15 Comments

• 1. Joe  |  April 30th, 2008 at 10:34 am

  Why the heck are you people so afraid of talking to the enemy? What does it get you from turning your back, stamping your feet and not talking to someone?

  Meanwhile… didn’t your momma ever teach you that you should try and talk out your issues with people that you have a beef with?

  So… if you talk to them and try to find some common ground to work with, you MAY accomplish something. You may get nothing, but if you get nothing, then you are right where you would be if you looked like a fool by turning your back and saying we won’t talk to you.

  Don’t be afraid to talk to people that you don’t agree with. We’ve been thru 7+ years of this and it just doesn’t work. And McCain wants to follow this line of policy?

• 2. Geoff  |  April 30th, 2008 at 12:39 pm

  Joe, we’re not talking about working out differences the playground bully in 4th grade. Dialogues with foreign heads of state are useful only if good faith exists between both parties and both seek the ultimate attainment of a common goal. That is clearly not the case with the Ahmadinejad, Chavez et al whose interests are diametrically opposed to the United States’ and who seek to damage and bring down the United States. They would only use a presidential discussion by Sen. Obama or whomever as a means towards achieving those ends. Even Sen. Clinton understands that.

• 3. Joe  |  April 30th, 2008 at 1:56 pm

  That isn’t much proof that nothing can get agreed upon when talking with enemies. All you did was say talks wouldn’t work because they don’t like us.
  If you hold firm talks with the enemy you may be able to come up with some sort of common ground. Just saying it can’t happen is not even trying to make things better.
  Using your opinion, we should just start bombing as soon as possible.

  Like I said in my 1st post… if you try talking and nothing comes out of it, then you are right where you are without trying. But if something… ANYTHING comes out of it, then we are better off.

  And you say do nothing? I vote the OTHER way.

• 4. Matt DiBari  |  April 30th, 2008 at 2:16 pm

  And if you naively and idealistically march into these talks for the sake of having talks you run the risk of causing far more damage.

  And Barack Obama’s bizarre and completely arbitrary foreign policy statements give me no hope that he wouldn’t be eaten alive by a Hugo Chavez or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

• 5. Joe  |  April 30th, 2008 at 2:23 pm

  Causing more damage how exactly??
  How is talking to these people worse than saying “You are mean and I’m not talking to you”?

  Look how well it went in Cuba for the last 50+ years of us not talking to him. Gee… that sure got Castro out of power quickly.

  Nobody can say why talking to the enemy is a bad thing. The whole GOP just says that it is bad. Time to let some grown-ups into the White House.
  Nobody is saying that we have to give them anything at all. Just hold some talks to see if there is any common ground that can be found that might avoid rising tensions from ignoring them.
  Don’t bring up the “they can’t be trusted” argument either. If you hold talks and you do come to some sort of agreement, then it is publically known. if they back out of their part of the deal, then you have the world behind you to hold them accountable. If you just ignore them and you don’t like something they do, then you don’t have a leg to stand on.

  I’ll await some valid reason why talking to enemies is a bad thing.

• 6. Matt DiBari  |  April 30th, 2008 at 2:36 pm

  Well, if nothing bad has ever come from blindly and naively trusting a mad man, why does the the grown up running on the Democratic side arbitrarily draw the line at Hamas? One would think if we can find common ground with sponsors of terrorism, we can cut out the middle man entirely and sit down with the terrorists themselves. Maybe if we ask them very nicely they’ll promise to stop.

• 7. Joe  |  April 30th, 2008 at 2:58 pm

  In your Hamas example, let’s examine some choices.
  a) Ignore them. They will most likely continue launching rockets and will most likely continue with their “terrorist activities”.
  b) Kill every one of them. You do understand that this “Global War in Terror” will never EVER kill every terrorist, right? I mean… that is physically impossible.
  c) Talk to them. Try and find something that all parties involved can live with and hopefully the hostilities may end even if the parties still don’t like each other. If nothing happens, then you are still at option (a) above.

  So again… I like to at least make the effort to solve this like adults.

  You treat everyone you don’t like as if they are some crazy mad man. Yet in some cases, those mad men are the democratically elected officials. Just because you don’t like the official doesn’t make they not legitimate.

  Nobody is saying to sit down with terrorists directly. Sitting down with a Hamas or someone of that sort could have a huge impact in stopping some terrorsts.

  “Maybe if we ask them very nicely they’ll promise to stop”
  Wow.. I thought we were having a serious discussion. That is just a foolish statement.

• 8. js  |  April 30th, 2008 at 9:51 pm

  dang joe, you keep spouting off an everyone will know for sure that you are not much more than a chalk board for liberal BS….so hamas, hezbollah, and a hundred of other islamic activist terror groups have talked….talked…talked…taken…taken..and taken…and still…they keep targeting and killing innocent victims of “peace”….what a fool believes….after 60 years of talk….you actually think nobody has tried it….lol

  you really are a stooge…for sure.

• 9. Geoff  |  April 30th, 2008 at 11:26 pm

  You don’t behave like an adult, Joe, if you operate under the naive assumption that Iran, Hamas, or any other incontrovertibly hostile entity you want to open a dialogue with will ever enter them in good faith, or that doing so could have a positive effect or, at worse, no effect whatsoever. They don’t seek the same peaceful ends we do, but instead the destruction of Israel in specific and the west in general. They will never be placated by anything less. Anyone childishly willing to talk with these people—i.e. Jimmy Carter—is at the same time deluding himself, legitimizing them, and allowing himself to be used as a pawn. Lenin called these types “useful idiots”, and he had it right.

  Further, if you want to claim the position of an adult don’t make assertions like “You do understand that this ‘Global War in Terror’ will never EVER kill every terrorist, right? I mean… that is physically impossible.” We couldn’t kill every Nazi either, but that is entirely besides the point. We fight to eliminate the threat of Islamic terror as much as possible and eventually help instill conditions to which is not conducive to terror. It is not some quixotic quest to kill every terrorist in the world.

• 10. Joe  |  May 1st, 2008 at 8:12 am

  Geoff,
  In one breath you say that you can’t talk to these people because “they” seek “the destruction of Israel in specific and the west in general.” So you can’t talk to them because they will continue to go after what “they want”.

  Yet in the next breath, you agree that you can’t kill them all, but you try to “eliminate the threat”. How do you “eliminate the threat” and why do you think they won’t continue to go after what “they want”?

  So you are saying that if you kill enough of “them”, then the threat will just go away and they will just all of the sudden stop being terrorists?
  I guess we better start sending some troops into a LOT of different countries. Looks like a draft might be in order.

• 11. js  |  May 1st, 2008 at 3:44 pm

  when i lived on a horse farm, we always needed dogs…they really are good for farms too…except for the barkers…ya…they run the horses…and on a horse farm…that can be a real issue….so…you take the dog out….and shoot him…i know it sounds cold…hard…but its a fact…once a dog starts…its pretty well given that he wont start…so dont get attached to the dogs so much…because when they walk into your home…and set up a rocket launcher in the back yard…that can be a real issue…because when they fire that rocket into some unknown place in israel…it takes about 7 seconds for the israelis to find out where it came from…and if they fire back….its usually in the air before any of the incomming rounds hit the ground…they dont know if your kids are in the house…babies in the crib…all they know is that a hostile round came from that location…and anyone shooting at unarmed, innocent civilian targets should die…so…shoot the dog…it might just save your life….

• 12. Geoff  |  May 1st, 2008 at 5:27 pm

  With all respect, Joe, this is not complicated. Talking with irreconcilables is condemned to failure. Period. Nothing beneficial will ever come from speaking with Ahmadinejad or the fathers of Hamas or what have you. You and President Carter ought to realize this.

  How we defeat these people is containing them where we can, fighting them where we have to, and undermining them wherever and whenever possible among the people of the Middle East. They will continue to seek their ends of destroying Israel and the rest of the west until they no longer have the support necessary among the populace to do so. It is that populace we should engage and do a better job of engaging. The Palestinian people must realize eventually that electing Hamas, a terrorist entity that still asserts its right to wipe Israel off the map, will only continue to bring them more of the same misery they’ve been mired in for decades. The people of Iran ought to receive all due support from the United States so that someday they might be in a position to overthrow their mullah yoke masters.

  This is what we ought to be doing, not engaging in vain and counterproductive—nay self-defeating—dialogues with thugs and murderers.

• 13. Joe  |  May 1st, 2008 at 8:11 pm

  How we defeat these people is containing them where we can, fighting them where we have to, and undermining them wherever and whenever possible among the people of the Middle East.

  Awesome!. Endless war. That is just what everyone wants!
  Or let’s just undermine them whenever possible. If we piss them off enough, then they should just give up their arms and play nice, right? Excellent idea.

  So I guess the 100 years comment really wasn’t that far off.

• 14. Geoff  |  May 1st, 2008 at 11:42 pm

  You’re either just skewing everything we’ve said within this thread or choosing to be deliberately dense, Joe.

• 15. js  |  May 2nd, 2008 at 10:45 am

  ya…joe doesnt really grasp things more complex than a 4th grade level…i have noted that in the past…