OMG, would you just please look it up in Wikipedia?
Here’s 9 minutes of Chris Matthews trying to get a hollerin’ right-wing radio host to acknowledge that he (the host) doesn’t know what “appeasement” means. Clearly, neither does President Bush.
The notion that it’s weak to talk with your enemies is even more dangerous than the Bush preemption policy. If you don’t talk, you use force. Force is expensive. Force kills innocents. Force kills Americans. Force is wildly ineffective. Force makes peace harder to bring about. That’s why force is a last resort. The problem is, Bush doesn’t have a first resort.
That’s why during the cold war, every president spoke with the Soviet leaders, even while the Soviets were a launch-code away from obliterating us with nuclear weapons. Of course you talk with your enemies. What are we, inarticulate Huns? Blood-raged animals? Implacable minions of death? Jeez!
Talking with your enemies doesn’t mean you incrementally give them what they want in the naive hope that they’ll stop with that. That would be, um, appeasement. But refusing to talk with your enemies is — I don’t know what other word to use — wickedness.
Of all the Bushy things, his stance on communication has always been the most baffling to me. I can’t imagine anyone over the age of 6 taking a “fFORCE OR NOTHING” approach, especially given the extraordinary costs and resources involved. Blah, depressing.
Matthews giving it to that hacky shill was excellent though. My TV show pitch: SHILL BAITER. Wherein shills from all walks of life are brought in to spout out their talking points and are then brutally attacked and exposed for the hacks they are. A feel good show! For the family!
Let’s see: Hamas’ stated goal is the annihilation of Israel.
Please explain, in the context of the mideast, what that gives us to talk about.
My TV show pitch: SHILL BAITER.
Great
“But refusing to talk with your enemies is — I don’t know what other word to use — wickedness.”
Or stupid. :) But on the other side of the coin, if your contributions to the conversations are being influenced by your enemy to such a point that you aren’t responding clearly (i.e. emotionally heated response) then it might be best to not talk to them anyways (at least for a bit so you can both cool down).
I mean this kind of relates to what you said before about you not liking that guy at the party because the way he made you act. If you know you’re not acting yourself, best to avoid a confrontation until you can be yourself and think more clearly.
“Hamas’ stated goal is the annihilation of Israel. Please explain, in the context of the mideast, what that gives us to talk about.”
People all around the world have commonalities no matter who they are. And if anything it is this disregard for commonalities that often leads to friction at an ever escalating rate. Or put another way, it is this disconnect between people and a lack of perspective, that may people ignorant of what is going on around them. I mean one country may see themselves as the greatest thing since sliced bread but their “positive” actions may be destroying people around the world.
I mean the destruction of native indian lifestyles by settles and religion is a good example of this. The settlers assumed they were doing these people good, yet they were destroying their very way of life. Again a totally disconnect between the two cultures and a lack of understanding and perspective. Yet if commonalities were found initially by these settlers, to try to understand the native indian’s way of life, this might have been overcome.
Based on my reading of the way of life of some of those tribes - the Apache and the Sioux, for instance - there was no compromise available. It was either going to be their land, or ours. With others - the Cherokee come to mind - compromise was easily possible, and it’s a stain on our history that we pushed them onto the trail of tears.
Likewise, there are some states in the middle east that talks might conceivably be useful with - Iran is not a monolithic state, for instance, and it’s possible that a more useful government might come into power at some point. Hamas and Hizbollah? Not so much. Both are radical to the core, and bent on one thing - the utter destruction of Israel. Given that, the notion that having a sit down with either would serve a purpose is just stupid. Iran could possibly be bargained with (although I have my doubts, given their current government), but not those two.
Whoever that guy is, he comes off as a moron. But I think the news media has been too quick to jump on this story as a jab at Obama.
Obama should have come out and said something to the extent of, “While I believe that no harm can ever come from speaking with our enemies, I agree with the president that we need to be careful not to appease groups like Hamas, as Jimmy Carter has done.” By taking the defensive, Obama is making himself look like an appeaser, even if he is not.
See, I really think Bush was talking about Jimmy Carter. I know Carter has been a burning issue in Israeli minds this past week, and Carter’s proposal is to appease terrorists. In the New York Times, Carter advocated that Israel make concessions to Hamas. Making concessions to an enemy after that enemy terrorizes your people is appeasement. Declaring the potential for a “peace in our time” (to quote Chamberlin and paraphrase Carter) when Hamas’s charter mandates the destruction of Israel is appeasement.
The US didn’t become aggressive starting with Bush. There have been a lot of questionable uses of force under many presidencies, both Republican and Democratic, and the pattern does seem to be that war is an ongoing and deeply integrated aspect of the US culture.
That sweeping sentiment aside, I do think that US aggression has never been more nakedly strutted than under the current administration, and it’s certainly among the worst of the worst, but by far not the first.
Just for the record, Obama does not want to talk with Hamas. [source] (I disagree with him on this.)
Also, please try to not to call other commenters names. That’s the opposite of helpful. Thanks.
Todd,
Most aggressive? Clearly, you need to read up on James K. Polk. Not to mention Andrew Jackson. The lack of historical awareness of those with Bush Derangement Syndrome is getting to be tiresome.