The argument that simply speaking with the leaders of countries we disagree with being "appeasment", some type of surrender or traitorous behavior is simply ridiculous on it's face. It's false bravado, bully diplomacy done at the barrel of a gun and the dull plodding thoughlessness of a charging Rhino.
Most High School students, those with a better knowledge of Presidential History than Dana Perino, understand that Kennedy talked to Kruschev. Nixon talked to Mao, Reagan talked to Gorbachev, George H.W. Bush (via Rumsfeld) talked to Saddam, Bill Clinton's people talked to Jerry Adams and Milosevic, and George W. Bush's Administration has talked to both Qaddafi, Lil Kim Jong Il and the leaders of the Sunni Awakening.
Yet somehow - Obama is the misguided one here?
It's just so wrong and inaccurate it's galling to the point of rage.
The definition of "Appeasment" via Dictionary.com
ap·pease – verb (used with object), - peased, - peas·ing.
1. to bring to a state of peace, quiet, ease, calm, or contentment; pacify; soothe: to appease an angry king.
2. to satisfy, allay, or relieve; assuage: The fruit appeased his hunger.
3. to yield or concede to the belligerent demands of (a nation, group, person, etc.) in a conciliatory effort, sometimes at the expense of justice or other principles.
A discussion is not a concession to some belligerent demand. It's a discussion. It's communication. How can you make any progress in any direction at all unless you discuss the issues at hand?
Standing back while loudly bellowing "Give Up, Or I'll say GIVE UP again..." is not a ration foriegn policy.
Former G. H. W. Bush Secretary of State James Baker understands this fully - From Hannity and Colmes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYC3jVaDDEg
Baker: My view is that you don't just talk to your friends, you talk to your enemies as well and that Diplomacy requires talking to your enemies. You don't reward them. Talking is not appeasement. I made 15 trips to Syria in 1990-1991 ...at a time when they were listed as a terrorist state. On the 16 trip Syria changed 25 years of policy and sat with the table with Israel, effectively recognizing their right to exist.
Maybe that is what Barack Obama want to discuss with Iran, Mr. McCain?
Fortunately though, Barack Obama himself knows how to seperate fact from their distructive inane fiction. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jm-VduN-FVc
In this speech Barack makes it clear that the failure to engage is not a sign of strength, it is a travesty of disastrous proportions. Since Bush and his ilk like to use a retroactive rewriting of history to suit their own rhetorical needs, lets suppose this had always been our policy and as a result we had have lost the Cold War?
If we hadn't negotiated with the Soviet Union...
There would still be Nuclear Missles in Cuba pointed right at Florida. East and West Germany would not have been reunited. There would still be a wall across the center of Berlin.
It's well past time we relearned something that we seemed to have always known before the reign of President George W. Bush.
Diplomacy Works.
Vyan
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