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The terrorist monkey can not be negotiated with. The only reason to maybe talk to Ahmadamadmonkey in say maybe Switzerland is to provoke him by debating his ideology and criticizing the hatred. Force him to say lots of stupid and insane things which would be widely publicized thus educating more people to his ideology's insanity. This, I am quite sure, Obama would never do.
Ouch, Obama and the poor little Dems were hit a little too close to home by what GW said. It's one of the best things Bush has ever said. Bravo! And he didn't even have to mention the Dhimmicrats or any body's name.
So sure, then he folded in Saudi Arabia, but what he said in Israel almost makes that OK.
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absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
appease the appeasers
don't embarrass them
by calling them appeasers
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absurd thought -
God of the Universe said
have a sit down with Hitler
he should have been sweet-talked
he had goodness within
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Appeasement Talk Bothers Appeasers
Help Halt Terrorism Now!
USpace
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Europe and the IAEA, with either tacit or explicit US consent, have been negotiating with Iran for years.
I noted the furor among conservatives when Reagan cut an arms control deal with the Soviets. I could just as easily have noted that Reagan also secretly negotiated and cut deals with Iran about terrorist actions.
Condi Rice has participated in meetings negotiating with Iran -- and with Syria for that matter.
If the US or IAEA or EU can cut a good deal with Iran to end its nuclear program, then that would likely be desirable policy. The US cannot do that without negotiating.
Bush's statement was partisan, hypocritical and erroneous.
I have found that appeasement rhetoric tells you all you need to know about an individual--narrow minded, ignorant, and typically hypocritical (as in the case of Reagan, Bush, etc). It belies a weakness and acts as compensation for an individual's true lack of courage and acceptance of risk and potential costs to follow.
In other words, a person not be taken serious on such matters.
The key word here is "ignorant." What G.W. Bush knows about history (despite having been a history major in college -- how ironic), would not cover the head of a pin.
The Munich analogy has been misused for decades.
Henry Cabot Lodge at an NSC meeting on July 21, 1965: "I feel there is a greater threat to start World War III if we don't go in [to Vietnam]. Can't we see the similarity to our own indolence at Munich?"
You'd think that by now, after all these years of misuse, presidential speech writers would have come up with another analogy. But apparently it is just too tempting to keep resurrecting the ghost of the Senator who thought he could stop Hitler by talking to him on the eve of the invasion of Poland.
The Bush speech writers count on the electorate's historical sense being no better than Bush's own.
p.s. And thanks to Rodger for reminding us of Kristol's "Axis of Appeasement," one of the most intellectually dishonest and breathtakingly stupid pieces written in the run-up to the Iraq war. It should appear in anthologies years from now as an example of how not to think about foreign policy.
We don't actually know that appeasement is as the conventional wisdom lays it out. In the Reality of Diplomacy, Ferguson reveals that the British military was under the perception that their defenses had not recovered from the war and that a stronger Germany (already) would damage England severely. Going to Munich, Chamberlain had no way of considering confronting Germany with the information he had available.
Blame Wilson for being congressionally inept and not getting the Treaty of Versailles ratified.
Munich is not analogous to anything going on now, and the President of Iran isn't very much like Hitler. On the other hand, the American public knows so little history that it's gotta be the Nazis or nothing. Napoleon would be too obscure. Many of the 20 somethings I've spoken with over the last couple of years couldn't tell you what Vietnam was about, let alone Korea.
History was once called philosophy teaching by example. For the purposes of political rhetoric, however, there just aren't very many available examples.
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