Jan 07 2009
Talking to dictators
So now Hugo Chavez may be saying that he’s ready to talk to America through Obama’s invitation to talk to dictators and such. Hugo said that George Bush’s way of rating countries as friends and enemies was overly simplistic. While there may be some truth to the statement that not all countries need to be friends or enemies they can just be neutral. However I think in saying this Hugo Chavez means he would like to use us or any non friend country for what he can use us for but not be looked down upon when he directly supports our enemies. Yes there is a time when you identify countries not as friends or neutral, when they try to kill you or your citizens or your friends. As a Christian I realize that no other human is my enemy and this may even include countries and definitely it includes other populations, however in dealing with countries that have set you or your friends as their enemies you can’t just look the other way, you should act prudently.
11 Responses to “Talking to dictators”
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I don’t understand how talking can ever be a bad thing. I know that talks can go either way, but I would think that at least attempting to communicate is a better way to go than not.
Or we can use them for oil.
Talking to dictators lends legitimacy to them and even if it didn’t, talking to snake oil salesman usually leads one to buying snake oil.
Larry, pardon my french but that’s a load of bullshit. We meet with lots of dictators. Mushareff, Pinochet, Suharto, Saddam back when he was our puppet dictator… the list goes on. Like it or not, if you run a country, you have some legitimacy and if some countries are treated like children, they may go ahead and act like children and throw a tantrum. And when countries throw tantrums, people die. There’s no harm in trying to work out our differences like grown ups. I know grown up diplomacy is something that’s been in short supply these last 8 years.
Jason,
While there is some truth to what you say that dictators do have some legitimacy already, we don’t need to make them look like regular nice going leaders who do nothing wrong. Not having rgaular contact with some countries is not treating them like children. If a dictator wants to kill people it’s not the right response to coddle them so they dont. Since they are dictators you can’t really appease them and no matter what you do they are going to be killing people anyway.
Larry, once again, shutting out the leaders of a country is childish behavior. Adults can talk to somebody without appeasing or acting like they are “nice going.” And it doesn’t have to even be the most pleasant conversation. But talk is better than killing any day. And like I said, we talk to dictators all the time already.
Talking rarely prevents dcitators from killing.
But at least it’s trying, while not talking is doing nothing. Talking is the cornerstone of diplomacy. Giving up completely on diplomacy without even starting is a failure right out of the gate.
LOL @ Jason
“Giving up completely on diplomacy without even starting is a failure right out of the gate.”
Spoken like the president of the Neville Chamberlain fan club.
http://poorrepublican.today.com
At least we tried with Hitler right?! And don’t forget we talked to Saddam Hussein! Though we all see what a success that was. If only we had Bin Laden’s phone number…