Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American Senator declared: “Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.” We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.[…incredulous stare…]
Obama responded almost instantly:
It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 6Oth anniversary of Israel’s independence to launch a false political attack. It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel.
Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power – including tough, principled, and direct diplomacy – to pressure countries like Iran and Syria. George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the President’s extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel.I… I just… God.
I’ll let Keith Olbermann speak for me. What he said yesterday, same same here.
Acute Point of Irony the 1st: The Senator in question was a REPUBLICAN, Sen. William Borah.
Acute Point of Irony the 2nd: Whose senatorial grandfather was slapped by the federal government for war profiteering to Germany in WWII? Could it be…Dubya’s?
9/11 ended any chance of the fighting in NI starting again but the reason there was a long ceasefire before that event were than eventually the British and Irish Governments started talking and negotiating with the IRA and their political wing.
It took a long time for a lot of people to accept this as a necessary evil. It brought peace to this Island though.
And it’s a well-known meme in this presidential cycle that Obama wants to talk to our enemies. He’s said this a bunch of times before, and has taken a lot of flak for it from Republicans. The Atlantic Monthly recently had an interesting article on it called The Accidental Foreign Policy. Basically, I think anyone who has been paying attention knows who Bush is talking about.
I hope no one is really surprised at the absolute depths that our fine leader will sink to in an attempt to make a point. I know I’m not, how ever disgusted I might be at his general displays of stupidity. Lets just say that I’m sure he has yet to reach his full potential and every single day affords him the opportunity to astound and amaze me with the ignorant ramblings that leave his mouth. Really the only question that remains is when the hell will he ever do something to attempt to make up for all the bullshit he has forced on his countrymen and the rest of the world, not through just his words, but through his idiotic attempts to stick our noses in where they have no business being. It’s like watching fucking Frankenstein stumbling around except that Frankenstein ended up having some redeeming qualities after all.
Similar thing here. While the ANC insurgency put pressure on the Apartheid Govt. it was the talking that actually ended the whole mess. That and maybe a new generation of White boys who didn’t necessarily want to die for old men anymore.
Og, is all this crap about Hamas, still?! It should be obvious to anyone interested, by now, that Hamas ain’t going away and can’t be marginalized. Hamas can’t even be defeated, in military terms, because they were defeated in military terms before they even started; but still they have power. No one who won’t negotiate with Hamas will ever settle anything WRT Israel-Palestine.
Shame on you, Barack! I expect this sort of thing from W, but I thought you could be held to a higher standard!
Not that I expect Dubya to know a whit about history, but did his speech writer know that the Nazis “justified” their invasion of Poland by claiming that Polish fighters attacked a radio station on the Poland/Germany border and killed a German radio engineer?
Only the Nazis themselves staged the raid and the dead German engineer was a German political prisoner that the Nazis themselves dragged to the radio station and put a bullet in him.
So, the Nazis just **had ** to invade Poland to stop Polish agression against Germany.
C’mon. Let’s get real here. Nobody is saying there shouldn’t be channels of negotiation between countries and organizations we have a beef with. This is a pretty well established principle of diplomacy, and it employs everything from informal contacts to third-country protective powers, and even the UN General Assembly and its observers.
We talk to North Korea, Iran and Cuba all of the time, and they talk to us. It seems to me that the same could be said of Hezbollah, Hamas and other organizations as well, especially if we act through intermediaries.
What Obama was asked about was negotiating in person without preconditions and he said sure. That stance was such a break from the position of our government for as long as anyone could remember, and such a difference from whatever any other Republican or Democrat candidate was saying, that it was immediately treated as a gaffe by every single person who heard it. Every one. Even people sympathetic to Obama immediately started to explain the statement away until it was clear that he wasn’t disavowing it himself.
So let’s treat this as what it is - Obama advocating a huge break from our previous practices. If he’s serious about that, he ought to defend that stance. Personally, I’m of the view that a lot of diplomatic groundwork ought to be laid down before presidential summit meetings or the like. If you want to call these preconditions, then call them that - but in my mind they are essential.
No, what he was asked about was talking, which needn’t take the form of negotiation at all. A man with balls will face his enemy and give his demands in person.
Which, by the way HAS FUCK ALL TO DO WITH HITLER. In goddamn Israel, no less.
“This is bullshit. This is malarkey. This is outrageous. […]
“He’s the guy who’s weakened us. He’s the guy that’s increased the number of terrorists in the world. His policies have produced this vulnerability the United States has. His intelligence community pointed that out not me. The NIE has pointed that out and what are you talking about, is he going to fire Condi Rice? Condi Rice has talked about the need to sit down. So his first two appeasers are Rice and Gates. I hope he comes home and does something.”
The dam may be breaking- Republican blood is in the water and the media is starting to smell it.
The saving grace for the GOP may be that it is happening this early- there will be time to adjust to this new order in which statements from the pulpit are not swallowed eagerly and regurgitated. Time to regain some humility and make it a race in November. We’ll see.
Didn’t the Bush administration itself do a fair amount of talking with both Iraq and Afghanistan before invading both of them? (Albeit talking that ended up accomplishing nothing?)
I once read an article that made an interesting (and in my opinion accurate) point: the two world wars could have been prevented if the diplomatic response to them prior to the wars had been reversed. A certain level of appeasement probably could have prevented World War I and a strong alliances linked for collective security probably could have prevented World War II.
So the key isn’t to fix on one policy and keep using it resolutely. The key is to figure out what the right policy is for a particular problem and then following it.
