When talk isn’t just cheap, it’s dangerous
Bookworm on May 29 2008 at 8:24 am | Filed under: Barack Obama, Iran
Ann Coulter nails everything that’s wrong with Obama’s delusional idea of talking Ahmadinejad down from the nuclear ledge:
There are reasons to meet with a tyrant, but none apply to Ahmadinejad. We’re not looking for an imperfect ally against some other dictatorship, as Nixon was with China. And we aren’t in a Mexican standoff with a nuclear power, as Reagan was with the USSR. At least not yet.
[snip]
What possible reason is there to meet with Ahmadinejad? To win a $20 bar bet as to whether or not the man actually owns a necktie?
We know his position and he knows ours. He wants nuclear arms, American troops out of the Middle East and the destruction of Israel. We don’t want that. (This is assuming Mike Gravel doesn’t pull off a major upset this November.) We don’t need him as an ally against some other more dangerous dictator because … well, there aren’t any.
Does Obama imagine he will make demands of Ahmadinejad? Using what stick as leverage, pray tell? A U.S. boycott of the next Holocaust-denial conference in Tehran? The U.N. has already demanded that Iran give up its nuclear program. Ahmadinejad has ignored the U.N. and that’s the end of it.
We always have the ability to “talk” to Ahmadinejad if we have something to say. Bush has a telephone. If Iranian crop dusters were headed toward one of our nuclear power plants, I am quite certain that Bush would be able to reach Ahmadinejad to tell him that Iran will be flattened unless the planes retreat. If his cell phone died, Bush could just post a quick warning on the Huffington Post.
Liberals view talk as an end in itself. They never think through how these talks will proceed, which is why Chamberlain ended up giving away Czechoslovakia. He didn’t leave for Munich planning to do that. It is simply the inevitable result of talking with madmen without a clear and obtainable goal. Without a stick, there’s only a carrot.
Well, yes. But apparently the obvious bounces off those brilliant, uninformed Obama brains.
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“Liberals view talk as an end in itself. They never think through how these talks will proceed. . . . ”
Bookworm, Talk is not the end. Peace is the end. Neither liberals nor anyone else knows how a talk will proceed until it begins, which is what conservatives seem to fail to understand. Yes, there are techniques that allow us to control the conversation, but these are useful most often when one party is weaker than the other (less strong-willed). Surely, none of us see our political enemies as people who can be easily swayed. We have to win them over due to a superior position (one that is more likely to create a scenerio in which everyone wins.)
Non-violence seeks to turn enemies into friend, nit to humiliate them. Building such relationships takes time. And reality tells us, it does not always work. But we must try for the good of humanity. Peace is so much more than the absence of war.
I don’t always care for Coulter but when she is on, she can nail something faster than almost anyone out there.
Helen – you, along with an awful lot of other folks on the left, consistently assume that talks are not going on with Iran. It does not require the President to meet with Ahmadinejad for there to be talks. As others have said before, talks are going on all the time. At lower levels and through the media. As I mentioned in a previous post in response to one of echeccone’s comments, what troubles me is that an awful lot of people in the U.S. and elsewhere are apparently more than willing to completely disregard the speeches by Ahmadinejad, other Muslim leaders, the imams in the mosques, the commentators on Middle Eastern TV, and so on, in which these people state over and over again what they believe, their desires, goals, and plans.
People who believe that we haven’t even tried to talk to the Iranians and other Muslim leaders also appear to be more than willing to look at the actions of Muslims across the decades and still maintain that we can’t possibly know what Muslims want because the President refuses to talk to them.
That means that these people look at the following occurrences (just to name a few):
- the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut;
- almost daily attacks by Palestinians on Israelis;
- the Cole bombing;
- September 11th;
- daily attacks by Muslims against Americans and Iraqis who support a free Iraq;
- the May 13th attack by Muslims on a Hindu temple in which 63 people were murdered;
- the beheading of young Christian girls in Thailand;
- the murder of numerous Buddhists in Thailand;
- the March 11th (2004) bombing of trains in Madrid;
- the July 7th (2005) bombing of the tube in London; and
- countless other acts that have cost the lives of thousands and thousands around the world
and believe that these actions are not some form of communication. These people believe that these are desperate acts of a people who have grievances against the West because the West has not given them the common courtesy of being heard. So they murder people and once again, it is the fault of the West.
You also do not seem to understand that there are situations in life in which both parties cannot or should not win. Indeed, one of them should not win because he or she is advocating something that is morally wrong.
You act as if Ahmadinejad has noble and just aspirations, as if he and the U.S. have common goals and shared values and we just have had some miscommunications (a favorite liberal word) and don’t know each other very well. Believe me, Helen, Ahmadinejad does not share your values. He does not believe in individual liberties. He does not care about the rights of others. He does not believe in justice and promoting the well-being of his own people. Please take a moment and read up on the human rights record of Iran and ask yourself why so many Iranians in the U.S. and Europe simply cannot go home and visit their families, even though they have U.S. and European passports. Find out whether Iranians have a free and open electoral process. I’ll give you a hint: they don’t.
Helen, have you ever read “Reading Lolita in Tehran”? As someone who enjoys reading and poetry, I think you would like it. It’s an amazing story of an Iranian woman who was a lecturer in literature at a university in Iran and what happened to her students who simply wanted to be free enough to read whatever they wanted. Her story is incredible but by no means unique. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians have had similar stories.
Think about that the next time you pick up a book of your own choosing and read it without fear. You are engaging in a simple right. People like Ahmadinejad don’t permit their people those simple rights – they put them in jail.
Now. Tell me again why you think Ahmadinejad has something important to say?
Deana
“Now. Tell me again why you think Ahmadinejad has something important to say?”
Deana, Where did I mention him?
HelenL, I believe that Deana was referring to your support for Obama’s comment pertaining to Iran. Was she mistaken?
You can negotiate with people and countries that share similar interests, but you can’t negotiate terms with ideologies that are committed to your destruction. Unfortunately, in countries such as Iran as in Iraq, the people may share similar interests with us but it is not they who are in charge.
On a related note, apparently today is the anniversary of the fall of Constantinople to the Muslim conquest. Somehow, I don’t believe that Constantinople fell because of a lack of diplomatic effort.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTJiOTU5YjVjNmJkZDJkMWUwM2E5YWFhMDc5NWI4NjU=
What liberals seem not to understand is most of recorded history.
Talk – going back to Sargonid Mesopotamia – is usually engaged in or wished for by the party who A) cannot win militarily, or B) would for any of a variety of reasons prefer not to fight.
It is generally interpreted as weakness, and is therefore available for exploitation.
The people of the Lebanon and what is now the Sinai, northeastern Turkey and northern Iran had the copper, timber, and silver. They wanted to talk about trade with Mesopotamia. Sargon said, in essence: “Why? No talk necessary, why the hell should I pay you? I got the army, here we come.” And there they went. That was approximately 2250 BC – or BCE if you prefer.
In 2100 BC the Guti wanted to talk about remaining independent but inside the Mesopotamian empire’s borders. The Sumerians of Erech didn’t require, and therefore had no interest in, talk: they expelled them.
In 2050 BC the Amorites were offered all kinds of conversation by the important city-states (Damascus, Aleppo, Mari, Assur, Babylon, Isin) but they weren’t interested in talk, and shortly thereafter Amorite dynasties were established in all of the above.
Pompey wanted to negotiate with Caesar – we all know how that went.
Play it forward, right through the ever popular Chamberlain/Hitler, Stalin/FDR examples. (FDR was talking, Stalin was quietly arranging to take over eastern Europe. Who succeeded? The only thing the talk accomplished was to make it okay and legitimate for Stalin to take over eastern Europe.)
Jimmy Carter talked, the USSR moved right ahead and spread its influence farther than it ever had been, including an outright invasion of Afghanistan. Ronald Reagan didn’t say a word to the USSR for five years, built up the military and scared the hell out of them and then – when HE was ready – said: “we’re going to build a system that will allow us to turn you into glowing cinders while you can’t do anything to us,” – and the USSR caved. (I know, I know, isn’t that horrible? Don’t the liberals just HATE that? Reagan, that idiot: he WON! GOD!)
Talk always – always – equates with weakness, either physical or moral, right back to the beginning of history. Generally, these days, with us it’s moral weakness. But weakness is weakness, and if you legitimize a feral rat like Ahmadinejad by allowing him at the table with the leader of the free world in the first place, all you can do is lose.
Coulter’s most prescient line is: “without a stick there’s only a carrot.”
Heh it’s typical. Helen Losse first totally defends well someone.
Referring to an unnamed third person (an enemy) and “seeking to make him a friend”, “prevent humiliation to him”, …
Now she claims she wasn’t talking about Ahmadinejad.
We shouldn’t really make a mistake. The reason she defends Ahmadinejad and not us is because we would never kill her, while Ahmadinejad would reduce her, and her family, either to servitude, slavery or to glowing rubble.
One obvious change in tactic comes to mind. And some groups are already realizing they can do this. How do you get liberal support, and support from the government ? Easy – start killing liberals.
I’m not advocating anyone does that. And Christians probably won’t. They’ll just do what the bible says – leave the liberals to fend for themselves. It certainly is what sensible Europeans are doing. I have a student buddy of mine, he claims 60% of his class wants to emigrate when they finish college.
Helen, take heed, Europeans will stand alone, and defenseless against a muslim onslaught. You might want to check what’s happening to liberals in cities like Paris, Brussels or The Hague. Besides, before long those stories will make the evening news even in America.
Helen :
“We are not fighting so that you will offer us something, We are fighting to eliminate you.”
When was this said ? Well, in 2006, by a general of Hezbollah.
Helen –
The point of Bookworm’s post is about Ahmadinejad.
The point of Coulter’s article highlighted in this post is about Ahmadinejad.
One major point of discussion in this upcoming Presidential election is what the major candidates think about talking to Ahmadinejad.
If you were not referring to Ahmadinejad in your post, then to whom were you referring?
Deana
What those proponents of talking to ImaDinnerJacket neglect to mention is that countries in the European Union, with the support of the US, have been TALKING/NEGOTIATING with Iran with regards to the nuclear issue for many years. The talks have been futile. Iran has basically used them to hedge and fudge and to buy time.
The following parody of Spike Jones’s In the Fuehrer’s Face was in the blog No Pasaran several years ago.
When Der 12th imam says, “We ist der master race”
We ALLAHU! AKBAR! Right in Ahmedinnerjacket’s face
Not to love ze prophet is a great disgrace
So we ALLAHU! AKBAR! Right in Ahmedinnerjacket’s face
When Ahmedinnerjacket says, “We own der world und space”
We ALLAHU! AKBAR! Right in Ahmedinnerjacket’s face
When Ahmedinnerjacket says they’ll never bomb this place
We ALLAHU! AKBAR! Right in Ahmedinnerjacket’s face
Are we not the supermen
Aryan pure supermen
Aywa nakhnu al mujahideen
Kbir kbir mujahideen
Ist this Dar el Kharb not good?
Would you leave it if you could?
Ja this Dar el Kharb is good!
Vee would leave it if we could
We bring the world to order
Al jihad’s world New Order
Everyone of foreign race will love a burka on her face
When we bring to der world disorder
When Ahmedinnerjacket says, “We ist der master race”
We ALLAHU! AKBAR! Right in Der Fuehrer’s face
When Der Fuehrer says, “We ist der master race”
We HEIL! HEIL! Right in Ahmedinnerjacket’s face
jj –
Excellent post! I’ve always wished someone with a broad knowledge of history would go back and document the many, many cases of talks that failed. It would be instructive to take a good long look at that list and compare it to those that succeeded (a short list to be sure) and examine the circumstances surrounded the failures and successes.
Deana
I want nuclear packages to be delivered, rather than ambassadors delivered through “talks”.
The Left’s support of the United Nations organized looting and rapine of poor people essentially defines “talks” as a goal in itself. The goal of talks aren’t to create peace or lessen suffering, no the goal of talks is to have more talks. While having those talks, you can put even more Peacekeepers in town.
Peace is the end. Neither liberals nor anyone else knows how a talk will proceed until it begins
Slavery also classifies as peace. Thus slavery must also be the end goal of talks, if talks aren’t designed to be self-perpetuating.
Nobody in humanity knows whether the car will start up or not when they key the ignition. Why is it that way? Because nobody bothers to check the gas and mechanics before hand to determine whether in fact, the car will start up or not.
Oh, but wait, there are mechanics that know exactly whether a car will start up or not because they know how cars function. Just like there are human beings, helen, that knows exactly how human beings behave.
Non-violence seeks to turn enemies into friend, nit to humiliate them. Building such relationships takes time. And reality tells us, it does not always work. But we must try for the good of humanity. Peace is so much more than the absence of war.
Since you seem offended by us attributing Amanie to the person you are refering to here, why don’t you explain exactly why Amanie can’t be turned from an enemy to a friend via non-violence and exactly why relationships with Amanie wouldn’t take time.
Deana, Where did I mention him?
Once you have explained the above to my satisfaction, then you will know where you, in fact, mentioned him, meaning Amanie.
Check out this on Obama.
http://www.villainouscompany.com/vcblog/archives/2008/05/_obama_as_robin.html