Appeasers? Leaders showed strength through negotiation

[babylonsister]

http://www.dailynews.com/editorial/ci_9436760

Appeasers?
Leaders showed strength through negotiation
By Ralph E. Shaffer and John A. Moore Jr., Columnists


At the height of the Cold War in 1961, President John F. Kennedy suggested to fellow Americans in his inaugural address that the time had come to lessen the tension then existing between the Soviet Union and the United States: "Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate."

Had Kennedy made that statement in 2008, it would surely have brought down upon him the wrath of President George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain.

The president and the likely Republican Party presidential nominee have made it clear in the last few weeks that they believe that Barack Obama's willingness to meet with Cuba's Raul Castro and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatens America's security. "Some seem to think that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals," Bush told Israel's Knesset, with an implied reference to Obama's earlier indication that he would meet with Iranian leaders. Bush equated such a meeting with appeasement.

"He also wants to sit down unconditionally for a presidential meeting with Raul Castro. (This) would send the worst possible signal to Cuba's dictators," McCain told an applauding crowd of Cuban exiles in Miami, referring to Obama's announced intention of meeting with the Cuban head of state.

While Bush and McCain seem unmoving in their opposition to meetings between an American president and those they consider terrorists who head foreign governments, it is inconceivable that they would rule out lower-echelon diplomatic contact. But their uncompromising position on high-level meetings was not held by several of their Republican predecessors. Instead, Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and even George H.W. Bush met with foreign leaders whom many Americans considered to be terrorists, radicals or just plain evil dictators.

snip//

History is on the side of Obama. Negotiations are not appeasement. While Bush may equate any discussion with a foe as a sell-out, his conservative Republican predecessors were wise enough to see it differently.



Ralph E. Shaffer is a professor emeritus of history at Cal Poly Pomona and editor of "Toward Pearl Harbor." John A. Moore Jr. is professor emeritus of history at Cal Poly Pomona and is co-editor of the "Encyclopedia of the United Nations, 2d edition." Both are writers for the History News Service.
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[hobbit709]

1. The problem is that George thinks he's Bruce Willis in The Fifth Element

"Anybody else want to negotiate"

[bemildred]

2. Yup. Foreign affairs is just a movie. Politics is show biz.

Is it any wonder Bush has been handed his ass all over the world?