It is a time of fear in the face of freedom, a time for the widening of previous roads and the opening of new paths, a time of an emptying country and swelling cities, yet a time when these paths are mined by knowing algorithms of the all-seeing eye. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection.
 | Call me irresponsible and naïve, but Obama made sense |
Barack Obama said this during the YouTube debate:
The notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them, which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration, is ridiculous. Now, Ronald Reagan and Democratic presidents like JFK constantly spoke to Soviet Union at a time when Ronald Reagan called them an evil empire. And the reason is because they understood that we may not trust them and they may pose an extraordinary danger to this country, but we had the obligation to find areas where we can potentially move forward.
Hillary Clinton immediately criticized Obama’s comments, and moved beyond simple criticism the next day to refer to them as “irresponsible and frankly naïve.”
I’m with Mother Davis on this subject. Talking to people are you oppose is evil? What happens when you talk to someone?
You help them to understand your position better.
You try to understand their position better.
You try to change their mind.
You don’t have to agree. You don’t have to kiss your opponent on the mouth. You don’t have to make the secret evil handshake. You don’t catch cooties. You don’t have to do anything except talk and listen. You can even talk trash about your hated enemy afterwards. You can even call them “poo-poo breath” to the press the next day if you think it makes you more leaderly.
Call me irresponsible and naïve for saying so, but talking and listening seems a whole lot less dangerous than going to war without talking and listening first. Now who voted for that?
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Has everyone fogotten that the last time we had a diplomatic embassy in Iran, they were all kidnapped and taken hostage, leading to the election of a Republican president?
The current administration had talks with Iran last week, but in Baghdad under the sponsorship of the Iraqi government. What’s the big deal if the President meets with them personally? I had the impression these state visits were all carefully orchestrated for media exposure. The real work is done by the aides in the back room.
Obama is ready for vice president.
Comment by Iroquois — 7/25/2007 @ 10:54 am
Reagan was personally engaged in arms control talks in Iceland, and Clinton was personally involved in N. Ireland and Iceland talks. Perhaps your impression has to do with the approach of George W. Bush.
Comment by Jim — 7/25/2007 @ 12:10 pm
I am not sure how to phrase this question, I am struggling with how to understand the implications for diplomacy of two things. One is a more theoretical pacifist idea that war and violence of any sort represent true weakness, both in belief and action, of ones own ideas, true conviction leading to a willingness to die speaking the truth to power and resisting it like Ghandi, or the other notion that talking and diplomacy, consensus and compromise represent weakness and lack of conviction.
Also, is this part of the difference between the Clinton and Obama approaches?
Comment by Luke — 7/25/2007 @ 1:18 pm
Didn’t Nixon visit China? That would be a media event and not a working trip.
I don’t remember either example you give, if you have sources I would be interested in reading them a few days from now.
Presidents don’t usually represent knowledge of stuff, they represent political influence. Their support of an issue or presence at an event indicates the political will to accomplish something. The details of how are left to the minions.
Comment by Iroquois — 7/25/2007 @ 1:27 pm
Luke, Ghandi did not have the option of military strength, he used the only thing he had.
Comment by Iroquois — 7/25/2007 @ 1:33 pm
I am well aware that Ghandi did not have that option, but I have also read his own writings on the matter; he consciously rejected violence as weakness, and other pacifist theories have similar ideas and have further developed that thought. The dilemna or question that constantly faces pacifists is how to apply this at all levels, from the personal to the national; hence why I think about the ramifications of a pacifist diplomacy.
Comment by Luke — 7/25/2007 @ 1:36 pm
Has anyone ever read one of Tom Clancy’s book, I forget which one, involving a Palestinian man who dies in a pacifist non/violent protest against Israel? It is fiction, but that scene has stayed with me; imagining the moral power and legitimacy that would give them. In my opinion, many of the most active people in Fatah and the others are actually in the service of a just goal, (not getting rid of Israel, but in establishing a peaceful and economically viable palestinian nation) but use horrendous and unjust methods to reach that goal. What would happen if they did use Ghandis tactics against Israeli soldiers and police?
Comment by Luke — 7/25/2007 @ 1:49 pm
MLK’s Letter from Birmingham Jail is also a classic text. My take it that there is too much ideology and not enough attention to outcomes.
Ghandi argued from a Hindu/vegetarian/reincarnation perspective; in the Moslem perspective it is much easier to justify warfare since the Prophet himself directed and won a war against Mecca. The movie Ghandi was being shown in the region when I left, but I didn’t hear any buzz about it–if it resonated with the populace, I don’t know–I think “Bodyguard” was more popular. Clancy has the same problem. He starts from an ideology then works toward the desired outcome based on acceptance of the belief system.
When you get right down to it, people will try to do what is in their national interest. But instead of talking about interests, people use ideologies to hide behind what they can’t say directly–that they have interests they are willing to defend.
Maybe you can’t really talk about interests and issues directly after all. Maybe you have to talk in the back room about outcomes, then see which ideological streams the public is willing to accept and choose one of those ideologies to advance your proposed solution publicly.
Comment by Iroquois — 7/25/2007 @ 2:06 pm
Thats an interesting idea; and it would be great to be able to listen in on some of that back room talk while they were negotiating the Oslo accords, for instance.
I see what you mean about cultural ideas/values being different, though I hope that ideas of peaceful resistance spread; and to be fair to the Palestinian view, I have heard some people say that whenever they have tried peaceful means, the Israeli army is waiting to arrest everyone, and the bulldozers are waiting to take down housing and infrastructure. It would take a saint to stay patient with non violence if your sons go missing and your house is torn down…
Comment by Luke — 7/25/2007 @ 4:23 pm
but then again, thats precisely when non violence would be needed the most.
Comment by Luke — 7/25/2007 @ 4:39 pm
Do you think, Iriquois, that culturally it would be easier for some Palestinian people to accept non violent methods if they were presented differently? Its pretty hard not to admire the courage, conviction and strength of the people who faced down attack dogs and water cannons in Alabama and Georgia; not to mention police batons, roving klansmen, lynchings and firebombs.
Comment by Luke — 7/25/2007 @ 4:53 pm
Palestinians think they ARE nonviolent. Their propaganda to their own people says they were just being nonviolent when ‘The Jews’ (not Israelis) came and knocked down their houses for no reason. If you look at the Israeli take on the same event, you will see videos of the tunnels under the house for bringing arms and suicide bombers into the country or the rocket launchers that kill Israeli people from the roofs of the houses. The Israelis say they are destroying the house to keep it from being used to kill more of its citizens and as a warning to others not to use their houses as garrisons for arms and fighters.
Don’t even get me started on the subject of “martyrs”. Nobody Palestinian seems to see anything “violent” about killing Israeli civilians with suicide belts, or gloating over pictures of Israeli dead babies. Pictures of dead Palestinian babies are of course proof that ‘The Jews’ are oppressive. I find this double standard so jarring and this propaganda war of dead babies to be particularly ghoulish.
Palestinian leadership controls freedom of the press. I suspect the Palestinian leadership up until now has desperately needed the Israeli excesses to stay in power. They have had little in terms of a better life to offer their people.
I see little hope of turning this around until the west, specifically the U.S. can sponsor economic development and show the Palestinian elites they have more to gain by peace than by war. With Hamas “Islamist” ideologues finally isolated on their little corner of Gaza, perhaps that can finally happen. It must happen.
Comment by Iroquois — 7/25/2007 @ 6:22 pm
When I typed “Iceland” referring to Clinton I should have typed “Israel.”
Comment by Jim — 7/25/2007 @ 11:17 pm
Killing and war are the American way, from the Native Americans (formerly known as Indian Tribes) to our system of “justice” (we’re not alone here) to our current “foreign policy.” Read about the CIA to see how the US government gets things done. Face it, we come from a long line of callous, heartless, selfish, brutal bastards (mostly from Europe) and have perfected the destruction of not only humans, but all the other species and now the planet itself. We’re gonna reap what we’ve sown, so happy roasting in the very near future (if you aren’t swept away by flooding or die by some mysterious little bug you didn’t see or freeze to death because the oil ran out, among the long list of possibilities we’ve developed).
Comment by Tom — 7/26/2007 @ 3:51 pm