Negotiation
GW Bush - - Posted on May, 16 at 11:13 pm by Ken L
I teach courses in negotiation. Here are two useful definitions of the process from scholarly literature:
- an interpersonal, intra-group, or inter-group process where there is a conflict of interest and the parties negotiate because they think they can use some form of influence to get a better deal and negotiation is largely a voluntary process
- a process of potentially opportunistic interaction by which two or more parties with some apparent conflict seek to do better, through jointly decided action, than they could do otherwise
In other words, the principal purpose of negotiation is to reach an agreement.
Moreover, as any undergraduate student learns, negotiation involves a process of bargaining in which the parties trade things of value. In the process of integrative bargaining, the parties approach the negotiation as an exercise in problem-solving, in which they jointly try to find a solution which satisfies everybody’s interests.
Like I said, this is what an undergraduate learns. However, the principles are way too complicated for the comprehension of the moron who is the president of the USA. Here’s his idea of negotiation:
“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,” Bush said at Israel’s 60th anniversary celebration in Jerusalem.
Yes according to the child king, negotiation is an argument about who is right and who is wrong. In his infantile world view there’s no point ‘negotiating’ with terrorists (read sovereign governments that he happens to dislike) because he doesn’t believe he could come up with any arguments that would make them admit they were wrong … and if he can’t do that, there’s no point ‘negotiating’, correct?
Has a stupider, more ignorant fuckwit ever been head of state of a major power?
Posted in GW Bush |
May 17th, 2008 at 1:21 am
Dunno if we should view the preznit’s statement as an insight into what the he really believes. Can we be sure that this fool believes in ANYTHING other than his right to rule? I reckon crawford cretin is simply preaching to his BASE. As shallow as he is I suspect that, in this case, it’s just a cheap shot to secure some knuckle-dragger votes.
Opportunism, always.
May 17th, 2008 at 8:33 am
The US can’t ever negotiate a peace because what would their arms manufacturers do then?
Poor old Boeing, Lockheed & Rocketdyne would have no sales of their death planes and missiles. Their obscene profits would slump. And what would the makers of those tiny pellets of plutonium do with millions of them stored away unused?
And those thousands of brave US soldiers, as sweet as apple pie, wouldn’t have any more pleading prisoners to torture, maim and murder in unseen dungeons.
No, peace is way too costly and boring, just ask Uncle Dick Cheney. His billion shares in Haliburton could be at risk if peace broke out everywhere. Negotiated settlements are old hat, war is the only answer; just read our history books.
May 17th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
I imagine dog-whistling may appear moronic to those who don’t hear the real message.
May 17th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Sadly, with that fool, the “real message” is usually just as moronic as the dog-whistling.
May 17th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Way back when, late 60s/early 70s, with the US assualt on Vietnam in full go=mode, around 550,000 in 1971 I seem to recall, quite a few journalists churned out their 1-2,000 words on the theme, “what if peace broke out?” though they were referring to the Cold War specifically.
Their general consensus then (when there were still many independent newspapers in amerika)was that the country couldn’t afford peace, too many jobs, esp in the Amerikan Dream/Nightmare of the booming west coast, were utterly & soley dtied to WAR.
As the old doggerel doesn’t put it. ‘WAR,What is it good for? All that we love ’bout amerika, cheap cheeseburgers, glue & gyprock tract homes and apple pie, even if picked by wetbacks liable to deportation.”
May 17th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
A couple of good links from over at PB shows that negotiating skills were not handed down with the Genes,
Papa Prescott Bush was apparantly a very good negotiator in his own way.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larisa-alexandrovna/all-the-presidents-nazis_b_102022.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QeyQs202YI
With a stroke of good fortune this should pick up Obi a handful of votes later on.
May 17th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Try Senator Andrew Bartletts Blog before you put the boot entirely into the American soldiers ribcage.And ,whilst many people just dont want to know it,leadership in the world isn’t progressing,it is like the real and only comprehensive thing about Darwinism.Evolution is adaption,not progress of a species!? The future will be longer than my memory!?Account for the human loss and misery of Iraq,and that nation is now dependent,adapted!?Dependent on what,someone may ask!?A kind word that helps and inspires,but in doing so,becomes a killjoy ,the Iraq’s have been turned into mirrors of a very few numbers of persons,and havent learnt yet to be mirrors themselves.Say something kind,and it kills them,for it isn’t spoken by one of their own,unless its defiant,and thus knows the Fate.
May 18th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Amphibious, I think you’re referring to “Report from Iron Mountain” - a great little read.
May 18th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Be fair Ken, there are loads of other people, including many politicians from many countries who subscribe to the view that you can’t negotiate with terrorists.
They argue that the terrorists never hold their end of the bargain and if you give an inch, they’ll take a mile etc.
I’d be interested to see if you can refute that argument using logic rather than just stating that it is wrong.
May 18th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers
(Pentagon Papers)
The Pentagon Papers revealed many things, among them, that the US deliberately expanded its war with airstrikes against Laos, coastal raids of North Vietnam, and U.S. Marine Corps attacks — before President Lyndon B. Johnson informed the American public, though promising to not expand the war. The revelations widened the credibility gap between the U.S. government and its people, hurting the Nixon administration’s war effort.
and
U.S. Government’s reaction
The New York Times’ publication of the Pentagon Papers article-series angered President Nixon; he told National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger: people have gotta be put to the torch for this sort of thing … and let’s get the son-of-a-bitch in jail. After failing to persuade the NYT to voluntarily cease publication, U.S. Attorney General John N. Mitchell and President Nixon obtained a federal court injunction forcing the NYT to cease publication. The newspaper appealed the injunction, and the case quickly rose through the U.S. legal system to the Supreme Court.
On June 18, 1971, the Washington Post began publishing its own series of articles based upon the Pentagon Papers; Ellsberg gave portions to editor Ben Bagdikian. That day, Assistant U.S. Attorney General William Rehnquist asked the Washington Post to cease publication; they refused; Rehnquist sought an injunction; the U.S. district court refused him; the Government appealed the refusal.
On June 26, the Supreme Court agreed to hear both cases, consolidating to the ‘New York Times Co. v. United States’ (403 US 713). On June 30, 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court decided, 6–3, that the injunctions were unconstitutional prior restraint and that the Government failed to meet the heavy burden of proof required for prior restraint injunction. The nine justices wrote nine opinions disagreeing on significant, substantive matters; while generally a victory for First Amendment free speech absolutists, others felt it a mild legal victory of little protection for publishers against national security claims to prior restraint of publishing.
Thomas Tedford and Dale Herbeck summary of the editorial and publishing reaction of the time:
As the press rooms of the Times and the Post began to hum to the lifting of the censorship order, the journalists of America pondered with grave concern the fact that for fifteen days the ‘free press’ of the nation had been prevented from publishing an important document and for their troubles had been given an inconclusive and uninspiring ‘burden-of-proof’ decision by a sharply divided Supreme Court. There was relief, but no great rejoicing, in the editorial offices of America’s publishers and broadcasters.
—Tedford and Herbeck, pp. 225–6
—————–
deja vu anyone?
May 18th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Gerry Adams, Menachem Begin, Muammar al-Gaddafi and Nelson Mandela were terrorists… and then they weren’t.
May 18th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
In Obama’s infinitely more mature world view, there’s no point negotiating with those who engage in terror…that is, of course, unless they have state sponsorhip. State sponsorhip makes it all okay. He won’t negotiate with Hamas, but he will negotiate with Iran, a state sponsor of Hamas (and Hezbollah). You may not see the absurd contradiction in any of this, but I certainly do.
Here’s the dilemma as I see it: if your negotiating partner’s interests will only be satisfied with the destruction of a sovereign state (i.e Israel), then what? Is there anything to discuss? A visit to a psyhiatrist perhaps? Shouldn’t negotations only be entered into if/when it has been determined that both parties are of sound mind? What basis is there for negotiations when the interests of one party clearly defy morality? Do you honestly believe there’s anything Iran could be offered, short of the destruction of Israel (be it demographically or militarily), that would satisfy their interests?
May 18th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
Why wasn’t I told there was a nurse’s strike?
May 18th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Yairsss…
The rabid hatred of the Jews. Except.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/16/africa/ME-GEN-Iran-Jews-TV-Series.php
The determination to destroy Israel. Though.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/middle_east/he26ak01.html
The hub of terrorism. But.
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSHOS437568
It’s all so clear. Perhaps.
May 18th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
So Simone you admit that Bush was slagging Obama in a speech to the Israeli parliament? It wasn’t the point of my post but it’s interesting you so readily concede that which the Bush Administration is so brazenly trying to deny.
On the topic of my post … you make the classic error of confusing Iran’s (alleged) stated position with its interests. Interests can only be understood following a process of research and dialogue. Sneering that the other party is not of sound mind is an unpromising beginning to the process and strongly suggests that you are in fact looking for excuses not to reach an agreement because your interests are served by bellicosity and aggression.
May 18th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Alistair at #9, I don’t think you have put much of an argument, you are begging the question with an added appeal to popular opinion. However Simone at #12 simply uses stock phrases to further polarise positions
May 19th, 2008 at 12:49 am
Never say never again:
After the 1969 coup, Gaddafi closed American and British bases and partially nationalized foreign oil and commercial interests in Libya. He also played a key role in promoting oil embargoes as a political weapon for challenging the West, hoping that an oil price rise and embargo in 1973 would persuade the West, especially the United States, to end support for Israel.
and
In the 1980s, Libya increasingly distanced itself from the West, and was accused of committing mass acts of state sponsored terrorism. When evidence of Libyan complicity was discovered in the Berlin discotheque terrorist bombing that killed two American servicemen, the United States responded by launching an aerial bombing attack against targets near Tripoli and Benghazi in April 1986.
In 1991, two Libyan intelligence agents were indicted by federal prosecutors in the U.S. and Scotland for their involvement in the December 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103. Six other Libyans were put on trial in absentia for the 1989 bombing of UTA Flight 772. The UN Security Council demanded that Libya surrender the suspects, cooperate with the Pan Am 103 and UTA 772 investigations, pay compensation to the victims’ families, and cease all support for terrorism. Libya’s refusal to comply led to the approval of UNSC Resolution 748 on March 31, 1992, imposing sanctions on the state designed to bring about Libyan compliance. Continued Libyan defiance led to further sanctions by the UN against Libya in November 1993.
In 2003, more than a decade after the sanctions were put in place, Libya began to make dramatic policy changes in regard to the Western world with the open intention of pursuing a Western-Libyan détente. The Libyan government announced its decision to abandon its weapons of mass destruction programs and pay almost 3 billion US dollars in compensation to the families of Pan Am flight 103 as well as UTA Flight 772. The decision was welcomed by many western nations and was seen as an important step for Libya toward rejoining the international community.[25] Since 2003 the country has made efforts to normalize its ties with the European Union and the United States and has even coined the catchphrase, ‘The Libya Model’, an example intended to show the world what can be achieved through negotiation rather than force when there is goodwill on both sides.
and
On May 15, 2006 the United States Department announced it would fully restore diplomatic relations with Libya if it dismantled its weapons programs. Also the State Department removed Libya from their state sponsored terrorism list which it had been on for 27 years.
On October 16, 2007 Libya was voted to serve on the United Nations Security Council for two years starting January 2008
(wiki pedia)
———————–
Tho I wouldn’t put it past the bloody Busheviks to intentionally screw things up w/ Libya & Nth. Korea again just to prove a point…but just like “allowing a terrorist attack in America” again, it could really backfire.
NO LONGER EYES WIDE SHUT
May 19th, 2008 at 1:01 am
Worth reading:
(Down the Osama Rabbit Hole and Into the War on Terror Wonderland: Kristina Borjesson, BUZZFLASH, 05/18/2008)
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/1630
It’s all about weird timing…& the inability of the so called SUPERPOWER to find a really tall guy for half a trillion dollars & counting. Charles Manson can only wish.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:12 am
“Colonel Gaddafi’s 15-month-old adopted daughter, Hanna, was killed and two of his sons were injured in the raid”
There’s a story going ’round that Saddam tried to have Dubya’s dad killed.
Unforgivable.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:21 am
(US plot to nail Iran backfires
By Gareth Porter, Asia Times Online, May 16, 2008)
WASHINGTON - The George W Bush administration’s plan to create a new crescendo of accusations against Iran for allegedly smuggling arms to Shi’ite militias in Iraq has encountered not just one but two setbacks.
The government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki refused to endorse US charges of Iranian involvement in arms smuggling to Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, and a plan to show off a huge collection of Iranian arms captured in and around the central city of Karbala had to be called off after it was discovered that none of the arms was of Iranian origin.
more here:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JE16Ak02.html
———
Dangit Daddy!!!…we almost got away with it…i put the stolen goods in the Persian boy’s rucksack just like Dicky said…but when Davy went to point it out to Principal Mr. Mogul some of the other kids tripped him up. Got me so God darned angry I coulda put a bullet in a sacred text. Wouldn’t thatta stirred up the hornet’s nest Daddy?
We’ll get ‘em yet, you’ll see. To let off some steam i’m gonna bully that black kid from Chicago…grrr…hey Princey, cummin’ hold my hand while I kick the TRUTH outa that skinny f*cker!!! And keep a lookout for that Hillrod with the boxing gloves…she’s started hittin’ me from behind lately, backstabbin’ b….
May 19th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Nasking said in part:
Hmm, help me out here Nas - 2003?? Didn’t something happen that year??
May 19th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
It’s like this, George Bush is the idiot enough to imagine that he has something over Australia and Australians because it was all our fault that the USA bombed Japan . . . . . . well so it went in something I dreamed once; while George Bush is on record as saying that God speaks to him, so, perhaps anybody could get him to believe whatever we want him to?
Since we can’t disuade the old bludger from believing that God’s mystery speaks directly to him, why not manifest as the voice of God’s mysterious ways in Mr Bush’s brains? The only problem is, that you’ll really need to have a working knowledge of the Bible to convince Mr Bush, of course, and that usually goes hand in hand with knowing that it is wrong to go around impersonating God. However, the challenge exists of course.
(I know somebody who tried to have a screw on the Queen and Prince Phillip and wound up tangled in the Buckingham Palace dungeons for years upon years of good dreaming value time)(Therefore, best hand it to the blackfellas for having acheived receiving an apology from a Nation State: it’s a world first in fact, and that aspect of what is happening to our national political arena, ought to be receiving acknowledgement)
I happen to prefer the Aboriginal cultural mode of negotiating. We (us Aborigines that is), just show our faults whenever we have any available for showing, until we are able to perceive what every other fault in who we are negotiating with is. No point getting upset about having warts and all, but nobody gets down to real business until all the potential flaws are already ironed out.
Mr Bush on the other hand, is more accustomed to negotiating by the method of hiding all faults until the last minute.
So it’s a bloody pity for the Arabs, that they have read the Prophesies of Mohammed in an interpretation anticipating that Native Americans will lead the world into peace and happy economic management. I believe that many Native Americans were abused in the efforts of Masonic forces among America’s invaders to prove that also. Everybody backing Chris Columbus before they even knew about us Aussies. And the Arabs, having given the prophesy away during the Crusades, are more often than not swallowing whole the crappy return from Masons, of trying to prove that it could be any indigenous minority who was mentioned by Mohammed, just so long as we are a filthy capitalist indigenous minority, that is.
Do they also teach at an undergraduate level that all the cards need to be, either on the table, or assumed to be known in secret, before you can really get anywhere in a negotiation? More the fool who tried to deny that their strongest cards were not yet proven theirs: seems to be the emerging analysis of Arabs on the sub-prime scandals in the USA. . . . .
May 19th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Depends on the strategy. If you adopt a distributive approach in which you believe any potential gain for you can only come at the expense of the other party, you try to find out as much about the other mob as possible while concealing your own information. With an intregrative approach, on the other hand, what you say is what students should learn if they are paying attention.
Interestingly, Anglo males from Australia and the US find it terribly hard to adopt an integrative approach unless they have extensive business experience. Most of them can’t help falling into a macho competitive frame of mind where the main objective is to ‘win’ … even if subsequently it’s shown that they could have got a settlement that was much more favourable to their interests.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Hey wait a minute…
In October 2003, Arnold Schwarzenegger was made governor of California!!!
Is that it?
May 19th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Must have been
May 19th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
David - Not specifically, there were quite a few such articles but I agree, Report from Iron Mountain was a hoot.
However, if you still have a copy, check out the opening, in which the author describes the other contributors including their health details, “…we all had unusually high …”(I’ve forgotten the technical term he used but it meant urine retention).
In other words he was saying that they were all full of piss which back then was a genteel way of saying …pis & wind.
I think that it was yet another of the vast array of covertly produced texts that were the precursors of the Tubes trolls & flying monkeys.
May 19th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
G’day Peter…for your pleasure:
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/leopold.php?articleid=3138
Halliburton also had legal problems when Cheney was officially at the helm. In 1995, Halliburton paid a $1.2 million fine to the U.S. government and $2.61 million in civil penalties for violating a U.S. trade embargo by shipping oilfield equipment to Libya. Federal officials said some of the well-servicing equipment sent to Libya by Halliburton between late 1987 and early 1990 could have been used in the development of nuclear weapons. President Reagan imposed the embargo against Libya in 1986 because of alleged links to international terrorism.
But the fact that Halliburton may have unwillingly helped Libya obtain a crucial component to build an atomic bomb only made Cheney push the Clinton administration harder to support trade with Libya and Iran.
(Halliburton Ignores Sanctions: Jason Leopold, Anti War .Com, July 23, 2004)
———-
Plenty more where that comes from, including Wayne Madsen’s views on the relationship between Neo-Cons, spooks, al-Qaeda & what Libya knew…The “Libya got scared” in 2003 argument just doesn’t standup to scrutiny Peter.
May 20th, 2008 at 12:42 am
Well nas I read the article you pointed me to (twice - just to make sure I didn’t miss something) and I see no evidence at all there that the “Libya got scared” argument is crap. In fact I seem recall it was reported that the Italian Prime Minister spoke with Gaddafi who said ” [...] said: “I will do whatever the Americans want, because I saw what happened in Iraq, and I was afraid.” But who knows?
BTW I often read what you direct me to even if I disagree. I sometimes wish you would pay me the same courtesy rather than saying I’m “full of shit”.
K?.
May 20th, 2008 at 12:51 am
Don’t remember saying you’re full of sh*t…and Peter, where have you supplied me w/ links & facts to read thru? I have no problem reading thru your arguments if you present them. Have I missed something?
May 20th, 2008 at 1:01 am
Well you are real forgetful guy nas.
May 20th, 2008 at 1:41 am
“Well you are real forgetful guy nas.”
I take it you’re referring to our discussion on Lav Prod? Been there, done that. SPIN & someone’s gonna take you up on it. Simple as that.
Look, perhaps there’s some validity to your claims Peter, some…but that doesn’t make THE INVASION a good idea…or justify the dopey & sneaky & profiteering decisions that were made post-initial invasion. And let’s face it, Libya had been in the process of doing deals w/ the West for some time:
Some suggest Qaddafi feared the Bush administration would invade Libya under the preemption doctrine pursued after 9/11. In the 2004 vice presidential debate, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney said a byproduct of U.S. military action in Iraq and Afghanistan “is that five days after we captured Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qaddafi in Libya came forward and announced that he was going to surrender all of his nuclear materials.” Others see this more as coincidence than cause and effect. Martin Indyk, for instance, points to Libya’s willingness to abandon its WMD in 1999 as evidence that social and economic factors were at the root of Qaddafi’s decision. “The economic benefits of being a part of globalization were increasing,” says Jentleson. Indeed, pro-Western elements have sprung up among the upper echelon of Libya’s leadership. Seif Qaddafi, who is known to have influence among his father’s inner circle, has gently urged reform while expressing a desire to lure foreign investment and revitalize the Libyan economy.
“The backdrop of force was a factor, but not nearly the factor Bush and Cheney have portrayed it to be,” Jentleson says. “The real story was the diplomacy.”
(How Libya Got Off the List: Eben Kaplan, Council on Foreign Relations, October 16, 2007)
———
But there are some who reckon that Libya gave the Busheviks an offer they couldn’t refuse…compromise can be beneficial for both sides & can be motivated by more than meets the eye.
Obama is right to talk about negotiating w/ the Iranians provided there is full bore preparation. Besides, the Busheviks have already been sharing tea w/ the Persians by way of the back door. Let’s hope Israel & Iran & Saudi Arabia can share tea & a chat too. They’ve all got plenty of weapons…wouldn’t détente be nice? And a two-party state?
Didn’t Reagan’s boys do a deal w/ the Iranians? And Nixon chat w/ the Chinese when they’d had a war on their borders? The Daily Show says so…so it must be right….:)
“can’t we all just get along?”
May 20th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Few negotiations in Mosul…like Fallujah before it:
Mosul looks like a city of the dead. American and Iraqi troops have launched an attack aimed at crushing the last bastion of al Qaida in Iraq and in doing so have turned the country’s northern capital into a ghost town. Soldiers shoot at any civilian vehicle on the streets in defiance of a strict curfew. Two men, a woman and child in one car which failed to stop were shot dead by US troops who later issued a statement saying the two men were armed and one man made ‘threatening movements.’
It is not easy to reach Mosul, a city of 1.4 million people on the Tigris river, sealed off from the outside world by hundreds of police and army checkpoints since the Iraqi government offensive against al-Qa’ida began at 4 am on Saturday morning.
The operation is a critical part of the government’s attempt over the last six weeks to reassert military control over Iraq which has led to heavy fighting in Baghdad and Basra.
and
Mosul, one of the great cities of the world, looks ruinous and under siege. Every alley way is blocked by barricades and the only new building is in the form of concrete blast walls. The fact that the government has to empty the streets of Mosul of its people to establish peace for a few days shows how far the city is from genuine peace.
(City of the Dead, Mosul on Lockdown
By PATRICK COCKBURN, Counterpunch blog)
————-
I wonder where the prisoners…the captured insurgents are sent?…or are they all blown to bits & shot dead in the ongoing battle to bring FREEDOM to Iraq Bush/Cheney & their enabler’s style? Plenty of innocents thrown into the abyss too by the sound of it.
I guess America sees itself as cleaning the city of cockroaches & vile things…best to do a real extermination job…
they feel compelled for the good of the Iraqi people to
“terminate with extreme prejudice”
Sadly, Cockburn’s piece reminded me of another tragedy…another army attempting to control a Country by putting down the insurgents & leaving a CITY OF THE DEAD:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto_Uprising
(Warsaw Ghetto Uprising)
Isn’t it said that traumatised children can become like their abuser?…or their parent’s abuser?
Still, the THIRD REICH weren’t facing al-Qaeda or any terrorist group now, were they?
The winner writes the history…& the cheques.
N’
May 20th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Er no it wasn’t LP - that was semi civilized - even if I did get banned for a while
May 20th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Plitical posturing aside. Obviously negotiation becomes easier to swallow when it’s YOUR arse on the line.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/27/afghanistan.usa
May 25th, 2008 at 12:12 am
Just love all of your pleasant observations and the maturity of your expressions about the United States of America (please do make note of the absence of the letter “K” in the spelling of America).
One thing I learned about flaming people, nations, and leaders of nations is selective and out of context quotes set the tone of the thread.
To set the record straight here is that portion of what President Bush actually said before the Knesset that set off the touchy-touchy Barack Hussein Obama:
“…Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the 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 I could only have talked to Hitler, all 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.” In that same speech President Bush also said “. . .There are good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness in these men and try to explain away their words. It’s natural, but it is deadly wrong.. . .”
I submit that there is not a smidgen of a hint that President Busch had Senator Barack Hussein Obama in mind when he made that speech. I further submit that Barack Hussein Obama seized upon a portion of that speech to enter the theater of International Affairs and elevate his populist rhetoric.
By the way, the senator President Bush was refering to was William Edgar Borah, an isolationist senator from Idaho and a political enemy of President Wilson. Borah made that statement in 1939. Borah claimed to be a foreign affairs expert even though he never traveled outside the United States. As a Senator Borah created illusions of peace in the United States just as violent forces were bringing on the most terrible war in modern times.
Thanks for the opportunity to enhance a good relationship between our two countries.
God bless you all after you FOAD!
GML - U.S.A.
May 25th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Thanks for dropping by Gene. If you read the post, you’ll see that it makes no mention of Barack Obama. It is actually discussing Bush’s flawed grasp of the concept of negotiation. Your comment therefore seems somewhat pointless and irrelevant, but that’s your prerogative.
BTW now you have brought it up, it was reported on CNN that ‘President Bush never uttered the words Barack Obama, but White House aides are acknowledging that this was a reference to the fact that Senator Obama and other Democrats have publicly said that it would be okay for the U.S. President to meet with leaders like the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.’ Others have subsequently denied this and people will have to make up their own minds who he had in mind. But as I say, it was not the topic I posted about.