Yes, we can.

[Kevy Baby]

Hey you guys: you are confusing the rhetoric with unnecessary and misleading facts: stop it at once!

[Strangler Lewis]

I think the issues are a little different than talking vs. not talking. At least where the Middle East is concerned, I think we know what the issues are. The larger question is whether there is a willingness to consider actually doing anything differently (not that we necessarily should).

[Alex]

And many of those can be questioned for being when there weren't actual overt conflicts in progress.

But in March 1940, after the invasion of Poland and Britain's declaration of war on Germany, Undersecretary of State Sumner Wells was sent by FDR and met with Mussolini in Rome and then Adolf Hitler in Berlin in an attempt to negotiate a halt to any expansion of the conflict.



You can see these meetings dramatized in the mini-series version of Herman Wouk's Winds of War. Pug Henry wasn't really there but the meetings really happened.

[JWBear]

Yeah Sleepyjeff, lets not talk to anyone we don't see eye-to-eye with; just go to war with them without provocation. Lets just show the World who the biggest, meanest, most macho country is. Diplomacy is for wimps and pansies!

[sleepyjeff]

Originally Posted by JWBear

Yeah Sleepyjeff, lets not talk to anyone we don't see eye-to-eye with; just go to war with them without provocation. Lets just show the World who the biggest, meanest, most macho country is. Diplomacy is for wimps and pansies!

Not what I am saying at all. It's just that if you state that you intend to conduct talks with any and all enemies you may find your list of enemies to grow rather than shrink.

Want something from the US.....go rogue and the US will "talk"(read, give you something).

[Moonliner]

Originally Posted by sleepyjeff

Not what I am saying at all. It's just that if you state that you intend to conduct talks with any and all enemies you may find your list of enemies to grow rather than shrink.

Want something from the US.....go rogue and the US will "talk"(read, give you something).

But can't talk mean We'll put a boot in your ass as easily as you imply it means give you something

[sleepyjeff]

Originally Posted by Moonliner

But can't talk mean We'll put a boot in your ass as easily as you imply it means give you something

I suppose, but there really is no need to deliver that kind of message in person..."talk" usually means "negotiate" which usually means both sides give in on something. If a bully says "meet me after school and we'll "talk" " he's probably not going to be giving anything up other than the behavior he is doing just to make you "talk" in the first place....and at that he will only give it up until he wants something else.

[Motorboat Cruiser]

Originally Posted by sleepyjeff

If a bully says "meet me after school and we'll "talk" " he's probably not going to be giving anything up other than the behavior he is doing just to make you "talk" in the first place....and at that he will only give it up until he wants something else.

When I think of a bully, I think of someone who has a noticeable physical advantage and uses that advantage to coerce through intimidation and force. But none of the groups that Obama would talk to even remotely resembles that definition. We would be negotiating from a position of power - and that's a little different from the scenario you describe. In fact, from an outside perspective, we could often be viewed as the bully, or at least as having the potential to be. The other side, not so much.

[Not Afraid]

Obama is not a saint, nor is he very experienced politically. I'm sure he's going to make lots of mistakes and get some hige reality checks once he becomes President. However, I'm not sure that the mistakes he will make will be on the same dramatic level of fu<ked up that our current President has achieved.

[innerSpaceman]

Where did Obama say he'd meet personally with the heads of adversarial governments???