and nothing short of complete capitulation to your point of view is in order here.
My point exactly. And, you conveniently come up with lots of silly analogies where it might not be useful. However, the situation that we are actually dealing with is a situation where Carter is given the opportunity to talk to the Cuban people on TV. You have yet to make any sort of case as to how the approach that you seem to be advocating would be at all fruitful.
Wow, and that has worked wonderfully over the past 40 years, at least if our goal was to help prop up a dictator who might have gone by the wayside long ago if he didn’t have such a great foil! [Our goal was to prop him up, right?!]
I agree with Mr. Svinlesha on where real moral strength lies. But, furthermore, I also think that you completely mischaracterize Carter’s speech (which isn’t surprising given how selectively you quoted it). Saying (to paraphrase) “we may not be perfect but in our country the people have the power to change things whereas you are being denied that power” is not waffling. It is attempting to explain distinctions and philosophies. It may not go over well with a crowd that like to throw around words like “evil” and “insane” instead of actually engaging in substantive discussions, but that doesn’t make it waffling.
By the way, while not in any way defending Castro, I should note that the U.S. has defended…even helped to install…dictators equally ruthless who have done even less to bring education and health care to their masses. And, you really have to consider Castro in light of what came before him…It doesn’t justify the ruthless things that he has done but it might help explain why the Cuban people may not want to hear a lot of moralistic B.S. from a U.S. leader!
For our benefit, could you compare and contrast this with Saudi Arabia, a country whose leaders…the last I checked…were not on the list of evil and ruthless despots that we must get rid of.
ElJeffe: Well said.
ElJeffe: Well said.
…by turning it into an international political football.
It now has no more weight than those fashion awards that were given out last night.
What was merely assumed before is now glaringly obvious - if the committee members agree with your politics, they’ll give you their purty prize. If not, you can suck it.
IMHO, Carter, by accepting the award along with the Chairman’s caveats, has shown that he believes more in the moral rightness of the international community than in that of the United States.
jshore:
Regarding the Carter-isms “taken out of context”, I don’t think they were. My criticisms of the excerpts from that Cuba speech still stand, even when taken in whole with the entire script. The only way I could have satisfied you with the “context” was to post the entirety of several speeches, along with an entire book discussing Carter’s life. I think the SDMBs have some rules against that.
I will note that everytime the US supports a dicatator, it is because we view the alternative to be worse. You think we outfitted Saddam because we thought he was a nice guy? No, we did so because the ayatollahs in Iran were even worse. Contras in Nicaragua? Because the Sandinistas were worse. But this is getting off track, so I won’t say anymore about it.
Well, the State Department recently listed Saudi Arabia as a nation that abuses members of minority religions:
http://www.sudan.net/news/posted/5977.html
It’s a start. The reason we’ve been supporting SA is because they were the least offensive of the Arab nations, and we needed an Arab ally. Now with Afghanistan and (soon, hopefully) Iraq joining the ranks, we can hopefully put some pressure on them. You know, for someone who preaches diplomacy, you sure don’t seem to get the idea of having to support people we don’t always like.
And Sam, thank you.
Lastly, 5 Time Champ, I went to the link, and saw nothing but some college kids smiling face, talking about how wonderful Macs are. I assume there was something more that I missed?
Jeff
On the evening of October 14, 2002 there was a congratulatory photo of Jimmy Carter working on a Habitat for Humanity project on that linked page.
No, you could have simply linked to the speech. The quotes from the book may present more of a problem which is why it is rather more difficult to discuss those quotes.
As for the Carter speech, now everyone here can read your quotes from the speech and read the entire speech online and judege for themselves about how representative your quotes were.
Yes, but now you are sliding down the slope from moral absolutism and getting into the realm of making these judgements which are quite subjective (and even involve unknowables). A case could be made that Castro is a preferable alternative to Batista.
Also, I question whether the only piece in the calculus the U.S. uses in deciding who to support is whether the alternative is worse for these people. I think our own national interests also come into it.
Well, that is not altogether clear. I would guess it has more to do with the fact that they have oodles of oil and are quite compliant to our interests concerning the world oil market.
Well, you attacked Carter for cozying up to people you don’t like. I just pointed out your hypocrisy. Apparently, if you like them, then we can cozy up to them regardless of their atrocious human rights record.
Your preach a moral absolutism when it pleases your fancy and a real-politik approach when it pleases your fancy.
And, in fact, the difference between what Carter did in Cuba and what the U.S. is doing in Saudi Arabia is rather stark…Carter is not proposing that we try to prop up the Castro regime and give it lots of military equipment. He is simply arguing that we might be able to influence better if we actually negotiated with them and got rid of the complete economic embargo!